No matter how I try, my squares are simple. The shapes don’t overlap in a colourful display with many stitches holding each layer together. I look at others creating such beautiful pieces, admire the stitches and interplay of fabrics and textures. Yet, I can’t seem to create the same designs.
Looking back at the tenth month:
I do create simple, spare designs. Just a few pieces of fabric stitched together with a few basic stitches. Harmonious, elegant, quiet, and clean. And, always colourful and of course, restful while working on their construction.
My mom bought me a ziplock bag full of pre-cut squares of cotton from a local thrift shop for $4.00. The bag was full to bursting.
Thrift store scraps
I pulled the squares out, counted the 1 1/2 inch squares and approximated the rest:
266 – 1 1/2 inch squares
220 – 2 1/2 inch squares
260 – 3 inch squares
200 – 4 inch squares
100 – 5 inch squares
There is quite a variety of scraps: Kaffe Fassett, children’s prints, modern, calico prints, florals. They are all patterned, there are no solids.
Thrift store scraps
I love using scraps. Quilts made from scraps have a wonderful sense of colour. They also remind me of how quilts were usually made by our ancestors. Small pieces of clothing that were not too worn out, were repurposed into a quilt that would be used to keep the family warm.
For the moment, I will add these to my stash of scraps and ponder on what to do with them. How often do you use scraps in your quilts?
These half square triangles were pieced together in a workshop I took last year. The instructor created beautiful scrap style quilts and taught us her quilting philosophy. She immediately cuts leftover fabric from her current project into various sizes of squares and strips. Similar shapes and sizes are stored together. When she wants to make another quilt, she just goes to the container with the size of scraps she needs and can start piecing immediately.
Selection of cotton backings
After that workshop, I went home and spent an entire afternoon cutting my scraps and organizing them.
Zig zag placemat
This placemat was straight line quilted with a walking foot.
Teal green placemat
Using the same cotton with circles, makes the block disappear. I practiced free motion quilting on this mat.
Pink placemat
I like how the the quilting is the focus in this pink placemat.
Tulips placemat
This last one was an attempt to make a placemat that wasn’t too girly! I free motion quilted columns of leaves.
Four placemats
I didn’t use the purple half square triangles because they were too long and for the size of placemat I wanted to make. So I will leave them for another project.
Meals on Wheels will give these placemats to their clients with their Holiday meal.
QUILTsocial is a new Canadian eZine for all of us obsessed with quilting. It’s a blog, a weekly bulletin, a monthly newsletter, and a quarterly e-magazine, from the publishers of Needle Pulling Thread.
QUILTsocial emagazine
The editor, Carla, asks: When does an obsession become therapy? If quilting is one of the releases we have from the stresses of life, it’s therapeutic isn’t it? Doing something creative takes us away from our ourselves and let’s us concentrate our energies into something we enjoy and gives us pleasure.
QUILTsocialmagazine is for all levels of quilters, with patterns, tutorials, and showcasing new techniques. Regular contributors as well as guest bloggers will share their knowledge and love of quilting.
I have already used the tutorial by Elaine Theriault: Crazy about zippered pouches to create a couple of bags for the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild pouch swap. It’s a three-way across Canada swap with the Victoria and Maritime Modern Quilt Guilds. I will also be using Jennifer Houlden’s On-the-Go place-mat tutorial to create some placemats for the Yorkshire Rose Quilters’ Guild Christmas outreach project for Meals on Wheels.
