Sunday, February 22, 2015

My New Obsession: Trash to Treasure Blocks

Earlier this month, I found out my block had been accepted into the May issue of Quiltmaker 100 Blocks.  I'm so excited!  This time I wanted to try to make something up to send in for the gallery, using my block.  So I made four of the blocks and turned them into a small quilt.. ..and wound up with lots of scraps in the floor under my machine. (along with the ones that were already there.) :)



 I hate to throw any of them away so I thought I'd try to make a block. 

The Trash to Treasure Block was born.

I cut a 6" square of white, and just started sewing the scrap pieces to the outer edges of it. If the pieces were too small, I sewed them together with other smaller pieces until I had a piece big enough to apply. When I had enough of a scrap edge, I trimmed it down to an 8-ish inch square (no matter the size, just make sure it's square). But if your trimmed block ends up being smaller than that, just make up for it in the border.  Just put a wide enough border on to trim it to 9.5" square in the end.  So all the blocks will end up about 9" finished. 

But before putting on the border, I sliced it into quarters, turned the outside corners to the inside and sewed it back together. To form a sort of wonky improv 8-ish inch cross. 

Apply the border, and trim to 9.5" .. It was so much fun I made two. :) I ran out of yellow dots so I used some yellow gingham. Even the borders will end up scrappy.




You can see that the second one wasn't exactly the same size. The cross section was smaller. But the border makes up for it.  I like that kind of irregular look since the crosses are improv-y. One of my goals this year is to make one of these blocks every time I clean enough scraps from the floor until I have a whole Trash to Treasure quilt. An entire quilt made from little pieces destined for the trash bin. 

I had fun using the leftover scraps from my small quilt (that may or may not return to me with a great big rejection notice-ha!) Most of the scraps were fabrics I had used in the blocks or border, and some from the binding. But some of the others had just been languishing in the floor for an embarrassing amount of time.  Woops. I am MESSY. :)



If you try a Trash to Treasure block, tag me, I'd love to see!



Happy Weekend! Have a great week!
xoxo

linking up: Let's Bee Social, WIP Wednesday, WOW-WIP on Wednesday, Whimsy Wednesday, whip it up wednesday, Needle&Thread Thursday

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Mason Jar Mug Rug

Way back in September of last year, (in some ways it seems like just yesterday and in some ways forever ago) I joined in a mug rug swap for the first time ever to benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund over at my friend Beth's. She runs it every year. (September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.) Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics was a sponsor for the swap in 2014 and donated different colors of teal swatches, and each participant received a swatch that had to be included in the mug rug.



It was such a busy month dealing with the cancer situation in our own family, that although I eventually blogged about the one I received, I realized that I never blogged about the mug rug that I made for it. I had been toying with the idea for a while of a decorated jar, and the 6" x 9" size of the mug rug seemed to fit perfect. So I worked on it, and here's how it turned out.




I kind of wish I'd used more contrasting fabrics for the jar and lid.  I used a selvage for the lid.  And then decided it needed some embellishing. So out came the felt buttons, and the moda tape (does anyone else save that from your precuts?)  




Small things are fun to practice 
FMQ-ing on, too. :) Easy to maneuver around and if you have to pick any of it out, it's a small area.



It was a fun, quick project that was scrap friendly. :)  If you'd like to make a Mason Jar Mug Rug, I've written up how I did it and you can view it here:

Mason Jar Mug Rug PDF

Happy Sewing!
xoxo

linking up:  TGIFF, show-off friday
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