How did they begin? …

by EQI Member: Robyn R.

I seemed to have collected an odd pile of weirdly sized, or chaotic shaped cut-offs of ‘ugly’ fabrics - goodness knows what I was thinking when I acquired them! Why did they stay in the scrap pile instead of the discard bin? Looking back, they were ‘of their time’, so I guess that’s why they stayed in the pile.

Who could have predicted their purpose was to be a pandemic lockdown activity!

My Sister-in-Law had made a quilt using a new tool we saw Marie Lee using, at a Geelong Patchworkers and Quilters Guild Exhibition, to make ‘Very Snuggly’ quilts. Now I’m not a quilter of ‘dinky’ pieces, so my adamant preference was for the bigger size. Unbeknownst to me, S-i-L tracked down the new ‘must-have’ ruler and made a quilt!

When visiting, my admiration prompted a lend - but it’s the ‘dinky’ size I say, and she keeps reminding me, “Never say never!”

So the ‘Creative Grids Pineapple Trim Mini-Tool’ is being put to use! Not enough coordinated fabrics for a …  - but that’s another story! Out came those scraps, and the cutting began. All is needed is about a fat-eighth, or a tad more enabling 2 x 3″ squares to be cut, along with a heap of 1.25″ strips.

Rummaging - again - in the scraps, pairing up two fabrics that could sort of harmonise together when cut up into dinky bits, with enough to make two blocks of each fabric. Okay, got that bit worked out - filled in a few days. You saw the result in this post …

Now that a few have been worked on as ‘leaders and enders’, it’s ‘Oh well, suppose I’d better figure out what to do with them’. A ‘light bulb’ solution - make a big block! Sash the little blocks with - wait for it, more scrap fabric. Now, there’s a ‘sort of purpose’ to the stitching!

More sashing, later on, will pull the whole quilt together - hopefully. So here’s the start of a series of big blocks made from ‘dinky’ bits, and I must say it’s very therapeutic!