Cammy's Quilt

Have I told you about Friday Morning Coffee?  For almost three years now, I've been getting together with a group of girls every week at someone's house for coffee, a bite of breakfast, and fellowship.  What started out as six girls has blossomed into probably fifteen - and we've added new friends, dogs, and babies to the group along the way.  

I am excited about the recent baby explosion that has hit the group - we've got five new babies due in August and September!  This weekend we had a shower for Cammy, who's due at the end of August.  She's getting ready to move soon, so our "Friday Coffee" girls decided that we needed to make her a little something to remember us by!  So take a look at Cammy's quilt:

There were nine ladies who each did one block ... starting at the top left, the patterns are as follows:

1. Whirlygiggle by Valerie

2. Strips by Mary

3. Four Corners by Elissa

4. Strips by Cindi

5. Four Blocks by Katie

6. House by Andrea

7. Wonky Maverick Star by me

8. Log Cabin by Meredith

9. Strips by Amber

I am SO excited by how this quilt really came together!  It was such a fun project, and I loved the puzzle of laying out the blocks and finally finding the perfect layout!  Katie helped me decide on the pink border (which was TOTALLY the right call), and Cindi provided the fabric for the back (sorry, no picture of that).

We hope that Cammy's sweet little baby girl knows that she has a lot of aunts who love her so much!

Alright ... and now a little picture of my block: 

True confession: this is the first block I've ever made that uses triangles.  I conquered my triangulophobia, and I'm so glad I did!  I'm itching to do whole quilt of these little beauties!

We love you, Cammy!

my vegetative state

Over the summer I had a fortuitous encounter with Freecycle.  I posted a request for fabric scraps, and was answered by a lady whose grandmother had collected BAGS of scraps from her lifetime of projects.  (BAGS = 5 large black trash bags full).  Some of the scraps were tiny, less than 1"x1", while there was yardage of others.  There was even a kimono in there.  Boo yah.  Let the games begin.

My first job was to sort everything (loosely) by "color" - I wish I had taken a picture to show you my billowing piles of blues, greens, pinks/oranges, yellows, denims, flannels, polyesters (yuk), stripes, and faux furs.  I sorted for hours.

Then came the fun part ... doing something with these scraps!

Our garden was bountiful at the time, so I had vegetables on the brain ...

So, here's what I did: I put a scrap on a white background.  I set up my machine as if I were going to free-motion quilt (lower the feed dogs, attach my darning foot, and change the stitch length to "0"), and then I literally drew my design over the scraps.  In the one above, I went for a set of green peas.  Below, some carrots and a radish (whose design my friend Laura helped me come up with):

So, well, maybe I got carried away.  I don't care, though.  They're just so much fun ... carrots are my particular favorite, probably because they're so distinctive.  (I confess: I tried to do a pear.  It ended up looking somewhat like a green egg.  DISCARD!)

So, a lot of them have gotten turned into pot holders.

Some became wall hangings.

Others are still waiting.

More ideas?