The Thing About Scrap Quilts

Is that by definition they involve lots of scraps -- or pieces. That is the good thing about them of course. But it does have it's down side. Lots and lots of sewing and sorting until you get to the good part -- seeing what the blocks, and then the quilt, looks like. And for a scrap quilt that is really, really the best part I think. Especially on this one since I decided to use lots of my older and just flat ugly fabrics.

You know I wonder how I got these ugly fabrics. I am not a frequent buyer of kits or bundles, although I recognize some of these as being parts of bundles from Connecting Threads long ago. I used to buy some of their fat quarter bundles that came with instructions on making small quilts and table toppers. Since they started making and promoting only their own fabrics I have just not seen anything I like well enough to buy.

I also recognize a few of these as coming from a pound of strips I bought one time from The Cotton Club. They are located in my city and used to be open once a month for First Thursday and since I could look at what the pound contained I bought one from time to time. I liked to buy things there because most of their fabrics were out of my comfort zone. So it makes sense that some of the "ounces" would not be to my liking.

And then again, I recognize some as being left overs from making quilts as gifts. But none of these explanations seems to be adequate to the quantity of ugly fabrics I seem to have acquired.

It's just a mystery, I guess!
I started in on this quilt because, 1) I fell in love with the picture on the cover of the magazine, and 2) because I was tired of making a bazillion half square triangles on the Miss Rosie's quilt I had been working on. BUT... this Miss Rosie's quilt requires -- wait for it -- a bazillion half square triangles. Just look at this stack ready to be pressed! Oh, well, these are bigger. And they are finished, too. Once sorted out and matched to 4 square blocks the quilt will start to take shape.

Yes, I said matched. Not just because this quilt calls for the lights in the 4 squares to be matched to the lights in the half square triangles, but because no matter how scrappy, I cannot resist doing at least some coordinating. I have tried the paper bag technique to stop myself from doing this but with little success. Cannot deal with totally random -- must have controlled random. That's just the way it is.

To change the subject, as promised, here is the watermelon display. I think the new watermelon table topper looks nice with it but am not so pleased with the entire thing. I think I am ready for something simpler and less cluttered. So this will not stay up for long.

Here a couple of favoured items in the display. I love the watermelon basket picture in its red frame. And the round watermelon bowl. The crow is painted both front and back. All came from the thrift store and I really wonder why someone made the crow reversible. That too will remain a mystery.