Printed Fabric Scrap Quilt

After beginning this text fabric art quilt in 2012,

You can read about it’s making here

and finishing it in 2018, 

I’ve had lots of ink jet printed text fabric pieces still lingering in a small storage drawer. 

It is time to make them more useful.

I scanned scrapbook papers and purchased printed works from the internet then printed them onto fabric with my ink jet printer.

Inspiration for this project came from a birthday gift magazine titled “UPPERCASE”. Paper crafted projects are often my inspiration for fabric projects. 

I cut the printed fabrics into squares.

I stitched a 1/4” sashing between the squares. 

This small quilt measures 39” X 51”

Just the right size for a car quilt.

The border and binding fabrics are purchased (not ink jet printed).

Yes, of course there are still scraps of these printed fabric pieces.

I decided a car quilt needs a car pillow.

I cut squares at 1-1/2” and tacked them to a foundation fabric and just quilted the piece with raw edges. 

I used a 14” pillow form. 

A piece of Tim Holtz fabric on the back. 

If you’re riding with me and you get tired, you’re all set for a comfy snooze.

Baby Twister Quilt

My stash held this lonely “Totally Tropical” charm squares pack. It has been quite some time since I’ve made a Twister Tool project.  I had in mind a baby quilt.  (Maybe someday my friend will be a Grandmother).

So I laid out the squares and stitched them together.

And added the borders.

Then cut and twisted the little squares.  The piece started out measuring 35” X 32”. After sewing the twisted pieces together, it then measured 25” X 22”.  (I cut my borders larger than was necessary, so those are approximate measurements). The layout is always a surprise…it never looks the same after the squares are all twisted together.  

The quilt top still needed to be larger, so I then made border twister strips and corner blocks. 

All the fabrics for this quilt came from my stash.  Including the batting. Yay, another stash buster!

This quilt finishes at 39” X 42”

Now we wait for a baby.

April AlphaTable Scraps Challenge

The Alpha Challenge letters for April are

Y and/or N

This year long challenge is hosted by The Joyful Quilter

My postcard for the letter N is everyone’s favorite Neighbor, Nosey Nellie. 

Next I took advantage of the letter Y to make a couple more Yule postcards to send out come Christmas time.

I used current favorite patterns for postcard making by Bloomin’ Minds. As usual, I have reduced the pattern designs to fit a 4” X 6” postcard size. 

Happy mail day!

March Alpha Table Scraps Challenge

The Alpha Table Scraps Challenge letters for March are 

B and/or U

This challenge is hosted by

The Joyful Quilter

Well, the letter B was an easy one for my postcards.

Bird

Bee

(the bee is from the pattern but the flower is from my imagination)

Bunny

U took a bit of thought to avoid an umbrella.

This is Uncle Floyd and he is an Uber driver.

As always, I’ve reduced the Bloomin’ Minds patterns to fit a postcard size (except for the bee, he happened to be the perfect size right off the pattern).

Dark Squares Scrap Quilt

My previous scrap quilt was made with all the fun bright scrap squares I cut. Now I had a lot of dark squares left. 

Dark Squares Quilt

I had one yard of this colorful print that could be sashing.

I began sewing the squares to sashing strips.

Then cut them apart to sew them all together. 

I wasn’t coming up with any good ideas to make this small pieced section into a larger throw quilt, so I decided it would be a lap quilt. It measures 52” X 43”

I let it sit on my design wall for weeks…..not liking it much. Funny how a thing like that grows on you and changes your mind.  

It was fun quilting it once I decided how I wanted to do that.  The length for the quilting was simple, just stitching from one end to the other.  

 To quilt across, I stitched across a square then turned the quilt at an angle to either stitch up or down to get to the next square to stitch across and then repeat going from one side of the quilt to the other. 

Except for the outside border, every fabric (including batting scraps stitched together) came from my stash.  How good it always feels to lighten the stash load!

February Alpha Table Scraps Challenge

The alpha challenge for February is the letter M and/or V. This challenge is hosted by 

The Joyful Quilter

Ive made only one postcard for the challenge this month.

M for Man

But don’t you know, his name is Victor.

The Bloomin’ Minds pattern company calls him Slim.



As usual, I have reduced the pattern to fit a postcard.

Valen”tiny” Pillow

My Guild challenged us to make a Valen”tiny” something just for ourselves.  Any size up to 24”. 

I had a 12” pillow form kicking around forever.  It’s quite old and quite solid.  Time to give it life. 

Anyone that knows me knows that I love collage.  Whether it be with paper or fabric.

Even though it has hearts on it, I tried to keep it on the generic everyday side more than strictly for Valentine’s Day.

It was a fun time putting this together.

After finishing the cover and stuffing the pillow form inside, I looked at it and immediately noticed that I didn’t include a selvedge!!!  How could I, of all people, forgotten to include a selvedge?!

Well, my mind has mostly been elsewhere, so “stuff” happens. 

Alpha Table Scraps Challenge

I’ve got a plan for 2023 Table Scraps Challenge hosted by 

The Joyful Quilter

This year is an alpha challenge with letters of the alphabet.

For January the letter choices are C, R and/or J. 

I’m taking a little break from non-stop quilting and plan to focus on sending out fun postcard mail.  I’ve hit the ground running for January.  I made cards relating to all three letters.

Scraps are all that’s needed for these little mail greetings and wishes. 

For letter C I have a cat and a chicken.  (Along with Christmas)

For letter R I have a reindeer, a rabbit and relatives.

    

For J I have Joy.



(I’m hoping that when December rolls around again, I’ll have all my Christmas postcards sewn and ready to write and mail.)

Now to give credit to the designers of these fun images…

Cat

Chicken

Reindeer

Rabbit

Relatives

Joy

I’ve reduced all the patterns to fit a 4” X 6” postcard.

I love the always fun and adorable Bloomin’ Minds pattern designs and I’ve sewn several things over the years from the Art To Heart, I Believe book.  

Scrappy Nine Patch Quilt

After working with the guild challenge scrap bags, I was ready to clean out my own scrap bin. My bin is not large but it has gotten quite stuffed.

I cut a lot of the scraps into 3.5” squares.  As I was laying out the pieces, it seemed that mostly brighter colors were what looked best.  I stitched together nine patch blocks with a black square in each center.

I have had this rainbow stripe fabric in my stash for years and years.  I think it was a good choice for the binding on this scrappy quilt.  And I am so thrilled to have finally used “most” of it.

It turns out to be a nice throw size quilt at 52” X 64”.

As I’ve never been much of a fan of scrap quilts, this was an adventure outside my comfort zone. But I’m rather pleased with the results.  



Now I have the darker fabric cut squares to deal with.  Yes, there is a plan developing.

How nice it is to have a not-so-stuffed scrap bin too!