Saturday, April 22, 2017

Workin’ on a Scrap Gang....

Do you remember the sixties song “Workin’ on a Chain Gang” by Sam Cooke?? He was so awesome! Listen here or just remember..... you’re welcome for the ear worm.  Anyway, that’s been my theme song while sewing this week. The more we sew - and I sew a lot - the more scraps we seem to accumulate. I also spent lots of time this week (but not nearly enough) outside pulling weeds, working on the Weed Gang. But it’s all good. That is, the sewing is good. The weeds, well, I’m hoping I can bribe some high schooler to come pull weeds for $$$ this summer.

So what did I get done this week on my Scrap Gang Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects? A lot, actually. After finishing Scrap X+plosion last week, I continued working on my quarter log cabins until I was nearly out of multi-colored scraps.


I made 16 blocks. There are no current plans for them; they’ll just reside in the Parts Department until a use comes along. The blocks measure 6.5” each and all have a purple starting square. I have no idea why I picked purple. Anyway, the few scraps that remain were either thrown into the stuffing bag (if they were small) or returned to the scrap basket, which is now an echo chamber of near-nothingness.

And I had so much stuffing in my stuffing bag, (scraps of fabric and batting that would normally go into the trashcan) that I decided to make a couple doggie beds from the pattern by Vickie Welsh. It used all the stuffing that I’ve saved for the last couple months. The fabric is some that I still had in my home dec fabric tub from which I used to make purses and aprons. They rather fit the multi-colored theme this month, don’t they? I guarantee their stuffing contents certainly do! These doggie beds will be added to the cat and small dog quilts I make every month for the Best Friends animal shelter.


And then I made a quick baby quilt from the fabrics left over from a previous baby quilt made a couple years ago. Nothing particularly exciting, but it was fun to get the bits together into some kind of cohesive design.


Another fun part for me was using the quilt to practice quilting free motion flowers. I also did random loops to imitate the bee flight paths shown in the yellow bee fabric.  I can now safely add flowers to my quilting “repertoire”, such as it is.


But there was still more week left....... so I put on my thinking cap and realized I still had a bag of multi-colored scraps left over from my last vintage sheet quilt, Rainbow Rails.  I sorted them out and there were enough multi-colored pastel florals and stripes to make another baby quilt.  So, I cut them into 6” squares and used 42 to make a quilt top.


The picture doesn’t do justice to the soft colors. I was also able to cut out 42 squares of blue-purple-green vintage sheet fabrics for my cousin Kim, who needs to do a quick boy baby quilt.. And, I believe there are enough pink and orange and yellow scraps to get one or possibly even two more baby quilts cut. I`ll deal with those when we get to either one of those colors in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Bruce and I went to JoAnn Fabrics this week. He is finally driving again, and it is so nice! I got some sewing machine needles with a 50% off coupon, some American Girl doll clothes patterns (on sale for $1.99 each) to make some more cute doll clothes for my DGD Abbie, and I also bought a cheap poly batt for the donation baby quilt. It was, like $5, so it convinced me that I shouldn’t cut into my good, wide roll of batting.

And then I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to get back to my Flower Market quilt and making the borders. I got all the flying geese made and trimmed and there are just enough to make the border around the quilt -  IF I use cornerstones. I checked through my scraps and there were 4 black floral print squares already cut and waiting. Meant to be!


So, I hope to have two quilt finishes this coming week, and then I can start on the cat quilts for the shelter. I’d like to make about eleventy thousand of them; enough to justify another trip to the shelter to unload them and the two doggie beds. Yep, this is life in the fast lane, I tell ya.......

Have a great week!
Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Cathy maroon

17 comments:

  1. You've done more in a week than I did in the whole month, Cathy! I love your baby quilts: a great idea. The log cabin blocks are another great idea too.

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  2. two finishes! Awesome! Love the term Parts Dept

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  3. I, too, love Parts Department. My term has always been Stockpile. :)

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  4. Congrats! on creating "an echo chamber of near-nothingness" in your MULTICOLORED scrap bin. I'm in awe of your productivity for the week!!

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  5. Cathy, you've been busy! It's fun to see it all. We went to Boulder the other day and I told Mike I needed to stop at the Janome sewing machine store to get my purple-tipped needles, and he said he thought I had just bought some not too long ago. Well, I'll be darned if I can find them. All I can find is the empty needle container that I just took the last one out of to put in my machine! So now I still need needles and I'm not going to Boulder again for awhile. :(. Maybe I should get some from Joann's!

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  6. I haven't heard the technical word "eleventy thousand" since my kids were little. Thanks for the fun reminder.
    Great productivity. You are a whirling dervish or a Tasmanian Devil. I made one of my paper pieced flying geese, and that is all I did this week. I need lessons in how to get tuit.
    Hugs

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  7. Thank you for the information on the stuffing beds. I have a pillowcase full of "stuffings". I need to dig and find the heavier fabric and make a few of them for our local pet shelter.

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  8. Way to use up those scraps!! I've been working on a couple of Challenge quilts this month, and haven't done much with my scraps. Must get busy. Thanks for the inspiration!!

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  9. Wow you have been busy! Love your log cabin blocks! The finished baby quilt and the quilt top look great!!

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  10. Life in the fast lane and working on a chain gang...what next I wonder? Glad to hear that Bruce is doing well!

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  11. My oh my! What a busy week! I think you literally chained yourself to the sewing machine.

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  12. Love your RSC a lot--all of your projects are so neat...hugs, Julierose

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  13. Wow - such a busy week of stitching! The latest quilt from up-cycled sheets looks soft and huggable!

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  14. Wow you really got a lot done this week. Love the 1/4 log cabin blocks.

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  15. It's always good to actually have parts in the Parts Dept. and I think I need a doggie bed. Sure looks comfy.

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  16. Oh gosh, I'm always telling you how I think you are amazing so I won't say it again. After I became able to move more freely, OHGosh I don't know WHY, but I decided that I needed to clean out cabinets...every single one in my kitchen. AND we have an 8 foot wide closet in the bathroom with mirror sliding doors full of shelves...yup, cleaned that one out too. And got some spring clothes switched out with winter. Took boxes of stuff to the Good Will. Going out to weed today. Won't stitch on the machines until I clean that room, but am still hand quilting the cupcake quilt. Send me your energy please.
    xx, Carol

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  17. "Parts Department"...I love that! :)

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