It's Table Scrap Challenge Time

It was one of those weeks you just want to drown in a glass of wine. So I did. Let's move on. 

Decluttering: following Joy's lead in this endeavor, from The Joyful Quilter.

I'm starting with this because it is the thread that unraveled everything else. Here we go. 

Yellow is the colour of March. So, 

Got the background and the yellow. Now I needed black fabric. Got that. Good! Went to the fabric store to get some Steam-a-Seam and a bit more (not needed) fabric. (See previous post) ANYwho! Now I need some glitters. 

Where are my glitters? 

Maybe in this drawer. Found some scraps of "fabric" that I kept in case the Artisanat group are asked to make more sensory blankets for people with Alzheimer. Out it went. The fake fur and the bag of lace will go to my friend Pink if she cares to have that. If not, thrift store will be the winner. 

Back to glitters. 

Glitters? 

In this container? 

I removed the shoe laces and the rest, which were to make things for Christmas Craft Shows, will be donated. 

Still looking for glitters, remember? 

Oh yes! Glitters. 

Glitters? 

In this container? 

I don't remember why or when I got these threads on the left so, they are now donated. On the right there's a 1 shoe lace. What? Trash, please. 

Back when I started to quilt, I used templates. I had a little walk down memory lane with these old templates. I lingered around each piece of memory, then out they went. 

Good grief, I know I have glitters somewhere. 

Glitters? 

Please!! 

At the back of a drawer, found some rubbish and a needle case with brand new needles. I'm keeping that! The rest was donated or trashed. So I don't count how many items get out of the house, I'm just generally decluttering and I love it. 

Still no glitter. 

I'm fed up of this! Jumped in the car, drove to the dollar store and got some more glitters. Do you want to bet that I will store these new glitters at the same place the others are? Surprise me, please! I need the glitters to finish my Table Scrap Challenge project. 

So, here is my Table Scrap Challenge hosted by none other than Joy at The Joyful Quilter. 

I usually don't mention what I keep and what I don't when I receive gifted bags of scrap. I don't see it as decluttering since it wasn't mine to begin with but the big bags of poly-some-kind-of-batting are going. Not working with that EVER again. I wanted to try it since it was right there but lesson learned. 

It is very fluffy to the point that my machine couldn't sew straight. 

This colourful musical note fabric is my backing and you can see how terrible the stitching is. 

I removed all the stitches and did the quilting my hand. Bad idea. I should have remove the poly-crap-batting too while all the stitches were out but I didn't. So, I hand stitched around the pattern glued to the background with the Steam-A-Seam bond. Because the batting is SO fluffy, my stitching close to the edge made the pattern pop-up, like it unglued. I ironed this thing down I don't know how many times. Maybe I got the wrong Steam-A-Seam. I don't know. It was just a pain. 

The same when I sewed the binding on. The corners were all a mess because the sewing machine kept getting stuck on the thickness of it all. I had to redo them by hand. ANYwho! Let's move on. 

I finally got to the glitter part. WhooWhoo! I was so looking forward to this. 

It looks so good in person because the glitters are like little diamonds. LOVE it! Very disappointing photos. 

Then I wrote the company's name and the SONG TITLE, which is the theme of this month's challenge. 

TA-DAH! 

Elvis, my love. I wrote Love Me Tender but any true Elvis' fan would know that he is singing Suspicious Mind when he take this pose. The glitters are the flash from the fan's camera taking pictures. I didn't write his name. Do I have to? I know who he is. 

I would have like to quilt it more, like sew some black lines following the curve of the record and add some line-stars around some of the "flashes" but the batting stopped me. Like I said: Never again. 

I will sew with yellow again this weekend and then take the end of the month pictures. We'll see next week how much yellow was used during March. 

You stay good, my friends. We had fresh snow last night (as you can see in the picture above taken on my deck) but I don't care as I know it will melt pretty quickly and my car still has its winter boots on, so I'm good. 

Thank you, thank you very much. 

Have a great week. ;^) 

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

The Pot of Gold

Another week gone by with, unfortunately, not much sewing done. So I tried to catch up a little bit this morning by finishing a block or two. 

Another golden crumb block and one more block (don't know the name of it) for the April Fool quilt. 

On the right are three more Bonus Point blocks. On the left, I blame Cathy for that one, lol. She calls it 18 Patch and I love it! This is my tester block or the reminder block. You know the type of block you do just one but somehow it becomes a quilt before other projects started long before that one? She has her block more organized then mine is but I like it this way too. Go check how she did hers. It's a scrappy beauty. 

