Blogger's Quilt Festival: My Scrappy Entry

    Name: Grape Juice

Design:  Quarter Log Cabin by Liz Katsuro

Size:  64" by 80"

Fabric: Purple, bright pink and low volume scraps 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in Dove grey, straight lines

Binding:   Kona Eggplant

Backing:  an awesome vintage sheet in purple

Hello!  If you are popping over from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!  I decided to enter this quilt, Grape Juice, in the festival, scrappy category, this year.  Oh my.  I do love this quilt but there were times that I had to walk away. Even my husband told me to leave it alone and come back to it later. He reminded me that quilting is supposed to be fun.  And it wasn't fun at that moment, let me tell ya! I won't give the whole long story but if you want to read the whole story about how I realized after finishing the quilt completely.  Completely.  That several blocks in the bottom row had been placed incorrectly, throwing off the pattern.  Argh.  Anyway, it is all fixed and lovely in purple scrappy-ness.

If anyone is interested in the pattern, it is a free tutorial by Liz Katsuro.  I made the quilt with a huge variety of scraps all in a similar colour palette as well as a bunch of low volume scraps and bits and pieces.  To add to the scrappy vibe, I backed the quilt with a fabulous vintage sheet.  I am pretty sure that I picked this one up at a thrift shop a few years ago but it might have come from one of my aunts.  Wherever I got it, it was the perfect back and was a good heavy 100% cotton sheet. Nice! I  quilted this in Aurifil 50 wt in gray, with lots and lots of straight lines to give it texture.

So there it is.  Grape Juice.  Scrappy.  And with a story of frustration, persistence and satisfaction at making it right.  Entering this in the Scrappy Category of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Vintage goodness

Mum was down for a visit.  She usually brings a few boxes of stuff or "junk" as Husband would say.  Mum has told us that when she finally comes with an empty vehicle, that will mean she is moving in.  In the shipment this time, were a whack of vintage sheets, including some in original packaging.  Super awesome!  Even better was that she found them during a bag sale and paid a whooping $5 for the lot of them.

Mum also brought a box of her fabric scraps.  The old ones.  We went through the box and there are fabrics dating back to the 40s with a whole lot of 50s and a bunch of 60s fabrics.  All cottons and all perfectly awesome.  I recognize a lot of the fabrics as scraps from clothes Mum made for us.  Many of the fabrics were from things she made for herself as a teen.  So fun!    Love the flying books.  I carefully pressed a bunch of them and will start to use some of them in projects.  Good junk!

Just another little zippy pouch...

So I made another zippy pouch.  I didn't use a pattern or a tutorial.  This is just me.  Here is what I have learned.  Zippers are nicer looking with tab ends.  So I did that.  I made this one a little bigger.  I stuffed some charm packs in the pouch to show the size.  I did not use batting or interfacing for this one as it was really a test pouch.  I used a chunk of vintage sheet and some thrift store cotton for lining.  I made the big mistake of using some really nice fabric to try an Amy Butler zippy pouch pattern the other day and it was a disaster so I did not want to waste anything really lovely on just another test.  I don't know why the Amy Butler pouch was so messed up.  I did manage to make her messenger bag for Daughter and that turned out very well.  I guess what I am trying to say is that I have the skills but my skills and her pattern did not get along-at least this time.  Oh well!

Now that I have the basic design of this pouch, I can go from there.  Jazz it up.  So there. Zippy pouch number two.   Have a super lovely day!