Wednesday 5 March 2014

Happy Scrapping!!

I had a lovely time today playing with the 2.5" squares that are a large component in the "Pretties" quilt I am making through my quilt group at Otane Arts Corner.  The challenge was to use only fabric from your stash, except for the background.  The double size uses 1005 squares at 2.5" plus about 200 at 4.5" in background.  I thought I would be clever and rummaged around in my sewing room to find all the leftover swaps from Y2K days.  Remember when we were all making quilts from 2000 different pieces gathered from all over the world?  Maybe you werent quite as daft as I was!!!!  Have to say though that the quilt was beautiful and was one of my husband's favourites.  It has been "borrowed" by son Daryll and his partner Dayn.

Back to the leftovers....right towards the end of the swaps, one of the ladies doing the quilt asked me to swap with a quilter from Belgium.  I agreed, but unbeknown to Mary and I, we were put on a list that was ciruclating around Belgium.  Endless little packets kept arriving in the mail pleading for us to swap as fabric was so hard to find in their country.  Boy, I sure got sick of cutting out squares!  Needless to say I did not need all these extras squares, so when the option came up to make this new quilt, I grabbed it as a way of using up some "stash stuff."  After gaily sewing up many squares into 2-patches and then 4-patches, I thought maybe I should do some measuring.  Things were not looking too square here.Consequently I have had a rude reminder of always measure someone elses squares....had to discard heaps that were too small and lots that were polyester!  We are talking 14 years ago here and some of the fabrics were just plain ugly, so out they went too.  Suffice to say there is no shortage of squares to replace them.

Never mind, I am loving the piecing of this quilt and looking forward to getting these first units finished.

Here is my wee piles at the end of the day....


I am trying to be brave and not match anything, but I cannot resist now and again, especially when looking for two segments to sew together.


I decided to include the signature squares in these blocks...after all they are a lovely reminder of the spirit of quilting around the world.

Tomorrow I shall have to get back to work.  Two posts in one day....well goodness me!

Take care,

Clare



1 comment:

  1. Gosh you are the first person other than me in NZ I have heard of doing the Y2k swap. It sure was pre rotary cutter days. I cut the ones I sent by rotary cutter but got many back that we're scissor cut. Peggy has been working away at using all the squares up. She joined two swaps! One for 2.5" and one for 3". I have made one quilt. The squares seem to go on and on.

    ReplyDelete