Scrap Time!

Crazy things happen when scraps are involved.  This is the story of the crazy scrap quilt that just is sorta happening in my head and hands with nothing on paper. No plan, just color and texture.  

So, I made a failure quilt.  It was a good idea, but not enough care was taken working on the bias...but this is the story of the scraps. I feel responsible that all scraps must be used because that was how I was raised. Even looking at this quilt makes me dizzy now.  I only ripped and restitched twice - because I realized NOTHING was going to make this straighten out! 



My grandmother saved every little thing. Raising 5 kids while running a farm all by herself through the depression, making do and reusing was how a person survived.  My grandmother sewed dresses she designed from the Sunday Atlanta Journal advertisements for her own mother and the other ladies in the county. Every scrap could be used for her own kids clothing or at least a quilt or potholder.


I was eight years old, driving that old lady crazy in the summer as her youngest grandchild, a little 'town girl' full of energy and running wild, she tamed me (a bit) with her scrap box.  Teaching me to sew bonded the two of us forever.  

Something wild and crazy is happening with some yardsale black linen like fabric and the scraps from the failure quilt.

 Having fun.  And it may fail just like the original quilt, but dang, this is fun.  



I don't have the leisure to post of WIP Wednesday, or Finish It Friday like the full time Quilt Bloggers, but I do these things on my own crazy time line!  Thanks for visiting with me!

Throw Back Thursday on Tuesday Night

I've spent far too much time lately rebuilding my iPhoto library.  Crazy thumbnails, missing pics, and every upload moved like molasses in January.  Now that all pics appear back in place, reorganization begins.  

Since I was in Time Machine anyway, thought I would explore what I was sewing back in 

November of Another Year

Flashback 2012! 

 I like purple.  I wanted to play with purple.  

Gray was the color of the 2012 Quiltinternt.  So gray and purple the quilt was to be!

Everyone in Quiltinternt 2012 was quilting on their own home machines while I was only stacking my tops into a huge pile. It was time to learn to quilt! I tried "Quilt As You Go".  Less successfully than the first time I tried it, it is sad to say.  I didn't follow directions...I just made them up as I worked.  

Then I went to Craftsy.   Craftsy and Leah Day was a great/bad place to start.  

Wonderful instruction, convenient, inspiring but overwhelmingly small scale and perfect.  Those last two are just not ME!  I asked questions, explained my problems and GOT ANSWERS!  Happy dance!  Still loving Craftsy for those very reasons. 

In 2012, my best friend from college was back in the South.  I took that first quilted quilt with me for our meet up that November to Appling, GA. as a gift.






We talked about life with 50 peeking around the corner, drank cold beer on the deck in the autumn chill, and I made a new boyfriend named Beau.  Alas, there was no future with Beau.  He is far too tall for me, but remains crazy about me to this day... or just crazy.








Many of my quilts are grief creations.  More on that another day.  This purple quilt was to become a grief quilt after the fact.   Christy died unexpectedly in May 2014.  Her folks still have the quilt (and Beau) to grieve with.   









Veal Girl - My college roommate, my high school running buddy for the glory days of senior year, and my fellow adventurer into Hot'lanta - 1980's style. Challenges of GT, first jobs, loss of identity, rebuilding identities...so much shared, understood and laughter through it all.   And my first quilted quilt.  I hope she felt my hugs to her soul under the purple quilt.   I miss you so much "dah'lin".

Libraries, Books and Quilts

I rarely purchase books - usually out of my fabric budget - but last month a new branch of the public library opened just across from my very own neighborhood.  

Welcome Live Oak Public Library to Garden City!!!

Of course I explored quilting books on my first visit. 

A treasure has made its way onto my Wish List! 

The list that starts with fabric, batting and now contains:

Modern Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman

The book has been out for a while (2012) and 
Oh, Fransson! was one of the first blogs I ever followed. 
it is a lovely layout of inspiring quilting and huge abundance of creativity!

In my life before May 6, 2009, we purchased books - any book that struck our fancy - on a regular basis.  My pendulum swung wildly those first years. I dismissed ideas of purchasing any type of book ...
and hid myself in the public library while not repeatedly checking my 401K to calculate my retirement to see if there was any chance I could stop working the paying job before I was 93....and there is no chance...


Since I do not usually refer to printed patterns or instructions (nor recipes, nor installation manuals...slightly ODD?) and just figure my way with a calculator and graph paper, I've been hesitant to buy quilting books.  

The quilts by Elizabeth Hartman in this book compel me to look more closely, to change things, to use a color and but not the block, to quilt something languishing in the closet with a lovely idea she applies with flair!

I needed a backing for something just completed, and was drawn to the woven Metropolis.

I was going this far, all the way with Elizabeth, but the main man in my life wanted more blue with a larger block look and suggest I stop here:

What does he know?  Something? Nothing?

I'm blogging because I have a 17 year old son whose tastes are limited to his mouth as my only creative sounding board.  Yikes!

I'm still in love with Benartex Dwellings! 

Those patterns keep leaping into so much I do.

This is the second quilting book I've fallen for.  The first was long ago and to be blogged about another day.  

What quilting books or blogs have stirred your brain?  

Hoping someone will share more quilting books and suggestions!