Amanda Jean Made Me Do It

Seven years ago I made a leap. I was recuperating from my stupid knee injuries and thinking a lot about life, about what I wanted to be when I grew up. At that time I started emailing another blogger a bit more. One day we decided to take our relationship to the next level and talk on the phone. It was like being a teenager all over again, chit chatting for hours as I lay on my bed and ignored my family. Now I consider her a good friend, a professional colleague, and a quilty inspiration.

Amanda Jean Nyberg now has a new book. It is out now and I jumped on board to help her celebrate. No Scrap Left Behind is her perfect book. She is extraordinarily frugal and saves everything. This book takes that mentality and applies it to all your fabric. She does so with useful tips, storage ideas, and completely inspiring quilts. 

To celebrate the release of the book Amanda asked us to not only blog about the book but to also make something from it. Back when we were writing Sunday Morning Quilts she got me to save my binding triangles. Those little bits we cut off when joining binding strips. I hadn't exactly been throwing them away, but they got dumped in with the rest of my colour sorted scraps. In our discussions writing the book we agreed on sorting by colour as well as pulling out strips/strings and snippets. She took it to the next level with those binding triangles. So I started putting mine aside. They filled a jar. Then overflowed the jar. After that they filled a bowl. Just as I was thinking it was time to do something about them No Scrap Left Behind comes out. It was meant to be.

There are two quilts in the book that I could have done, Remainders and Chain of Diamonds (not to mention Up, Up, and Away from Sunday Morning Quilts). I chose Chain of Diamonds because it reminded me of a sketch I once made myself from a store window I once saw. Plus, I had a lot of colours in my overflowing jar and bowl.

I'm not going to lie, this was an intense make. Made more so by me doing it over the last 2 weeks while I was sick (and my kids). I counted, there are 1709 seams in this quilt! But the good thing is that they are all small. 

To keep the project a lot more manageable, I suggest turning this into one of two things. Make the blocks as leaders/enders. That is, prep your background squares and keep them next to your machine with the triangles. At the end of a seam when you are working on something else sew a triangle on instead of cutting your thread. Or, turn this into a Morning Make project. Spend 10-20 minutes a day and slowly but sure the blocks will come together. 

Regardless of how you do this I would totally recommend this quilt. It was fun, it has great impact, and it makes excellent use of those scraps!

I went from a full platter (once I unsquished them from the jar/bowl) to barely a third. I even had to cut a few extra scraps to round out the selection. Now I just might have to make something else to use the rest of the triangles! For a change from my instinctual mix of low volume fabrics for the background I went all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Black prints, including many from my Tag collection, played together. As I made blocks it was a lot of fun to think back to the quilt where the scrap came from. So many memories.

Thanks for being a good friend all these years Amanda Jean. And for continuing to be such an inspiration to quilters everywhere.

I'm happy to be giving away a copy of the No Scrap Left Behind to a lucky reader, courtesy of C&T Publishing. Trust me, you want this book! Please leave a comment below, including your email: nameATserverDOTcom. I can't auto reply through my blog so I need your email to get you your prize. US winners get a hard copy of the book, International winners will get a digital version.

GIVE AWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Make sure you check out all the other bloggers sharing their projects from the book:

Monday, April 24th Mary Kolb

Tuesday, April 25, Lee Monroe

Wednesday, April 26, Sandi Hazelwood

Thursday, April 27, Bernie Kringel

Friday, April 28, Erin Cox

Monday, May 1, Katherine Greaves

Tuesday, May 2, Tracy Mooney

Wednesday, May 3, Cheryl Arkison

Thursday, May 4, Debbie Jeske

Friday, May 5, 

Giveaway Winner was Sue, comment 190/226. Thanks to the Random Number Generator.

Love the black & white background you used! It's nice to read how you became friends with Amanda Jean too. :)

Forgiveness - Scrap Vortex Meets Improvised Words

Forgiveness

80'' x 77''

When two quilts become one. When emotions transfer to your making. When the morning make becomes all consuming. When making a quilt is cheaper than the therapist.

This particular quilt started a few years ago. I called it Snippets on Dates back then. Take two little bits and sew them together. Repeat a thousand times, press. Sew pairs to pairs and so on. I had a small quilt together and there was no end to the little snippets. Around the same time Amanda Jean launched her Scrap Vortex Quilt Along. It got a lot of people looking at their scraps differently. Here and there I would take my overflowing bin of snippets and sew some together. Doing it bit by bit makes it less daunting, especially when most of the pieces are 2'' or smaller! But I never really moved further than that. Everything just sat around in my Quilts Under Construction pile.

