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!

Second Scrap Bag Quilt

I enjoyed making the first scrap bag quilt, so at guild the next month I brought home a second bag of scraps to have another go at scrappy piecing. 

Although I’m not as thrilled with this one, I still enjoyed making it as a charity quilt.  This quilt turned out larger than the first one measuring 51” X 70”

I did purchase the outside border fabric and the backing fabric. Two great sale finds.

I have never made quilts from scraps before. But I always have a stuffed bin of scraps. These two scrappy quilts got my fingers itching to see what I could do with my own bin of scraps…stay tuned to see how that goes!

Postcard Craze

I’ve been in a fabric postcard making mood.

A couple of friends and I went to the June Tailor warehouse sale recently, so I made them each a postcard with bits of some of the fabrics I bought there.  Unexpected surprise mail is the best mail…in my opinion.

A recent name draw for Postcrossing…she likes goth, tattoos, Edgar Allen Poe and skulls.

What started this current postcard craze was an idea for Christmas postcards. 

I don’t normally make so many alike.  I put them together assembly line style.  The trees were die cut. 

    

I was not looking forward to hand stitching so many sequins!  But it wasn’t so bad and went along a lot quicker than I thought it would.

I die cut the words on the backs from metallic paper. 

Happy mail day!

Japanese Inspired Quilt

A Japanese inspired quilt.

These fabrics were so nice to sew with.

The colors are so rich and bold and laced with gold.

The backing is a quilting cotton, not a Japanese fabric.  With the gold speckles, it went with the Japanese fabrics beautifully.  It’s a lot of red, but so pretty.

There were enough scraps to make a pretty 20” pillow cover.

**the cover is just lying over a pillow for the photo**

More of the scraps make up the backside of the pillow cover.

With still more scraps, I made a snap pouch and wristlet keychains.

The fabrics are a bit heavier than quilting cottons, so they make into a nice weighted throw quilt ready to cuddle under.



I’m trying to avoid continually accumulating scraps.  There are just some bits left.  Enough to make a postcard or two.

Pumpkins and Leaves

A new Fall runner for me.

My quilt guild handed out patterns for the pumpkins as our block of the month.  Please don’t tell my guild, but I liked these blocks so much that I kept them for myself.  It took me another month to decide what to put with them and how.

I finally decided on these paper pieced leaves.  Pattern by Full Bobbin Designs, on Etsy.   I adjusted the pattern very slightly.  Just to break up the larger leaf sections on each side.  I think they still need a little more division...next time.

It was a toss up on which way the outside leaves should face.  Facing inward won out.



Also a question of whether the pumpkins faced the same direction or opposite directions.  Opposite directions won out since where it is placed has entryways on both sides of the island.

Something most likely will always be placed in the center of the runner, so the pumpkins are divided in that way.

The moral of this quilting adventure is that I’m glad I was selfish and kept these pumpkin blocks for myself.  

Free Spirit Quilts

Free Spirit Quilt #1

This brightly colored quilt is made from 4 charm packs.

The fabric line is Free Spirit by Kaffe Fassett.

I added a solid of “Apple” Cotton Shot by Amanda Murphy for Benartex.

The charms are 5”.  I cut 3.25” squares from the Apple fabric.  I sewed from corner to corner chain piecing all the charm squares.  

I then stitched again 1/2” away so that I’d have 2.5” half square triangles already made from the cut off corners.

    


    

I arranged the blocks for the design and stitched them all together.

Poor color in this photo but it shows the layout design.  I don’t know a name for the pattern.  I don’t buy patterns.  I just figure out how to create the design from looking at it.  No, I can’t do that with every quilt design I see.  

It’s been awhile since I made a quilt bright and colorful.

It’s not a large quilt.  Measures 49.5” X 64”.  A nice size throw quilt.

It has a fun backing fabric for a fun whimsical look.

So with the left overs, came

Free Spirit Quilt #2

Baby sized at 34” X 48”

I stitched all those cut off half square triangles into pairs and set them in all directions.

With a 5th charm pack I added a border.

And finished it with a really fun backing fabric.

Still there are left overs!!!

A pair of placemats were sewn.  They will be donated for charity to brighten someone’s meal time.

    

There were still some fun scrap pieces that looked perfect for a set of fun Halloween postcards.

I stitched the bird first after seeing greeting cards on Pinterest made by Beret Nelson, On The Trail Creations Blog.  I decided the other designs didn’t need the buttons.



Those five charm packs were finally exhausted!  But what fun they were to play with!