A Tale of 20 Fat Quarters(Plus 2 and a Backing and a Binding)AND It's Thursday and I'm Thankful

It's Thursday and I'm Thankful:

1. First, for Sally and Cynthea for getting into the spirit for remakes and covers.  I had forgotton about those great movies, Hairspray and the the Producers!  Of course! (BTW-sorry Sally!  I didn't know I'd be spoiling DWTS for you.  Next time I'll post a spoiler alert!)
2. For Wonder-Under,
3. and Blogs that inspire,
4. and that I learned to read (don't we take that for granted?) so that I can learn to do so many things.

Onto the never-ending black and white and red. 

In the midst of this project I took a break to surf the internet and found Cluck, Cluck, Sew, the blog of a really creative and fun quilter/sewer/blogger whose site is filled with colorful and inspiring projects, a cute family and informative tutorials.  In this post she was participating in a scrap-busting project and her contribution was what got me thinking.  And thinking.  First I was thinking that my scraps were not big enough to do anything with.  I mean, some of my scraps were about  a half an inch wide, hardly worth keeping. 

Here is where I should tell you something else about me.  I don't do scraps.  Not in fabric, rarely in yarn.  To be clear, I keep scraps.  And keep and store and organize and buy little Rubbermaid containers for them, but I am rarely creative enough to actually do anything with them, well, except for those little balls of sock yarn, I love the "fruit bowl" I've made with those.  Things are changing around here, though.  The scraps are becoming my muse.

So after all of my thinking (while cutting out other projects-totally thinking about the scraps-waiting for the quilt to come back to bind-scraps, scraps, scraps!) I pulled out those little strips and started pressing them to see what I had.  Not much, but out came the Wonder Under and I ironed them on.  If you are also inspired, remember to cover every bit of the wonder under by either overlapping the fabrics or putting in some extra scraps so that the iron is not accidentally fused to the wonder-under.

This is just the beginning of the fabrics fused. I forgot to take more pics, but some of those pieces were small, I was wondering why I was bothering!

After that I cut the strips apart and started cutting shapes with barely an idea.  I had decided that I didn't want to use as many cut pieces as Allison (Ms. CCS) used, I was going to go simpler and quicker and make one quick, little pillow.  I do have other things to do, ya know. Stop.Laughing!

But you know me, always thinking.  I mean, two really is better than one, right?  And even after cutting these pieces out, I still had tons of scraps left, even from what I had already ironed to the wonder-under.  Once I got started I was on such a roll!  Just free cutting and placing the pieces, and I got so many out of such a little bit of fabric.  I am looking at every little bit of fabric with new eyes. 

 

You can see the threads before I trimmed them off.  It is easy-peasy applique, just iron on, leaving the raw edges and then stitch around the pieces.  I used a straight stitch just inside the edges, but you could zig-zag or use your machine's blanket stitch if it has one.  Pretty little pillow tops, right?  And this is where, once again, I further complicate a project. 

This is the point where I could have just slapped the pillow fronts to the backing fabric, sewn them up, stuffed them with a pillow and been on my merry way, but as you can see....

The gears started turning and I imagined that it would be so much more dimensional and cushier if I just sandwiched the fabric with some batting and did a little quilting.  Nothing big, just outlining all of the bits to give them a teensy bit of pop.  I could have free motion quilted around them, but after one try I decided that my skill was lacking so I put my walking foot on and put a straight stitch around everything.  I totally love, LOVE my walking foot, by the way.  I love that it has two "feet", one that is open so that I can see exactly where I am stitching.  While I loved the effect on this pillow, the other still had so much open space and I had  been experimenting with free motion quilting so I decided to just give it a go.  I made a deal with myself that no matter how bad it was I was going to let it go.  It was my first real bit of quilting and heck, it was going to Gillian's house, what did I care if it totally sucked?  I totally stuck with that plan, well, except for the five or six times I picked out some of the quilting and re-did it.  Other than that I left a lot of little mistakes.  I even quilted in a free-motion birdy. 

 

 

Gillian loved the little birdies, there is one on the other pillow as well.

Okay, there is your sneak peak, it's late and I'm leaving this post for now, the final chapter will be tomorrow.  I took way too many photos and at this moment there is a danger that every one will make it into this post.  Who knows, that could happen tomorrow as well.

One hundred ten.  Or day TWELVE!  Or maybe I will put a photo of this project up every day for the rest of the month!  That will get me right into December and make NaBloPoMo a cinch!

 

Comments

[CyndiG]

I love this!! I love the "tree" and of course the little birds -- and the colors!

[Kim]

I knew I was going to love chapter 3 and I DO!! They are great!

I spent the afternoon playing around with stippling getting ready for our class on Saturday. :)

[susan]

Really gorgeous!
Left a lot of little mistakes?? Ha, I doubt it.

[PumpkinMama]

These are so terrific!

[margene]

The skies the limit when YOU start creating. Ideas come together so quickly and fuidly. It's easy to see and hear how fun it is for you, too.

[Walden]

Very nifty!!

[Kathy]

That is COOL!

[Jennifer]

Wow - what a work of art.

[Bonnie]

So pretty! What a great job!

[Manise]

Those are awesome! The scallop bird is my fave. Lucky Gillian! Reminds me of my mother who made cards and scenes on our gifts by using scraps of wrapping paper in very much the same way minus the sewing machine.

[Danielle]

I can't keep reading your blog or I'm going to dive headfirst into quilting ...