scrapping the scraps

Doing Patchwork and creative sewing for about 15 years, creates boxes and bags of scraps!!!

And like I am a real recycle, up cycle and upgrade junky

I hoard them like treasures, going through them to reorganise and categorise, than starting to mix them up again to see which ones are working together...

...always creating a mayor mess around my workspace, but just feeling happy 

discovering another snippet of a long ago used up fabric.

But know I found the ideal way to give a lot of my fabric scraps a chance for glorious show up.

Years ago I got from my German cousin a bale of white cotton, lots and lots of meters...

great to count on for my project:

I cut the cotton in 4 to 6.5cm wide stripes

grap what ever comes of my scrap box and cut the fabric bits roughly equal

than I sew them in an garland to a cotton stripe, cut them with scissors and sew the opposite side to another white cotton stripe

now I match them with similar wide fabric bits to a longer patched stripe,

white cotton stripe on either side and on and on it goes...

There is only one rule to this work:

No concession in matching colours!!!

everything counts...and if it gets a bit crooked, the livelier and better....

Hope you have a nice weekend ahead.
I will go for some material shopping in Barcelona tomorrow....

Talk to you soon
Silvana

Work in progress...

you remember the gorgeous Japanese fabrics I purchased for one of my students???

we started one of my favourite 9 patch design for beginners.

ohh, its so easy and the effect just stunning!!

you sew blocs of 9 from

13.5x13.5 mm squares

ones the blocs are finished you make a cross cut right in the centre of each bloc

(you get 4 pieces)

than turn two opposite corners of to the centre of the bloc

(now two large squares and two small squares are facing each other in diagonal)

sew the bloc together again and join as much blocs as you need

for your desired quilt size.

 this one will have 4 by 6 blocs and a size of about 140x210cm

scrap cushion

....made from the scraps of the "Far from Africa" Quilt

ready for my kids to jump on it!

Work in progress

..so, the top of my "Far from Africa" peace is ready,

just in time when temperatures here in Spain are picking up

and quilting gets a sweaty job.

I thought about a kind of all over wood grain texture,

you know like the lines in the wood, where branches a growing out.

But if there is anybody out there with an other suggestion????

Far from Africa

In the small catalan village, where I live, there are several families from Gambia,
the tiniest country on the african mainland, situated on the westcoast, running along
the river Gambia and surrounded by Senegal.
The women are dressed in fabrics of bright, adventurous colours in wild designs
and I am always stunned by the natural grace they wear them.

Intrigued by how the fabrics act together in a Patchwork, I purchased a scrap bag in
a local shop, and with other bits and pieces from friends I got started....

...and exited!!!

I will definitly go for an african Quilt...

Laces&Roses

For the splendour of the day of happinesses in the air

To live the taste of colours easily

To enjoy loves so as to laugh

To open eyes at the final moment

She has every willingness.

                   Paul Eluard

Journal covers out of the scrapbox!!!

made this diary cover for friends
and wish them all the best for 2013!!