THE SCRAPS KEEP GETTING SMALLER...

While I was whining about my flagrant use of thread, i.e. the long pieces before and aft on a little piece of sewing, someone wrote to me and said that she just kept two pieces of crazy quilt squares going at a time and thus, saved have to clip excess thread at least half the time. So I was thinking.. .. why can't I do that with my long strips and just butt them up, one right after the other? So I did and I was able to do probably 5 or 6 pieces before clipping them off and then I can snip them apart later. But it also keeps them in one place until I want to use them.... cool deal!!

And then I found a ratty (but clean) piece of old muslin that I had. The texture was smooth and worn to the touch and I've found my background for my "I Heart You" series of tiny hearts and frames. And strips off one side.... they were all chewed up, probably from bleach at some point and I'm going to print words on them after the hearts are done, and attach tiny messages.

What fun!! Here's pictures:

K

ADDING NOSTALGIA TO MY WORK

I didn't make it to the sewing machine last night, but I did however, unearth a small book that I ordered some months back, with beautiful pictures and embroidery techniques.

The book has instruction in both thread and ribbon embellishing, and I thought I'd share.

The pictures are beautiful and it's a smaller book that's easy to slip into my purse/knap sack/magicMaryPoppinsBag. I believe I got this from Amazon.com so while it was a used book it was in near perfect condition. And I like the idea that somebody before me owned it and has now passed it on.

Anyway - here is the book and a couple of pages that I thought were good to share. I just think that adding little bits of interest adds so much to the value of your work and the history of your life - sort of like "can I produce something that will touch someone for years?" ... or last a lifetime?

K

USING ALL I'VE GOT........scraps almighty!

I worked on three small pieces. There was such a mess around my sewing machine with piles of little strips of fabric, all the leftovers from my last several days of sewing, but I couldn't just scrape them off into the trash without trying to at least come up with something useable. I'm a little fascinated by a couple of things - 1) have you ever noticed how much thread you can waste by pulling the fabric out and away to cut it off, and the tail that you started with....it's crazy, so I'm going to sew a pile of it onto something and see how that looks....it'll be fibery kind of. And, the other thing? I may have forgotten but maybe I was thinking that you really CAN make something out of those tiny pieces. I think what I'll do is make a series of very small, pieced hearts, then attach them to a solid background and then frame them in little 4 inch frames. That sounds productive, right?

And I'll embroider a little on them. This will be fun. I just know it.

K

SEWING INTO THE NIGHT.....

I started so SO late last night and almost didn't get to the sewing machine, but once I got going it was great. I got TWO pieces sewn last night and will work on some hand embellishing today.

I sat at the machine thinking that it might pipe up and give me an idea and I had none so I started sewing the little scrappy strips together and that looked kind of cool, but you don't get to see that, and then after I ironed it I cut it into strips and then reversed every other one and ironed them down on Wonder Under....not sure what I'll do with that but it looks good, almost like a checkerboard but not. And then after I did that, I just started piecing bits together and going round and round, trimming and cutting, adding more, and came up with the little 3x4 piece.

So I managed to finish the sewing on a 3"x4" piece and just have to go back and add some stitching, and the 9"x 15" and I need to do the same. And these will be framed and put on Etsy.com when I get done.

So....... a challenge.......that would be fun, I'm just not sure what would be good...... I'm into flowers right now so it would have to be something different, something to stretch my little brain. Any ideas?

K

An Interesting Challenge Link

This looks like a really cool beginning. I love the challenge idea, maybe when people start happening onto this page, we'll have our own challenge. How fun!

http://quiltart.com/challenges/fffc/challenge1.html

K

I'm fudging a bit.......I did this the other day. I'm thinking, after seeing some quilt pieces in frames, bordered by wide, white mats, that I might like to see some of these smaller pieces that I've been doing framed. I don't think that I can actually piece any of these pieces together because they just don't go with each other. Seperately they're fine. I guess if I can to four that are similar, but not alike, they can be a small quilt, but I'll figure that out when I come to it. For now, I think I'll just try to stay on task and get one new thing done a day, and do the hand work while I'm watching tv or something.

Always thinkin'.......

K

Work In Progress