Scraptastic Tuesday

My hopes and dreams for me in hosting Scraptastic Tuesday with the ever talented Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow is that I will use my scraps and existing fabric for my projects. I feel like I have a mountain of scraps and it is growing.

I also want to make more scrappy projects as I think that a big variety of prints makes quilts sparkle in a way that the more cohesive colour story of a single line of fabrics does. Also, I have become very fond of scrappy but neutral backgrounds too.

But in all of this I have become a bit overwhelmed, and add to that my seasonal - think dark all the time - startitis is starting to kick in. So today I have nothing new in the scrappy or scrap projects of any note to share. Here is where I am at:

Liberty sampler - the every talented Nicky is posting a sort of scraptastic QAL from time to time to make a sampler of her own design. Her designs are brilliant and so I am trying to catch up. But I hit a bump in the road when my sewing machine stopped sewing the Liberty tana lawn fabric nicely - its all bunching up with terrible tension. I am working on a solution, which may be as simple as a thinner needle. Any other ideas?



 I have at least 6 quilt tops ready or almost ready for quilting. They all need backs and I have been making pieced backs with larger bits of my favourite fabrics, like that one above. I am calling these scrappy projects as although the pieces are larger, they are fabrics that have been cut once and are not destined for any other specific use. So I am going to be making more scrappy backs this week.



I have been cutting strips as I work with, find and sort of tidy scraps and also larger pieces of fabric. The strips are for more blended scraps blocks. These blocks are more fun to make if you have a pile of strips all ready to go so I am on a mission to get that pile at the ready. While I am cutting strips, I am also sorting a courthouse steps quilt in my mind that will use some of the same fabrics. As cutting fabric is not my favourite thing, I am hoping to only have to pull this pile out once.

Sorting and organizing are becoming urgent - I spend more time trying to find the right scraps than sewing them. You have all given me so many ideas that I am just trying to find the right approach for my own odd style. One thing I do know is that organizing the folded fabrics, scraps or new pieces, by colour is a good idea for me, so I am working on that too.

There you have it, a sort of Scraptastic to do list. Wish me luck, and go and check out Nicky's futuristic scrappy project, it's fantastic.

Besides this, I was hand sewing a binding last night but it was not even a scrappy binding, so I will share more about it later this week.

We will have our next Scraptastic link on December 9, and I hope you will join us with a scrappy project or scrappy ideas or even your own list. In the meantime, feel free to post about your scraps and use the hashtag #scraptastictuesday and/or our button and we will check out your progress (and it does not have to be Tuesday even).

Best,

Leanne