Swimming in a Deep Blue Sea of Scraps

Happy Independence Day Weekend to those of you in the USA! If you live elsewhere, I hope you have a wonderful weekend too! This was a whirlwind week for us. Sometimes I wish we were still in lockdown mode simply to get a respite from running around and having so many Things To Do. I won’t bore you with all the details. Just some, LOL.

(1) We tended grandkids on Tuesday afternoon/evening for a few hours and fed them dinner. I even bought pizza and drinks (as recommended by daughter Stacy), which they barely touched. Or else ignored. That is, until Stacy got back to our house from her meeting and sat down to eat. Then they all wanted her attention and her food (that they wouldn’t eat before). Kids.

(2) I’m back attending WW (Weight Watchers) meetings again, and it was so good to see old friends (not that they’re old, LOL, but you know what I mean). Shout-out to Diane and Annette!  

I was summoned to the home of a Quilts for Kids (QFK) board member to come get some scraps. I told her jokingly that she (Virginia) and the chapter President (Sandy) were keeping me hopping with all the scraps they give me periodically. Well, it turns out that neither one knew the other was pushing scraps on me, LOL. Whew! Now I know that I can be a little choosy (or even say no, I’m not ready) about what they pawn off on me and not be guilt-ridden that I can’t always keep up! So I only picked up things that would enhance my stash or fill out themed scrap baggies that I’d already pulled together. You’ll see some of those later in the post.

So, here are some of the chunks and squares I did get.

There was some green stash enhancement as well, because I can never have enough green! The pieces on the right half are fat quarters. The pieces on the left are smaller than a FQ.

Virginia also stuffed a grocery bag of potential I Spy chunks. I’ll be cutting them down into 3.5” x 5.5” bricks for her. So, all in all, It was pretty reasonable.

This week I also finished cutting all my Zipper block pieces and finished the 8 kits for the fall scrap workshop. That was my July goal, and it’s already done! 

Last Wednesday when Cousin Kim was over, I was quilting the Zipper quilt I showed in my mid-week post (visit here to see my last two June finishes). I was zipping along (pun intended) when my needle accidentally (because who would do it on purpose?) hit a safety pin. CLUNK! But when we looked for the damage, this is what we saw…
 

See that hole in the head of the safety pin? Wow! The needle went straight through - and did NOT break! You can see the needle there, ready to continue stitching. But don’t worry, I may be dumb, but I’m not *that* dumb! I changed the needle and threw away the safety pin. Luckily the mishap didn’t mess with the tension or cause any other issues. 

So, why am I so chatty, and why haven’t I shown any blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s Scrappy Saturday? Um, maybe it’s because I haven’t sewn any yet! Duh. I have a mountain deep blue sea of deep blue scraps (July’s color) and all I’ve done so far is manage to sort them. 

The three not-so-neat piles of strips on the left are my strings. They are all 2” wide or less. The pile of strips on the right are 2.5” wide or wider, and many are WOF (width of fabric), so may find a home in one of the blue QFK quilts this month. 

Here are most of the rest of the scraps, ranging from chunks and orphan blocks to squares, pieces and crumbs. I’ll start with the largest of these pieces and cut out a mama cat block and five kitten blocks today. 

Something I haven’t done much (if any) of in the past is show these scraps packs I referred to above. This is how I start out with the color-of-the-month quilts I try to make. You’ll see that these packs (or kits, or whatever you want to call them) aren’t necessarily made using the month’s color exclusively. Or even predominantly. Sometimes I have to get creative in the kits I select to work on just to round out the lineup for the month!

This grouping is dark blue/navy, with orange, purple and gray. There will likely be a lot of additions and subtractions from this group, so for now it’s just a starting point.

Next we have these rectangles (varying sizes, but close).  This may become a brick-style top. Oh, those blues are both a better match to the floral print pieces on top than the camera shows.

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Then there is this navy and aqua fabric group with bits of orange. There be lots of odd sized pieces here!

And one I’m really looking forward to working on is this space-themed group. There is enough here to do a front and back. I loooove that plaid!!

Last but not last (because it’s actually first) is this jumble of fabric strips up on the design board. That center plaid section will not stay like that; it’s just a sort of placeholder at this point. I plan to cut it into squares to lengthen the half strips on either side. And the busy-ness of the myriad prints will be separated and calmed by more blue or red or white WOF strips. 

This is the fabric in a couple of the wider strips. There is enough use as the backing. I can’t remember if this one came from my friend Angie (forgive me), or if this was a piece I picked up at an estate sale a couple years ago. Regardless, it’ll be the first finish of July.

We are having a champagne brunch with a couple of our neighborhood families on Sunday. Then Cousin Kim will be over for the afternoon to sew. Fireworks have been banned here finally (insert happy dance); the cats won’t freak out and with a little luck, nothing will burn!

Life is good.