Cue last summer. For one, my Morning Make became a serious commitment. As in, I wanted/needed to do it every day for my sanity. I like my Morning Make projects to be no brainers so I pulled this one out to start. Then my heart started turning over the word, the act, the emotion of Forgiveness. I decided sewing the word would help it burn into my brain and body, like I was taking notes for a test. Initially, I didn't actually see the two projects working together, I just happened to have them both out on the cutting table. They did really want to go together.

At this point I could go on some spiel about symbolism: the chaotic nature of our emotions with the quilt as metaphor. Uh, no. It really came down to the fact that even though I was making letter blocks to spell Forgiveness, I had no clue what to do with a really long, skinny quilt with just that word. While I thought about other words I put more snippets together. It seems obvious now, but it took me a few weeks to let the two projects play together. And then they became creative partners, propping each other up, no metaphors needed.

I rather like that the word is a bit tough to see. It wasn't bad Value work on my part, it was intentional. Forgiveness is an internal emotion, I don't need it, or me, to shout its presence.  Oh wait, I just got symbolic. But I did tone down the value contrast intentionally. Rather, I didn't do really darks and really whites on purpose. But it is there. Another confession, I made that V three times.

The fabrics go all the way back - some 20 years, some last year. There are bits and pieces from other quilters in there, including leftover components already pieced. I did zero editing for style of fabric so everything is in here - batiks, civil war, 30s reproductions, modern, solids, linens, you name it!

The backing was a piece of yardage I picked up in Arizona last year, something random that reminded me of a painting in my childhood home.

As usual, I used Quilters' Dream 100% cotton Select weight batting.

It was quilted with a combination of Aurifil and Wonderfil threads in yellow, grey, green, and blue. Just things I had in my stash. I did wavy lines across the quilt and outlined the letters for a bit more emphasis.

When it came to binding I wasn't sure. Scrappy seemed to make sense, instead of suddenly adding one bit of order. Conveniently, I had a bowl full of binding scraps. I sewed them end to end and made my way around the quilt. 

The last stitches actually went in the binding on New Years Day. Felt great to start the year with a finish, symbolic as it is.

Morning Make II - Improv Curves plus Tag Fabric

Ever have those moments where you see something and just have to try it? At some point in December I saw a block that Sharon, at Color Girl Quilts, was working on. Hers was very precise - she does really cool things with curves - and I wanted to see if I could do the same thing with improvised curved piecing. Turns out I could.

I only made a couple of blocks to try it, with no intention to make more. But I really, really liked the blocks and I was still more curious. So I made a few more. Once the secondary patterns emerged I was hooked! This project became my Morning Make over the holidays. I finished it up on the weekend. It became very addictive!

Our quilts are not the same at all. That being said, you can certainly see the link between mine and her original. The main block structure is the same. It is the piecing technique and the final layout that make the big difference.  

For the technique I use (and teach) when making improv curves there are some leftovers. Very usable leftovers. Think enough for a whole other quilt. Quite often I play and they become part of the original work. This time, however, that wasn't going to work for the repeating design. Now I am sewing together all the leftovers from cutting those curves. It will be enough for a whole other quilt (or the back). I just want to get them sewn together as blocks for now and will play with layout options another day.

One of the best parts of this quilt - for me, at least - was getting to use my own fabric in it! That's right, Tag is now available through Connecting Threads. I have a lot to share about that in the coming weeks, but it was a lot of fun for me to see how well it played with the rest of my stash. Can't way to show you more.

Forgiveness - A Word Quilt for Wednesday

Forgiveness.

One of the most difficult human actions. Especially when we need to forgive ourselves. And still with others. It is so much easier to be angry, to be scared, to hold a grudge. Recently I took that energy and channeled it into this quilt top. 

What a release. 

Don't ask me how many pieces are in here. Don't ask me how long it took. Don't ask me the personal details. Just know that it worked. That forgiveness is not only possible, but it does indeed feel better and require less energy than holding on to the anger, the frustration.

And bonus, my sewing room has a few less scraps in it.

With forgiveness in your heart you welcome the cute photobombers who draw on themselves and the reluctant quilt holders. Even the wind. 

Take a deep breath, get your butt in the seat and sew. Let the good stuff ride.