Scrappy Trip Finish and Great Mail

I finished this one last week, a matter of hours before our guild meeting.

The blanket's a little wrinkly with a giant fold down the middle, but lemme tell ya - it was some friggin' cold outside.... It was downright polar.

Since I was using only scraps for the top, I made sure it would have at least a little continuity and arranged all my block strip so that they progressed from dark to light with a grey, black or navy fabric running down the centre diagonal. They were looking pretty ghastly individually but once I laid them out, they took a different look through the camera lens. I didn't know ahead of time if it would be pretty or horrid so I determined ahead of time, whatever the outcome, it was going to be a blanket for cuddling up at night in the gazebo this summer.  This might have been a mistake to make that decision too early as I got pretty careless with the quilting and binding as a result.... lol.

Apparently, whatever was going on with my hand was so strenuous, I was unable to stand up straight. 

I arranged them light corners to light corners, dark to dark, which gave me this rising/sinking effect.
To emphasize the light and dark effect, I quilted it with lines running through each dark diagonal all through the quilt and then concentric squares through the rest.  Since there's no batting inside, I wanted to be sure I had quilting through each and every square, though it doesn't really show up.   I decided against batting* (which made it much trickier to baste and quilt - slippy!) as I didn't want it to be too heavy for a summer blanket but I did want it to have some coziness to it, so it's backed in a Caravan flannel, which is the only thing I purchased for this quilt. It's bound entirely in leftover binding, which feels pretty good, too!

This flannel sucked me in.  I'm usually not a florals person but this one just makes me happy....

________

I was lucky enough to get a copy of Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe from Audrie at Blue is Bleu. You should read her, if you don't already. Definitely a kindred spirit.

The book is great, and full of people that already populate my RSS reader so it made it that much cooler.... Thanks, Audrie!  I owe you one. And by one, I mean a few. :-)

*Dana at Old Red Barn made some 'outside' quilts last year without batting and I loved that idea...  You should also read Dana's blog. Also a kindred spirit.

Wanted: A Clever Post Title

So if you think of one, let me know. :-)

The tree came down last weekend and my desk returned to its place in the corner, but along the other window this time, which has freed up some space.  I'm still in the process of getting organized but I'm getting there. Given that this new setup has led to long, uninterrupted stretches of sewing, I have taken full advantage.

My nephew's 2nd birthday was on the 5th and while I did give him a bunch of Hot Wheels, I hadn't finished the other half of his gift until this past Wednesday:  the bag to put them in.

See my oops? :-)

I found the paper-piecing patterns on Fandom In Stitches - totally free - and then I framed the results with a lovely little traffic print, lined it with the leftover solid from Seester's quilt and added two ribbons to act as drawstrings. It finished about 12x15".  He was thrilled. "Oh!  MAY-turr...!"  Happy boy, happy auntie.

The other advantages of gaining back the workspace is that I was able to cross off a goal by organizing my scraps.  I went from this...

...to this...

...and finally this:

Ooooh, that's one fingerprint-y desktop...

Neat and tidy. Well... they're contained, anyway.  I would like to organize further but right now, they're sorted by size. Crumbs and short strips in the orange bin, everything else sorted in large ziplocs, etc, in the white laundry hamper.

The sort also allowed me to do something I swore I didn't have time for...

I drank the kool-aid.

For the record, I don't do instagram.  I wasn't exposed to this virus through instagram.

Nope, it was y'all.

Within a two week period, it seemed that almost every feed in my RSS reader was throwing Scrappy Trips at me.  I'm not generally a joiner in the "everyone's doing it" sense (I still haven't seen Titanic, and don't intend to) but they were so pretty! And EVERYWHERE.  It was a bombardment; I was hiding in my "I don't have time" bunker but being shelled within an inch of my quilting sanity.  I came out waving my white flag. Of scraps.  That was my one rule for myself:  I had to use only scraps for these blocks.  What will happen with the back and binding? Don't know.  But for now, I'm pleased (and sickeningly shocked) that I made 36 blocks without cutting into yardage.  That's a sizeable dent in the old scrap heap, eh?

And then there's my first ever bee block for the Simply Solids Bee.  Never done a bee before but it was on my quilting bucket list, so...  Lethargic Lass asked for asterisk blocks - and they were much more fun than I thought they'd be; the fabrics she sent were different than what I usually use, too, so that was very enjoyable!  I threw it in the mail last week so she should have it soon.

Believe it or not, I actually got MORE sewing than that done last week and I have the iron-steam burns to prove it. But why spend all my projects on one post...?  :-)

Have a stellar week!