More strips...

OK, finished 24 strip blocks now and the strip bag looks a little more manageable now. I do have enough foundation fabric for more, so I might do some later this summer. I do have a project I really must finish this summer, though - that will have to be at the top of my list for what little time I have available, with all the travelling around I'm doing!

Strip blocks, again

Wanted to make some strip blocks the other day, as my bag of strips was getting quite full, but didn't have any suitable fabric to use as a foundation. A rummage through the charity shops on Thursday came up with a large quantity of fairly ugly Ikea fabric for not much money - perfect for foundations. So, today, a start on some strip blocks. Not many done, though there are quite a few more in process...  These are 8.5" blocks, and use variable width strips (i.e. whatever width they are in the strip bag), though I do cut the really wide ones in half down the middle. And also trim the ones which are wider at one end than the other.

A bit of scrappy sewing

Despite being on holiday for nearly a week now, I haven't done much sewing. Partly this is due to being busy with some other things, partly this is due to being tired. But yesterday I finally got around to doing something - decided to have a small tackle of my scrap basket (didn't make a huge dent in that, to be honest) and make up some blocks using pre-cut squares.  These little blocks with two squares and a rectangle will be useful in combination with other stuff. They are only 4.5" square, so could be put together in fours, like below, 

or offset with solid blocks. Or who knows, something else perhaps!

Here's the scrap basket before/after - some difference, though it's still pretty full.

Rectangular Blocks - and blue batik

... not to be confused with the aqua blue batik from before.  And that's it for these rectangular blocks, at least for the time being!

Rectangular Blocks...and aqua blue batik

Just like the top the other day, except not bright orange. Quite a difference, but equally effective.  One more to come!

More rectangles

Here's a couple of other fabrics I'm going to use with the rectangles. Both have served as borders for Linus quilts already; this is what's left over. Might be able to get another border from it, might not - but they will certainly serve to alternate with these log cabins...

Rectangular Log Cabins with Orange Sunset

Well, I think the setting fabric looks like a sunset... so here's the rectangle crumb log cabins set with some orange alternates. There are more of the rectangle blocks, though, so another quilt top (or two) are in the making...

Rectangular Scrappy Log Cabins

Starting to do something with these scrappy blocks- there are loads of them, so I think they'll be around for a while.  Still, it seemed too good to miss out on, that I had some 6.5" strips of this variegated orange print (I used it as a border, but there wasn't really enough for another border) - same width as the log cabins!  So, I'm pairing them up and setting them alternately in rows. Should be a nice top when it's done.

More scrappy happiness

So, the scraps from yesterday have started going into blocks. I stitched the 3" squares together into twos...

...and then threes.

Then attached a strip to them, and put another row of three down the other side of the strip.

Here's the bunch all in progress - finished blocks on the left, but all the other pieces still waiting.

Using up some scraps

So this weekend I felt like patchwork, rather than putting together blocks or putting borders on tops, or whatever. I took my 3" square stash...

I took some wide strips from my strip stash, though most of them weren't wide enough as I wanted ones which were at least 3" wide and cut them into 8" lengths.

So I moved on over to my box of multi-colour FQs, to slice some more strips from that. Pictures tomorrow of what I've started to put together from them...

Some more strippy blocks

...so that's what you do when you have lots of strips leftover from whatever you've been doing with your strips. Or at least, that's what I do in that circumstance. I'll add these to my already existing stash of strippy blocks and then eventually, in the fullness of time, do something with them.

Scrappy log cabin rectangles

Finally finished these up - there are loads of them, and I trimmed them rectangular, as they were heading that way anyway. This means I  may l need to think of interesting ways to set them, rather than just a straight set. Or not - we'll see!  Of course, there were still loads of strips left when I finished, so there will have to be something else done to get rid of most of those strips!

Scrappy Log Cabins - progress

Here's where the blocks were at the point I had to stop  - most of them need a few more rounds. Many of them are quite rectangular - I might trim some (or all) of them rectangular rather than square - that would be a slightly different thing to do with them!

Scrappy Log Cabins - next steps

Now that the scrap baskets are a bit more empty, it's time to start on this - the bag of strips. I'll be adding to the sides of those blocks (and adding, and adding) until I get to whatever size I think is useful (probably around 8" or so). 

Empty (mostly) scrap baskets

So, after working on piecing the little scraps, my scrap basket is mostly empty. There are still a few pieces of crumb piecing (which don't include HST units, so I didn't want to use them with this ongoing set of blocks) and a few pieces of lower quality fabric for foundations for strip blocks - I didn't want to cut that stuff up and "file" it, as I wouldn't use it for regular piecing.

And my little drawer of pieces smaller than 2" square is pretty empty, too, though there's a few things in there waiting for the next scrappy project to start.

Now it's time to attack the strips bag to carry on log cabin-ing with the scrappy blocks I've started a few days ago.

The start of something scrappy

So, here's what's happening with the scrap basket pieces - I took the tiny offcut HST units (leftover from the chunky windmills) and used them as starter blocks for some scrappy log cabin type blocks.  I still need to go around these a couple times more (which is good, because I haven't even touched the strip bag yet, and it's getting full, too), but they'll be nice scrappy blocks when I'm done. Not sure how big they will be - depends on how many strips I have, I guess!

Scrappy square cutting

So,  a couple of hours of cutting alongside some sewing today, and I have lots of different sized squares, from 2" to 6.5", ready to file away for future projects. And of course, I also have lots of smaller pieces which need to be stitched into crumb blocks!

Overloaded scrap basket (and strip bag)

Nearly full - time to Do Something about these...but what?  Watch this space!

Wonky 4 patches - finished up

There are loads of these little blocks, now tucked away with my block set stash to be part of some project down the road - not sure quite what, but something.

Block progress

You can see I've made a little progress on the scrappy blocks started yesterday - they are wonky 4 patches, a favourite for my random sewing projects because they are simple and interesting. I have a big stack still waiting to put together, but it was nice to get something sewed!