New patterns: Leftovers and Mostly Clear

Rosie wanted to let you know that the Mostly Clear pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.  You may remember I wrote about making the quilt in August.  Since then Kim Williams, Joanne Harris, Mary-Ann Vanner and Tina Fugate generously donated their time, effort and fabric to test the pattern for me.  I am very grateful for their help. It lets me release the pattern with confidence knowing it passed muster with independent quilters!

Mostly Clear by Canuck Quilter Designs

The pattern features strip piecing to speed assembly, and borders that come together in segments as the rows come together to avoid having to sew on long border strips. Last but not least, the part of the pattern that excites me most is the pressing direction guidance that lets you nest every single seam intersection for perfectly matched seams.

Rosie would also like to announce that there is now a pattern for the Leftovers table set, though I declined to let her pose on the placemats.

As I mentioned in September, these were a great cheerful pick-me up project in a grey, dreary spring. There's nothing like digging through a bin of colorful scraps to lift my spirits.  That said, I realize not everyone has scraps to paw through (though I'm sure those people are just beginning their quilting journey and will soon have a respectable scrap stash).  It also occurred to me that not everyone likes to cut and sew many small pieces.

Enter the strip pieced, less scrappy version:

Five prints and a background let you make 6 matching placemats and a runner.  I really love the blue prints I chose for this set.  I really need to finish binding the other 5 placemats!

The pattern includes instructions for both the super scrappy version and the strip-pieced version.  Thank you to Joanne Harris and Carol Andrews for testing and proof reading the pattern.  Thanks to them you'll know you have enough fabric for your binding!

Both  Leftovers and Mostly Clear are now available to purchase as PDF downloads in my Etsy shop at a special introductory price.  Enjoy 50% off the regular retail price through Friday, October 18th, 2019.  If you prefer a print copy, please ask your favorite local quilt shop to order it in for you from Checker Distributors or by emailing me directly.

Leftovers

As I was sorting through pictures on my phone I realized I never shared this project here on the blog.

Last spring was grey and gloomy and I needed more colour in my life to tide me over until the garden started blooming. There's plenty of colour in my scrap bins, and I spent several evenings sifting through those, petting the fabric and choosing small scraps, deciding whether I could really bear to use the last little bit of this or that favourite fabric.(You never know if there might be a better project for it right around the corner!)

This is not my whole scrap stash, of course!  These were just the ones I thought would play well in my project. Surprisingly, this selection hardly made a dent in the scrap stash.  Scraps reproduce inside those bins.  Someone needs to conduct some research into that phenomenon.

I even found scrap strips for the binding.

These placemats were a joy to sew.  They were colourful, quick to make, and gave me the satisfaction of making quick progress after working on slower, long term projects.

You can see I kept the quilting very simple.  Easy, quick, evenly spaced lines quilted with my walking foot add plenty of texture without distracting from the colorful scraps.

I love them, though the family is afraid of that white background.  No worries.  We just use different placemats when we serve spaghetti and sauce!