You might wonder where all the scraps, from the pictures at the beginning of the month, end up. Here, you can see that about half of the yellow scrap bag has been selected for crumb blocks construction or for cutting into specific sizes. The containers holding the different sizes are never pictures but they are growing so fast. 

Decluttering: following Joy's lead in this endeavor. 

I purged three pair of pants and two pair of shoes. I love these shoes but the heel broke. I took a picture so I can remember them. They say I'm too old to wear such shoes. They say I shouldn't wear shoes like that with my back. My reply has always been the same: walk away with my nose in the air, on my 6" heel shoes, swaying my butt at them. (I'm no Jessica Rabbit and I'm no Spring chicken either but don't tell me that I can't do something while I'm doing it.) 

Loved this pair of shoes too to the point that they almost have a hole in the sole. The inside isn't leather and it is now coming apart. And part I will have to do with them too. 

The jeans was never worn. I bought it on line and the lace is so badly sewed and they used black thread on white lace!  Of course, that's not what they showed in the picture on the net. I kept them with the intention of resewing the lace on but you know what? (Yep that word) that. I don't have time for shituation like this anymore. 

A box of primary school homework was hiding in my son's room. Twenty years later, it's time for it to go. The binder on the left was made of a stiff plastic and it fell in pieces as I handle it. A sure sign that it needs to be trashed. 

Lonely socks: how long should one hold on to a lonely sock? 

I have a basket for lonely socks and while doing the laundry this week, I decided that some were too old to be reunited with anything. Six lonely socks went out! 

Not counting how many items are leaving my home, just getting rid of them. 

Now, my biggest problem with decluttering is bringing the things still worth a second life to the thrift store. I can't help myself but walk into the store. . . and come out with more stuff. Lol. 

I got these! Two sets of pillow cases. A big $8 total. Of course, me being me, I will undo these and use them in a quilt, haha. The dots were store bought, the green ones are homemade. Beautiful owl fabric! 

Then I had to go to the fabric store to buy some Steam a Seam or whatever you call this sticky interfacing. There was a sale. When it's there a sale? So I came out, once again with new fabric. At $5 a meter, do you blame me? 

The television set just made me laugh and I got all that was left on the bolt. The grey one is just for the kick of it. I have a mind to make myself a shirt with it. When you look at it real close ... 

you see the jumble of cars. 

As I am writing this my phone rang. Someone is bringing me 4 boxes of fabric from her aunt's sewing room. My question is: where will I put all that? Then she showed up with these. 

Stay tuned. 

Don't let the ugly in others kill the beauty in you. 

Have a wonderful week, everyone! 

;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Looking For Yellow

My back is somewhat better (thank you for all your good wishes), so I was able to sew a little this week. But first ....


What's in the bag? Last week, Carole brought me two more scrap bags. I wanted to see if there was some yellow in there. Want to see? 

I pulled out many bags from the first bag. The second one is the "A" bag. The H&M bag is full of small scraps. 

This is the loot from the purple bag. Lots of pink on the right. It will surely topped my pink scrap basket. The batting in the middle is not the kind I'm use to. It feels like it's for stuffing pillows or something. 

Just a little bit of yellow was found. I flipped the pink bag so you can see the other side. You're welcome. 

This piece is sewn. They used to do this when the manufacturers got at the end of the huge roll. They sewn the edges flat together and just kept rolling it in bolt. This was done a very long time ago so this fabric must be vintage. 

The "A" bag had lots of scraps, I mean lots of scraps but I also got a very good chunk of purple cotton and a yellow and grey fabric out of it. The pink one is textured and not made of cotton. It will go to the thrift store. 

It also had the leftover of a farmer theme quilt. It will probably go to the thrift store too. 

But my favourite are these pieces. Meow! 

Yellow, Yellow on the wall,

Tell me if I've accomplished anything at all.

I worked with the gold scraps and a little bit with yellow.  

Oh! My! Burning toasts! What happened to the geese? They are flying in all direction. They must have seen a squirrel or two coming out of those bags. 😄 Or the cat! 

They were reunited with their flock the next evening. 😊

Three blocks for the April Fool quilt were also made. Seven more to go. 

At the retreat, Mary did a little needle book for each one of us. Isn't it pretty. I'm using it daily and yet forgot to mention it here. So, here it is. Thanks again, Mary. 💗

We had some warm weather lately. We know it won't last but it is still nice to have a "Spring feeling" at this time of the year. 

That's all I have for now. Have a great week everyone. 

