New Year’s Day Mystery Quilt

I did something this year I’d never done. I participated in an online quilt-along. Janet Wickell of About.com hosted and it was super-fun.

It was called the 2016 New Year’s Day Mystery Quilt. That’s right. We didn’t know what the block was going to look like until we’d finished one.

Here’s my result.

I departed from my Scrapfabulousness series to make this one. I used a couple of prints from my stash… and I bought a couple of new ones. It seems no matter how large my stash gets, I never have everything I need to do a particular quilt. Such is life.

At any rate, I think it’s pretty cute, and it’s another quilt top finished. I believe 2017 will have to be the Year of Quilting Tops. It only follows that 2018 must be the Year of Binding Quilts.

If you are interested in making this quilt, you can find the instructions here.

2016 – Year of Scrapfabulousness

After nearly 40 years of sewing, I have accumulated a LOT of scraps. You’d think I would have done something with them by now, but sadly, I have not. I might never have, except we recently moved to Hawaii where the houses are much smaller. I have hardly any storage space, so the scraps must go. I can’t bear to throw them away, though, which is why I’ve designated 2016 as the Year of Scrapfabulousness.

By the end of this year, one of my scrap tubs must go.

I’ve made some progress…

I used my Accuquilt cutter (which I adore) to cut 4 1/2″ and 2 1/2″ squares. I’ll keep doing that all year. But… one of my favorite things to do for those pieces that are smaller than 2 1/2″ is this…

This is such a low-stress sewing activity for me. When I don’t feel like doing anything else, I’ll grab a stack of scraps and start randomly sewing them together. Once I have something close to 4 1/2″ square, I run it through the Accuquilt. Aren’t they cute? I can’t wait to make a quilt with them.

The only problem is, the more scraps I take out of the bucket, the madder my dog gets.

TTFN.