Hourglasses

For those who like progress photos - I being one of them - I have come to a tentative stopping point for making scrappy hourglass blocks. A longish-term project for my 100 Days of Scraps, there are now 60 blocks of various sizes - ranging from about 8" x 8" to 10" x 12".

Forty-nine of the 60 blocks I created are shown on the design wall, and I'm debating next steps. I could settle on one size to either trim blocks to or build them up to. OR I could leave the blocks in various sizes and fill in the gaps with either one solid fabric, solid scraps, or print scraps. So many options. I'm leaning in a particular direction but would love to hear what you'd do....

Midway Through The 100 Day Project

Yes, I'm a little late reporting in at the half-way point of The 100 Day Project, but considering I've missed a handful of days, it's about half-way for me. So here's a quick round-up of projects I've used scraps in!

• Adjunct - a mini (18" x 22") quilt made from the scraps The BOM quilt

• A bunch of potholders and oven mitts - all gifted

• Whisper - a 30" x 40" quilt made from my neutral scraps (backing pulled from stash)

• Blocks for my Bee Sewcial Albersesque prompt

• Brown Crush - a 41" square quilt made primarily from scraps (Kona Crush background and several fabrics for the backing from stash)

• scrappy hourglass blocks - a work in progress, at this point entirely pieced from the scrap basket; currently have 32 blocks pieced

So that feels like quite a bit! I've kind of been jumping around, project-wise, but that's working for me. The scrap basket is still very full, but let's see what else I can come up with in the next 50 days!

Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts linky party!

Brown Crush

Still plugging along with my 100 Day Project, aka 100 days of scraps, I dumped my scrap basket out and gathered all of my brown scraps and pieced them into a big ole slab.

Then I used my 12" Clammy ruler, and cut out circles, not quite sure what I was going to do with them.

After auditioning several solids (I was originally thinking blues), I settled on Kona Crush, the Kona Color of the Year, as the background fabric, and then played around with layouts. Here's the one I finally chose:

I'd purchased two yards of Crush when it was released, where normally, I just purchase fabrics in half- or one-yard increments. So having two yards on hand was fortuitous, considering I thought it went really great with the browns.

For the quilt back, I went with a pieced back, using both scraps and stash finds, amazed I had some multi-colored prints that were perfect with the Crush + brown mix.

For quilting, I used Aurifil Forty3, a 40wt 3ply thread, 2360 [Chocolate] with 40wt 2360 in the bobbin on all the brown fabrics, and 50wt 2230 [Medium Peony] on the Crush. Considering this was a scrappy quilt with no end purpose in mind, I decided to play a bit, and actually did free motion organic circles in the brown pieced circles, seven in each. I marked them with a chalk marker, using a water glass as a template, then just kind of went for it. Perfect it's not, but I love the look. 

In the background, I went back with my walking foot and did a combo of echoing the circles, and straight lines in all the Crush sections. After all that was done, I went back and used coordinating thread to stitch a simple outline in each of the 'corner' sections. Three quilting designs in one quilt? That may be a record for me. haha

And just for fun, I overlabeled this one - my personal labels from gutenTAGs; as well as other fun ones from SarahHEARTS.

So I really enjoyed this one, making up the design as I went, and trying a few things that weren't my norm. At 41" square, it was a perfect project during my focus on using up scraps.

Adjunct

So I was cleaning up after my recent quilt finish, and really didn't want to add the remaining scraps to the already overflowing scrap basket. Besides, they'd come from there to create The Bom, so why go back, right? 

The obvious thing was to sit down and start sewing them together. So I did, and then I sorted the random blocks by size and began piecing those together. Can't say I had high hopes for the result, but pure fabric play was the name of the game. And it felt good.

The design evolved, plain and simple. I was committed to just working with the leftovers and see where they took me. And at one point, I really thought I was done, even though the piece was just 15" x 18". But as my friend Lousie @imfeelincrafty said when she saw the photo, "I see more scraps! 😉" And she wasn't wrong.

So I continued on for a bit. With just a handful of small cream and berry scraps left, it truly felt done.

For the backing, I pulled a fat-quarter from stash, and even though it was about the size of the quilt top, I made it work. 

I quilted an odd little grid with three Aurifil 50wt colors - 2535 [Magenta], 2810 [Turquoise], and 4030 [Plum]. Deciding when and where to quilt with them added to the enjoyment.

When it came to binding, I very nearly used a pretty perfect stripe from stash, but I talked myself out of it. I did reach back into the scrap basket though, to find pieces that would work and be fun, since my remaining project scraps weren't enough. Perfect? Maybe not, but I like them well enough, and they definitely add to the spirit of the piece.

At 18" x 22", who knows how this little quilt will be used, but it's my first scrap finish for my 100 Day Project (aka 100 Days of Scraps), and I already have a few small piles of scraps for the next couple of projects. That's win enough for me.

The 100 Day Project

Though I've participated in one 100 Day Sewalong (project yet to be finished!), and a couple of my own 50 Days of Scraps, I've yet to participate in the official 100 Day Project. So 2023 is the year.

I so enjoyed the 50 Days of Scraps (both times!) that I think I'll do that again. I briefly considered a 100 Days of Brown - something that sounds more interesting to me than maybe you - so don't be surprised if I sneak in a bit of that too. Time will tell. I do enjoy the open-endedness of the scrap plan, thinking it could include a wide variety of projects, as well as working down the scrap basket that is very nearly overflowing. 

So anyone else joining in?