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

Sew & Be Happy

Way back in 2012 I joined my first ever bee - called Sew & Bee Happy!

I knew Kat a little when I stepped out into the world of the bee and Cindy and Jude joined in too!  I didn't know the others and they were from many different places.

Come July I asked for words relating to sewing as I wanted a hanging for my sewing space.  I had a list 

Dream 
Design 
Cut 
Pin 
Piece 
Stitch 
Trim 
Layer 
Baste 
Quilt 
Bind 
Label 
Love

and made the longest ones myself as a guide to what I was intending.

I got some fabulous words back from my beemates.

It was then I decided to complicate things and add pictures to illustrate the words.   It just so happened that there was a QAL cum competition to make paper pieced sewingword/picture blocks 
about that time!     It was called The Sew Out Loud {quilter's wordplay} QAL 

Brilliant I thought I will add them to my hanging - totally forgetting that paper piecing is NOT my favourite thing in the world and oblivious to the fact that the blocks finished at 12"!   My hanging was putting weight on!   It would have been obese and exceed any hanging wall space I had.

About this time I gave up!  Things were becoming too difficult!

The project had a revival last year and I paper pieced elements of some blocks from the QAL/Online, which made them smaller but I again came to a halt!

This month I decided it didn't matter if I paper pieced these objects or not.  Several had curved shapes and it has always seemed mad to me to use a technique that requires straight lines for making curves!   So I allowed myself the perfect solution - applique!

There was no stopping me then....

Raw edge applique

Needle turned applique

Some curved piecing and improv

I also managed a bit of pixel piecing

And even some trapunto

I had fun with the machine quilting

And added a bit of backstitch quilting in cotton perle as my label

And now here is my finished wall hanging

It has paper piecing, improv, applique, machine embroidery and quilting and hand embroider/quilting, some pixel piecing and some trapunto!   Now I think that pretty well wraps it up ....don't you!


My thanks to Kat, Cindy, Jude, Henny, Kara, Allie, Leona, Hilary, Wendi and Emma for helping me to make this one very special wall hanging!


One of my FAL15 quilts which I will be linking up at the end of the quarter.

Scraptastic Tuesday - more Liberty blocks and a new scrap project

I made these blocks last week but still haven't written them up as yet - naughty me.  I am listing all links to the Scraptastic blocks on my Scraptastic Sampler page above and have started putting diagrams of the blocks with the links and editing to give fuller instructions on each block - while I still remember.   They can be used to make my sampler quilt or as a one block quilt should you prefer.  

I think most people prefer a bit less chaos than me!   I find I get easily bored repeating the same block and maybe that is the reason why I ended up with so many projects on the go at the same time,  and will probably always need a few!  (Sorry Helen)

This is called New Album on EQ

And this is called Four Patch Variation  - could be a fun 3D type block in a quilt but I haven't played as much on that aspect as I could have here...

But as I am nearing the end of this project it is time to start thinking how I should use up my ever growing pile of scraps! (oops stop reading Helen)

To be totally honest the sampler project hasn't made much impact on my scrap bins as the Liberty fabric is hoarded in a box kept in a cupboard - so quite neat and tidy!

A lot of my scraps are really quite small so I thought small blocks using 1 1/2" square and strips would be a better scrap buster for me.  

I found a photo for this Hot Cross Bun Block on Bonnie Hunter's website Quiltville!   If you haven't heard of her you really must visit.   She really does know her scraps! 

And you should check out her famous Scrap User System where she cuts up leftovers from previous quilts into useable sizes 1.5", 2", 2.5", 3.5" squares, strips and bricks (twice as long as they are wide!) - this way half her work is done when she wants to start a scrap project.

Anyway you will need four fabrics for these blocks or more if you go really scrappy which I may have to when the longer strips run out!

a 1.5" square
b  four x 1.5" square = 1.5" x 6" (total length of fabric required!)
c  four 1.5" x 2.5" rectangles = 1.5" x 10"
d  four 1.5" square and 
e  four 1.5" x 2.5 " rectangles = 1.5" x 16" in the same fabric as D

I shall be cutting up my scraps to suit!

This is what I might end up with - I will be alternating light and dark crosses I think!

Though putting them on point with sashing, an adaptation of what Bonnie has suggested, also looks good...

My blocks so far

If I make four every day for the rest of the month I'll have 108 5" finished blocks!  That would be quilt sized...


Happy Scrapping!

I am back to working on my UFOs!  I may finish a quilt top soon...

Wonder what Leanne my partner in scrappy crime is up to...I know she has shown a few lovely finishes in her round up of January - scrappy things included!