Scrap Project

I am determined to make a dent in my scrap accumulation. It's just ridiculous how much I have got stuffed away all over the place.

So, I am working on these houses. It's a free Bonnie Hunter pattern called "Happy Scrappy Houses". Certainly not a super quick way to use up scraps, however it is effective once you get going. This is how far I got in the last few days.

I experimented a bit with the surrounds of the houses as Bonnie had given alternative measurements to do those houses without the sashings. Decided in the end to go with the sashings as I don't fancy having to deal with the almost bias edges of the blocks over the entire quilt. However left a bit more room around the houses so they float a bit and hide my sloppy squaring up of the block. I think it needs the sashing to stabilise the blocks. Initially I was tempted to go for a one-coloured sashing all over which would have meant cutting up some more fabric, however then I decided to go with whatever I have got on hand...after all, that was the idea! This will be very colourful, as the corner stones will have to be all different colours as well.

The blocks certainly 'eat up' fabric in a hurry, particularly the surrounds of the house eat up a whole chunk of fabric (I am using 2, 3in x 12in rectangle for the surrounds)...I am paying a little bit of attention to what colours I am putting together (obviously not in the first block on the left) wherever I can and try to insert a bit of a fun element in the windows just to keep me interested. The last two days have been interesting in terms of going through the scraps over and over again, sorting and trying to work out a way to speed this up. I am a very messy quilter and soon found myself working in this tiny little space on my cutting mat  Everything around me was taking up with scraps in various sizes. Today then I worked out a bit of a system of how to go about this. Sorted part of the scraps into house bodies, roofs, chimneys and doors...

...then I did non-stop strip cutting with the Accuquilt GO 2in strip cutter...and can you believe it...I remembered that I have a 2in x 3 1/2in die which is just what I need for those house bodies! I bought this for a Churn Dash quilt which is yet to eventuate. Just goes to show, like I said the other day...you forget what you have lying around when not in use.

Spent most of the day cutting out strips and shapes and working out a bit of a manageable structure where I can chain-piece whole sections of the houses in one hit, i.e.
- sew strip sets and crosscut into chimney sections (pairing the chimneys to the roof whenever possible)
- sew the roofs in bulk as this involves marking a square which will then be flipped over to become the triangle of the roof
- cut out house bodies in bulk and have them ready to go at the machine,  stitching up 3 to 4 at a time,
- have the doors cut out and ready to go,
- sort bigger strips into pile to be used for surrounds, and...
- organise my work space at least a little bit

Still working in a rather smallish space, but I feel I am now more organised to tackle this. Also can report that the white scraps are gone by half...the strip sets take up a lot of fabric.

I wonder how many houses I can stitch up before I start looking for more fabric. The surrounds of the houses will be the most difficult as you need a fair chunk of fabric...but we shall see. If nothing else, I'll get a lap quilt out of this with hopefully half of my scraps gone. I am hoping that I will be left with the smaller strings that I will then sew up into a string quilt. Also thinking about using up some uglies to piece the backing together...certainly got a stack of them where I am wondering what possessed me to buy that fabric.

How funny, this was not what I was intending to work on next actually but it certainly has gripped me...
Linking up to Quilting is more fun than Housework ‘Oh Scrap’ Linky

Karin