Sew Sunshine

Our local guild had a maximalism challenge.  I wanted to play with one shape in multiple ways with bold contrast color with neutrals and bold prints. I wasn't sure one shape like the cross or plus made in a more ordered fashion could be maximalism or not but this is what I came up with. Whether it is or isn't it will be in a local art museum with other guild members entries starting next week. I love this pink color and am super happy with how it turned out. This part of that center fabric I saved just for this label and contributed to the name. 

So Project Quilting 12.6 challenge is Ab Intra -Latin for 'from within'.  Once again I wanted to combine scraps for #nationalquiltingmonth #sewthescrapoutofmarch all month long. I thought of a couple things I could do but came back to starting with my favorite color combo black and white...and use prints I had in my scrap pile. The center sort of represents me and then building bits around is kind of like building on experiences. Using scraps was perfect for that because you never know what you will run into.  I got out some cardboard and did some measurements to see what I could come up with. My diamond fits on a strip of about 5.25 so I was able to cut quite a few out of strips left over from bits of FQ's etc.  The background pieces I fine tuned after I started doing the blocks.  I grabbed a stack of scrap strips and just started sewing. Once on I trimmed them down to about an 1". Some of my scraps were wonky but for this did didn't matter since I was trimming...

So far this has been a kind of a rough year for me health-wise and now it seems it will be so much more than rough for everyone. I am going to choose to keep working on my projects when I have good days because it really does make me feel better.  I started sewing some of my black and white prints together back in Jan. I wanted mindless sewing so I made 4 big squares.  I kind of think this would have made a fun quilt as is but I decided to cut them up and sew them back together.  Add a pop of red for the backing and binding and there it is.  48" x 48"  Did it make a dent in my black and white fabric...um probably not! ha Last week for PQ 11.5 I made a quilt for the theme Give it away and I washed up my current stack to Give. 

  Yep, singing that all afternoon while I made these fun paper-pieced trees!! Now it is in your head too isn't it?  :) I started these trees after a lqg meeting late last year. I made three right away and then sat down with an old phone book and made 13 more papers to use and promptly but it all away.  Today I was inspired to get them out and make up at least the other 13. I had a system and they went together really quickly.  I highly recommend the quarter inch ruler. That was so easy to lay that down and let the lip of the quarter inch cup over my folded pieces.    Now what is this going to become? Lots of wonky pieces were trimmed off the trees and it would be fun to wonky this up a bit.....maybe.....idk.  Off to tear the papers off and will see what I dream up over night.  Love this texture so will see what  come up with. 5/31 days of blog writing challenge