Quilting mom vs sane mom

As I was working my way through green scraps, my daughter sauntered into my quilting corner asking if I had a runner she could use on her dresser.  Apparently, contact lens solution occasionally splatters onto the dresser when she opens the packaging and she would like something to protect the dresser surface.

What's a mom to do?

Sane mom:  Suggest that she could simply take 5 seconds to wipe up the splatter when it happens.

Quilting mom: Root through the scraps for leftovers from daughter's bed quilt and whip up a little matching, improv, quilt as you go runner.

What can I say?  It was an excuse to use up more scraps in my ongoing scrap mitigation project.

Thinking outside the pattern

As you know if you have been reading along these last few weeks, my plans for this year include making a temperature quilt and reducing my stash of scraps.  Just look at what Amy, who blogs at A Quilting Sheep,  has done with my free temperature quilt pattern and scraps.

I had been wondering how to use up my small scraps, and a perfect design was sitting right there on my design wall as my tempearature quilt takes shape.  I can start a whole new quilt, skipping the temperature part for this one but using the block design and layout to use up scraps! The wheels in my head are turning...

Amy has written a great blog post with suggestions for using my free pattern for quilts other than a temperature quilt, and even shares her measurements for larger blocks.  I encourage you to hop over there for inspiration.  Thanks for reaching out to me, Amy, and for thinking outside the pattern!

I might have started a valentine project using my red scraps and Amy's creative nudge...

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!