When I started out making quilts - they were small (wall hanging size), quite dark and had a lot to do with Debbie Mumm!  They were often made by applique - at that point I found piecing rather scary and avoided it as much as possible!  

Here is a Christmas one....

Well my love of applique has taken backstage as I've been improving my piecing skills but finishing off this quilt brought me back to the enjoyment of applique.

Thanks to these little blocks

So almost in celebration I ordered this out of print book 

I have quite a few piecing books by Jan Halgrimson and love them!   How could I resist this title :  Tiny Treasures 100 miniature applique quilt patterns?

Well true to my usual butterfly ways I just had to try out a pattern when it arrived - here is the result

Two bluebirds of happiness!  They might be nesting soon don't you think?  Not sure what this will end up as but it was fun to create a little project.

And now I remember another reason  why I save even the smallest scrap of fabric.   Even if something is too small for piecing it can always find a place in an applique motif as an eye or some such!  

What is the smallest bit you keep and what do you save it for?

Now Leanne has been enjoying the delights of Quiltcon recently and I'm not sure she has had the time to post on her blog today about scrappiness but I do know she has a beautiful new quilt made from the latest Oakshott Scandinavia pack and that has to be worth drooling over!   Oakshott has been brilliant in sponsoring us and several people have been lucky enough to win some Scandinavia as one of our link up prizes!  I may be a tiny teeny bit envious of that!

Clammania!

In the summer 2014 I got a sizzix clamshell die and then of course I started using it!

 Anything and everything went in...

 I showed a little bit of how I stitched them here.

I stitched a few together...

and a few more!

I even stitched some poolside in Spain

And more when I got home

It just kept growing...with a bit of help

or not.....

Until it got this big - with that bottom corner of course

I then had a problem - do I trim those clamshells or add something in?  

I don't like throwing things away so I had to add more in, didn't I?

So I chose a lovely colour: Kona Pear, and started piecing in partial clamshells

The best bit is that I retain these pointy points!

I added some straight strips to make a border: the idea being to make it look like my clamshells were floating on the background.  Think that has worked and   here is my finished top...

Now I just have to pick my backing fabric and hand quilt this one!

Scraptastic Tuesday - full list of winners!

Sorry about the hiccup!

Here is the full list:

Congratulations to the following winners of these lovely prizes:

• Oakshott Fabrics - £25 gift certificate - Gayle, Pedal Sew Lightly, #35

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate - Arita,  Arita on Flickr, #52

• Green Fairy Quilts - $20 gift certificate, Christine, quilt_monster, #76

• Fat Quarter Shop - a $25 gift certificate, Sami, Sami Casanova on Flickr, #29

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - 1/2 yard by weight of rainbow scraps, Cathy, A Quilting Chick, #8

• Sew me a Song - a $20 gift certificate - Beth, Love, Laugh, Quilt, #45

• Massdrop - Sakura fat quarter pack - Lisa, Sunlight in Winter Quilts, #36

• Mad About Patchwork - a $30 gift certificate, Lisa, Quilts by Lisa on Flickr, #46

But I'm sure you have been to check up on Leanne's blog!

Scraptastic Tuesday - February Winners!

Bit of a busy week scrappy stitch wise for me...

After telling you all last week about the Hot Cross Bun blocks I was making, based on a photo I found on Bonnie Hunter's website Quiltvillle,  I have now finished one of my layouts: the courthouse steps one with a solid blue background (Kona Riviera, which is a gorgeous blue).

Not only that but I have started the next one too which will be an embellished Danish Flag (as described by a lovely Danish IG commenter) or a cross on red background!   

And made a bit of progress in the evening...only 20 more blocks to add!

And not only that but I started and finished another scrappy top inspired by Karen Griska's great pattern the Yellow Brick Road - can be found here.   Her pattern continues to spiral round but I've made mine into 20" blocks suggested by the lovely Sarah! 

 I also decided to change up the background for alternate blocks.

I keep thinking of marmalade when I see this top so I guess it has a name!

Why this frenzy of top making? Well I am making these quilts for a brilliant cause called Siblings Together, a charity which helps keep siblings in touch when they have to be put into care - bad enough to loose your parents but to loose your brothers and sisters!   A quilt is a small gesture of love but one that the children attending summer camps really seem to appreciate.  

I am aiming to finish ten quilts for the charity but we are actually looking for 100 overall so that every child attending will receive one this summer!   You can find out more about this awesome cause here.