Enjoy! 

;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Not Very Productive

Does un-stitching count as productivity? I did more of that than sewing itself. My back is acting up this week and I did what I could instead of what I wanted. 😑

Helene gave me lots of flannelette (see this post) along with receiving blankets she had made by zigzagging the folded edges of the fabric …

… I decided to undo one. I want to use it for the backing of this top. 

It's not a perfect match but it is much better than what I could come up with from my stash. Bonus, it is big enough so no pieced-backing for this one. So, un-stitching happened. 

While I put my things from the retreat back in the sewing room, I found a mysterious (read forgot I had) box. Old string blocks were hiding in there. 

They were made with my mother's white sheets instead of paper. It makes the seams very thick. Not gonna do that again, so no blocks will be added. It's 24 X 37 inches. 

Oops! Let's try again. 

Ta-dah! It is now a top and one box is in the recycling bin. Whoop Whoop for decluttering. Thanks, Joy, for putting me back on track. 😊

March is called Yellow this year. These are my yellow bags. 

One bag is yellow with lively colours, one I call "gold", and the regular yellow is the biggest one. That's all. No scrap basket for this colour ... yet. Two FQs were found in a gifted bag. I added these to the "big" yellow scraps pile. 

Carole will come by today with 2 more bags of fabric. I'll try to hunt the yellow out of them. Will see how that goes. 

Like I said, not very productive but some forward motion was accomplished. So, YAY for that. 

Hope you are well and sew happily. 

Have a great week. Enjoy! 

;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew - Part 2

What did I do at the retreat? I slept! We, Lucie and I, got there on Friday around 5p.m. We said hello to everyone, had a quick bite, unpack our personal things in our respective bedrooms and set up our machines. Then came Saturday morning, it was sewing time. By 7p.m. on Saturday, I was a walking zombie. So, I went and laid down for a short nap. I woke up at 5a.m. Sunday morning. Still fully dressed. Slept for 10 hours straight. I needed this so much. But, sew, I did.


Blue RSC block named Flying Home. 

Do you like the white geese all going in the same direction? 

Or as in this picture where the blue blocks have the smallest geese touching? The girls had very different reasons for picking one or the other. Now I would like to know yours, please. 

Blue RSC blocks named April Fool.

One more blue block is required for this quilt. The orange one is the fabric I bought. I like how this layout forms a "wave" with the white "V". Like a zig zag or chevron. 

I brought Spinner along to sew it into a top. It didn't happen because one block still has the stains. I was sure these were all fixed. I took the time to layout the blocks and sew them two by two. Some un-sewing will happen this weekend. 

Remember this little block I did due to a SHIB? 

Well, it isn't alone anymore. Five more blocks needed for a little baby quilt. I didn't have enough of the medium blue polka-dot so the centre is a dark blue polka-dot. It happens. 

Blue crumb blocks were assembled 

some are not completed or trimmed. 

More crumb blocks were made with white fabric for the Stained Glass quilt. 

I have enough to finish 6 blocks with these not-trimmed triangles. 

Here's the new project I've been cutting, cutting and cutting for 2 weeks prior to the retreat. 

It's Plaid-ish. I need to pay attention to the values as some are not quite as "medium" as they need to be. It will be interesting to sew all these blocks together with the skinny strip matching up with the next one. Oh boy! 😳

I want to share this with you. I don't remember seeing this before. I got this strip of fabric from someone. It was sewn together to make it longer. I wanted to use it for the binding of the pink scrap basket. When I turned the strip over to cut it . . . 

I had a surprise. Haha! Same print, different company, I guess. Now, we know. If you go back up, you might notice that the white swirls on the right strip are thicker than the left one. You didn't notice it the first time did you? Me either. 

Scrap shelves. 😁

Now drum roll, please. How did I do with the blue scraps in February? 

The before pictures: 

The end of the month pictures: 

I am surprised by the result. I did refold the fabric in the basket on the right but I thought I had added much more to the darker basket. Of course, I used a lot too. The plastic bags were emptied into a bigger bag to bring to the retreat and I came back with some more but still . . . I'm happy! 

Raven is sticking to me like a flea to a dog. His back is much better. He can finally jump on the couch by himself. Depending on the day/weather, climbing the stairs can be tricky for him still. Too many steps I guess, as the couch, it's only one jump. Here, he's pretending to be asleep on my red chair in the sewing room. 

Angela called Yellow for March. I'll gather the bags up and show you what I have to work with next weekend. 

Have a great one. 

;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever