I had some time to sew yesterday, and I was able to make a scrappy addition to my Pip group assignment for October. This is an international (Canada, USA, Scotland, England, France and Australia) group of 6 quilters to make a round robin mini quilt. Every two months one gets a new project to add onto, a block, a border, some stitching, as you like. As the project is to remain small, I am finding that making an addition I like is a great challenge.
The photo above (left blocks) shows my first two attempts at adding rolling hills to this set of beautiful blocks. The top half of the right part is
Lynz's starter and the bottom half is
Dee's addition. While both of my first attempts are interesting, I ultimately decided that neither was what I had actually envisioned.
So I pulled out my scraps of green solids again. Although I fold these pieces each time I am finished with them and put them on my solids fabric shelf, they are very much scraps I think. No piece is larger than a fat quarter and it is rare event to find a full fat quarter of any colour. But I find the solid scraps are much more inviting to me to work with when they are folded away on the shelf than in a scrap bin of some sort.
In my mind, I wanted the hills to roll in a method similar to the
stunning work of
Sherri Lynn Wood. So I decided it was time to actually pull her book from my shelf and read about her score #9 from her fantastic book
The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. In the book, Sherri Lynn teaches improv approaches, not how to make a exact copy of any particular quilt, and that is just what I needed for this project. Then I set about cutting and trimming off some strips.
As I worked into the dark evening, the quality of my pictures deteriorated. But I kept my book at hand for inspiration and built a curved chunk.
Remembering that I was making a block of about 6" square, and that I have loads of green scraps should this turn out to be a mistake, I held my breath and cut my curved chunk into two pieces.
I played around with arrangements. Then I again cut the pieces to match the curves so that I could piece them together.
My method of joining the curves differs from Sherri's book. I used my no pin method (
the blog post and video is here) as it works well for even seriously pieced curves and is so much faster and easier for me.
At one point I took one of the first two attempts at making the rolling hills and cut a chunk off of it for the bottom bit.
At one point on Flickr,
Dee had suggested adding some "sky" to the hills. I decided to take up her suggestion and found a blue that exactly matched the blue in
Lynz's starting piece so as to tie the two together. I also stay stitched the edges about 1/8" from the edge so that those bias cut edges do not stretch too much as the block makes it way around the world, next to
Susan in Australia. Here is the finished piece, ready to mail before I change my mind again.
Now, its time for you to link up and share your scrappy projects to inspire us all.
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Please join
Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I by linking up a blog post or flickr or instagram photo sharing a scrappy project, in progress or finished, or your thoughts on dealing with your scrap mountain:
- You don't have to have joined us before, everyone is welcome.
- One link per person, and it will be your entry into the random draw for the prizes. It is the same link up here and at Nicky's blog - Mrs. Sew and Sow - so you only need to link up on one of our blogs.
- Please visit at least a few of the links, they are very inspiring, and leave comments too as everyone loves to connect.
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Best,
Leanne
