Fun~fetti

Fun~fetti ~ 56" X 70"

This one named itself as it took form, it reminds me of rainbow sprinkles scattered into white cake batter and vintage, long-ago birthday parties. I got this top together from Box #2-- the stack of numbered UFO's waiting patiently for me in the stash closet. This box already contained a decent size stack of low volume shaded nine patch blocks along with the remains of a jelly roll left over from rug making.

The shaded 9-patch is done from a Studio 180 technique sheet and the Tucker Trimmer, the results speak for themselves. I persevered until I had enough shaded-9's to complete twelve blocks and took off from there. I was able to use up quite a few 2.5" squares from my precut "lights" bin (Scrap User's System) for that inner border and chopped up the remaining jelly roll bits into enough rectangles to complete the piano key outer border. Voilà! Almost as exciting as completing yet another top is that growing stack of emptied out bins! Almost. 😉

Life is Good!

Cut It Out!

I have my work cut out for me, literally. I've done research on the history of that phrase and have found the most prevalent explanation as one that comes from the sixteenth century: "This phrase is supposedly a metaphorical allusion to the preparation of fabric to be worked on: once the shapes have been cut out, the tailor still has a lot of sewing to do, by hand in the past, before the cloth becomes a garment." This is certainly appropriate for today's post. I wrote most recently about going through the full-to-overflowing scrap basket to collect the batiks in there that were serviceable enough, size-wise, for making more masks. The requests for more have been steady. Today, Wednesday, has been deemed as mask-making day. I rescued enough fabric from the scraps to make thirteen! In the meantime, the rest of the scraps needed to be dealt with. Slowly, working my way through the heap, I pressed them and diligently cut them up into usable sizes. 

These scraps, leftover from various and assorted projects, were eventually transformed into this:

... and these squares, triangles and rectangles were all used to feed these...

...the bins that reside beneath my cutting table, Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User's System which has worked for me for many years! These, in turn, will be used to make more scrap quilts, and SEW it goes! 

After days spent cutting, the trash can looked like this. Yes, there are scraps too small to save! 😉

Meanwhile, out on the porch, Mr. Goodneedle had his work cut out for him too. He began re-slinging the dining chairs that have literally fallen apart after years of being out in the weather. The before and after, above, is night and day. We are both very pleased with the new, lighter (and sturdier!) look.