Sew Artfully Minded

We enjoyed a fairly quiet Christmas with one of the boys and his fiance home for a visit. Since it was a small gathering we used the phone to "reach out and touch someone." It was fun to visit by phone. We made phone calls to some other family members to do some catching up and to see how everyone has been doing. It's good to learn everyone seems to be doing well.

I'm progressing slowly with some scrap quilts. Whenever I get an opportunity I try to sew a few seams here and there. It's a little easier to do that with my sewing machine set up on a full-time basis so I don't have to set it up and take it down each time I want to sew.

These photos show some of the scrap blocks I've been working on. The blocks aren't typical with their bright colors, but I've been having fun sewing them together. It's something different for a change from my usual color palette. The centers of each of these blocks is a black tone-on-tone print. I have some additional fabric left of this black print to use on an outside border of the quilt. That should help to tie it all together.

Once I get the rest of these blocks sewn together I'll lay them out on the floor to see how they look together. That way I'll be able to see if they work well together. Some of the prints are so different from what I normally choose that I'm feeling a little uneasy with some of the fabric combinations. I am undecided at this point as to their compatibility. The brights obviously go together, but I don't have enough to complete a lap quilt. I threw in some others that are color related, but not real good matches. I'm hoping they will work. In the meantime I can enjoy the sewing process of putting them together. That's half the fun - the other half it being surprised by the outcome. Scrap quilts are a good surprise kind of quilt.

I selected the scraps from a variety of fabrics I had on hand. Some were given as left overs from friends; some were sitting in my scrap pile for quite some time. I've got lots of newer fabric, but it seems it's the scrap quilts that keep drawing my attention. Once I get caught up with the scraps I can then move on to some of the newer prints I've accumulated.

I want to keep working away on my scraps to use them up. It may take awhile since it seems I have collected so much over the years. I feel I need to use up some of what I have on hand before I purchase more. It is one of my goals/resolutions this year to whittle down that collection of fabric before I bring home more. By making an effort to get more sewing done this year and use up my fabric I'll have more room to do other things.