Buddy quilting and so much more...............

Chris's blocks

WEll, what a fun afternoon Pam and I had yesterday. We quilted, we talked, we ate Pam's chili(yes, my guest even brought lunch with her) and we talked and we quilted some more and on and on. Ok, maybe it looks like we didn't accomplish much but it's a start.

Awhile back I ran across Bonnie Hunters fantastic site called Quiltville and you'll find her link on the left menu. Bonnie has tons of neat quilts and tutorials for using up your quilt scraps, beautiful scrappy quilts. I fell in love with her Maveric Star blocks and she has a super tutorial on making them. I've been wanting to start this ever since, so Pam and I began yesterday. The plan is, we'll both make ourselves a quilt following Bonnie's tutorial and what a great way to recycle fabric scraps.

As you can see, we may have talked and ate to much as we only completed 4 or 5 blocks each but boy, are they fun to do! I was amazed how little of my scrappy stash was used up though. I may have to make a dozen of these quilts or maybe I should just keep making these blocks the rest of my life, I might put a dent in my scrap stash. Anyway, see how different our interpretations are?

Well, Pam left yesterday with a "lets do this again next week, same time, same place". Hopefully, nothing will get in the way and we'll show you more blocks next week.

Chris

What Must Alaska Be Like?

It's 4:30 in the afternoon and it's dark already! Darkness makes me lazy.

I spent the afternoon sorting scraps in my sewing room (the attic). My step-daughter's came yesterday and cleaned out the attic closet and left me a lot of space to fill with fabric stash, quilt battings, pre-cut scrappy squares and assorted scraps.

I recently did an estate sale at the home of a lady who had quilted and crafted all her life. Recently her daughter had opened a quilt shop in town and this lady prepared most of the sample quilts and craft project displays for the store. She had mountains of fabric for me to sell in a tag sale fashion. There was so much! I piled all the pieces of fabric 1 yard and larger on a table for $1.00 per piece. Ladies were lined up around the block and all took home all the fabric they could carry. I was wishing I was a customer about that time! But you can't be both!

There were also boxes and boxes and even more boxes of fabric scraps. I took large plastic bags (2 gallon size) and stuffed them as full as I could with all kinds of fabric scraps for $2 a bag. They were taped shut and maybe that is what kept people from buying all of them, but I ended up with maybe a dozen bags after the sale. So I bought them myself and brought them home. Slowly I'm working my way through each bag and ironing each scrap. (Chris has fits because of my excessive ironing all the time! ) My fat quarter stash is getting large from this exercise. Also, my piles of already cut squares is getting huge! I wonder if she forgot she had already cut squares, or maybe she never made a scrappy quilt so never needed an odd number of squares. But that's my favorite kind!

I'm working on one now, using an old phone book for foundation pieces. I'm just making the blocks now but hope to someday put them together and end up with something similiar to this photo, although there are tons of ways to lay out these blocks. OK, the photo will not load, but if you've never Goggled "scrappy quilts" it's a lot of fun!

Time to think about supper and then, hopefully, go back to my sewing room in the attic and let my husband enjoy the pro football game on TV tonight. ~Pam