Happy Easter

Have a blessed day!

Half-square triangles on the GO

Three things to be happy about:
(1) curiosity
(2) favorable reviews
(3) switching to iced coffee

Yesterday I wanted a break from the crumb piecing, I felt like cutting something!  When I was looking for a book I ran across Spectacular Scraps,  by Judy Hooworth and Margaret Rolfe.  I bought this book back in 2000 because even then I was attracted to scrap quilts.  It has a lot of pretty quilts made with half-square triangles, so it was just what I needed!  Years and years ago before I was as into quilting as I am today, I bought Barbara Johannah's Crystal Piecing.  This book has an interesting concept about half-square triangles; Barbara created 256 combinations that can be joined with each other to create unique block settings!  Sometimes I play around with two numbers  - say 25 and 201 - and see what the combinations look like in a quilt.  I got some pretty interesting settings, I recreated all 256 combinations in EQ some time ago to make them easy to play with.  I said all that to say:  some of the HST combinations in the Spectacular Scraps book remind me of the Crystal Piecing method.

Many of the projects in the book are two-color quilts and they're all so pretty I couldn't decide what colors to go with!  When I was talking with my sister I said to her "hey Shell, give me two colors!"  She chose yellow and pink, so I went digging through the scraps I ironed a couple weeks ago and found a few red and yellow pieces.  Now they're all a-tumble ... oh well.

I'm choosing all shades in the color families from burgundy to gold to reddish-purple, pale yellow - anything and everything goes!  Right now I'm just in the cutting stage, I'll make a decision about the setting later on.

Using my 3-1/2" die I cut  a few sets, looking good!

Here's a heads-up when layering... although they say you can layer up to six pieces, if you use a lot of small pieces be aware of the "bump" where they overlap.  You may end up trying to cut 8-10 layers at that point - ask me how I know!

That's it for now, have a great Saturday, sew forth and sew on...

scrap happy again

Three things to be happy about:
(1) silent wishes
(2) the art of reading faces
(3) varying an old recipe

Have you ever clicked on the BlogHer  links on blogs that have ads?  You can find some interesting blogs that you might not otherwise get a chance to see.  Or how about this one:  try exploring with the "Next Blog" button at the top of different blogs!  I did that once and went to a quilting blog, then from there to another quilting blog, then that one sent me to an art blog(??!) then something relating to symphony music - hmmm...  It's almost like Forrest Gump's box-a-chocklits, you never know what you're gonna geyet.  I give you no guarantees y'all!

I'm still having fun playing with all my scraps!  I have an abundance that I'm playing with... scraps from Rosa and Charlene and Deb and Pat - I'm just plain ole scrap happy!

I've been using two methods for piecing them together: I sew scraps to a strip of fabric until I get a pretty good chunk, then I cut them into squares - or I set them aside as large pieces.  The other method is piecing as described by Victoria Findlay Wolfe in her book 15 Minutes of Play  whereby you sew scraps onto a central piece in a log cabin-like arrangement. 

string-o-scraps

pieced two-by-two

Both methods work beautifully; the second method is useful if you're working with odd-shaped pieces.

For a change I thought I'd make a few square-in-a-square blocks, just to see where it took me...

I immediately thought "star!"  Here's my test block:

I made the square in a square center block 6-1/2", then cut the side pieces at 3-1/2" x 6-1/2" to get a 12-1/2" star.  I also used scrap yardage for the star points... I'm making those points larger next time!  They're really cute on that star, but the scrap yardage I cut them from was something like 3", cut diagonally across.

Finished star...

see how small those points look?  I think bigger will be better in this case!  I'll cut the point pieces at 4-1/2" and cut them diagonally... make it worthwhile to fool with. 

The center was made larger than the outside strips on purpose, you know me... Miss Do-Your-Own-Thing!  And here's a tip... notice in the diamond above how the two outside edges are the same pink fabric?  If you have a really large scrap and you don't want that particular fabric to be all in the same place, just split it and sew a smaller piece in the middle of it.  Make sense?

That's it for now, enjoy your Thursday - the last one in March!  Time flies whether you're having fun or not, sew forth and sew on...