We could do with lots of help so do pitch in if you can - the link above lists a few ways that you can do that.

And now to other important matters....who won this month's draw?

But first Leanne and I would like to thank on behalf of everyone our wonderful sponsors

And now I can tell you these are the lucky people who won!  Congratulations to you all and hope you enjoy your prizes!

• Fat Quarter Shop - a $25 gift certificate, Sami, Sami Casanova on Flickr, #29

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - 1/2 yard by weight of rainbow scraps, Cathy, A Quilting Chick, #8

• Sew me a Song - a $20 gift certificate - Beth, Love, Laugh, Quilt, #45

• Massdrop - Sakura fat quarter pack - Lisa, Sunlight in Winter Quilts, #36

• Mad About Patchwork - a $30 gift certificate, Lisa, Quilts by Lisa on Flickr, #46

Sadly I seem to be missing a bit of code to tell me who the other winners are - another three to tell you about but this is one of the disadvantages of time zone and living miles apart from your co host!    Will get back to you with an update!

If you are a winner, Leanne will be emailing you or you can contact either of us first. 

To everyone else, the next link will open on the second Tuesday in March  - March 10 - so please plan to play along with us again then. In the meantime, do check out the February links for inspiration. And share your scrappy work using the tag #scraptastictuesday or our button anytime you like.

The KLT Quilt

The idea for this quilt came from a Sizzix die  - the chevron - though we all know the shape is a parallelogram don't we Helen!

I bought the die in about August/September last year and needed to test it to see if it worked.  

I chose to test it on my growing collection of hand screen printed Karen Lewis Textiles (formerly known as Blueberry Park - bit like Prince you know!)  

I tried out a few different layouts 

 Before I chose this one

which paired them with my supply of charm squares and it was all going well!

I even wrote a tutorial of sorts here in case you want to make your own version.


Imagine the hours of pleasure I had matching or contrasting Karen's lovely prints to my charm squares...I got quite carried away to the extent that Karen suggested my quilt was surely big enough ...!

I started squaring up the edges 

...forgetting they were supposed to be this way round.

I got around to sorting it all out into a quilt shape this month with some partial blocks...

Into a lovely quilt top I was very pleased with

I chose a backing fabric by Lotta Jansdotter (with a bit of text fabric sliced in to make it big enough)as I thought Karen would approve.   Well Saffy liked it!

And yesterday at about midnight I finished stitching down my quiet binding.

And here is my KLT (Karen Lewis Textiles) quilt - can't call it chevron as that annoys Helen too much (maths teacher)!

At the end of next month I will be linking this quilt up to

Scraptastic Tuesday - February Link Up

My Hot Cross Bun blocks have got me feeling scrappy happy at the moment!  I have made 54 so far...

I love planning the combinations of colours which I have been doing on old pizza bases and stacking them in a pile 20 high!   Then when I have had a bit of time I have been chain piecing them together.

My initial plan was to make a quilt 60" square from these 5" finished blocks which would mean making 144 of them!  This is a small sample of what I thought it might look like....

I was quite up for that - I do get enthusiastic about things and as long as it is a quick make I can power through it especially if I give myself a daily or weekly target to hit!   I might just be a little competitive...??  

But then after a bit of play I thought I might make a large cross with the blocks and fill in with solids....

More play and I thought this might be another great layout - courthouse steps

And then this one

And because I am hopeless at choosing I am now thinking of making all three for the Siblings Together Charity!   Solids are already on order.  

And I can keep making blocks right?   I will need 45+49+45 = 139!   I'm feel like I'm winning as that is less than I had originally planned and I get three quilts instead of one!

Now I'm sure Leanne has been up to something scrappy too - I'm loving her courthouse steps blocks which I might just have to make a normal sized scrappy version of!

And now to the important matters!  

Here are our February Link sponsors:

A huge thank you to our generous sponsors for providing the following prizes:

• Oakshott Fabrics - £25 gift certificate

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Green Fairy Quilts - $20 gift certificate

• Fat Quarter Shop - a $25 gift certificate

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - 1/2 yard by weight of rainbow scraps

• Sew me a Song - a $20 gift certificate

• Massdrop - Sakura fat quarter pack

• Mad About Patchwork - a $30 gift certificate

They have all been such a great support and I hope you will support them in turn.  Hope you winners have been enjoying your prizes!
And here is the February link up - show us what scrappiness you have been up to...

An InLinkz Link-up