Thursday, September 19, 2019

Perpetually Playing in Purple

I know! I have a thing for alliteration, and, although it may come as a shocker, I have a thing for squirrels. So although I should be either quilting Brady's quilt, or working on my September Island Batik challenge, I chased that scrappy squirrel. I mean scrappy in both the fabric and the feisty sense, because he is hard to resist!
I showed you the start of this box in my previous post. Well, it kept enticing me, and so I caved. I had the sides done in no time, and then gave in to temptation. Before I get into the box, I want to give a reminder to everyone (including myself!! I've been rather offline of late) to check out Benita Skinner's Creative Space for the
which is on until the end of the month. Terrific tantalizing prizes are up for grabs! There is an entry at each blog post, so the more bloggers you visit, the more entries you will get. My own post is here.



All right back to the purple scraps box. Here were the nearly finished side panels. I took the photo to act as my pattern so I remembered which chunk would go where.
Yeah, it didn't work. I forgot to double-check one chunk's placement and so the sides don't quite look like they were supposed to. Not to worry; it IS a scraps box! Here's one side, my favourite, with a chunk of the Paris pale mauve I used as the lining for a makeup bag for Dayna.

I quilted it with a motif I saw on Leanne's blog this week, her latest published quilt in Make Modern, 'Pinwheel Garden'. Be sure to check it out, her post, as well as the magazine. I haven't yet downloaded it; as I said I've been mostly offline, doing the bare minimum.

As I quilted the box, I thought, 'I am sure I've done this,' but in retrospect, it may have been feathers I quilted along the spiral as opposed to petals. Regardless, it was FUN. Like Leanne, I have a profound love for scrap quilts; they evoke memories upon memories and make me smile, contemplate, revisit. They give me joy, and sometimes they bring up sadness. And that is life, right?

I am supposed to be working with my new box of Island Batik fabrics, and I do now have the final baby quilt drawn up in EQ8 (I will have a progress post shortly, I promise), but instead of using the new box of batiks, I dug through last year's for the lining for this box.
Ta-da! Aren't they glorious? I eliminated three of the side seams since I was using all one fabric for the sides.
Here is the bottom, a Laurel Burch from her horses line from at least 15 years ago. I made a quilted bag back then for a very dear friend with this fabric.
Bottoms up! Here are also the bottoms of two of the dishes, and if you look closely, some purple toe nails that got done this past week too! I thought it was fuchsia, but nope 'Crazy Violets' or some such name.
A couple of readers have left comments asking where they may obtain the pattern for these boxes, or if it was mine. It is not; Angela at so scrappy designed these. This is a squirrel, one of those that you keep chasing... and my third RSC project for 2019! Another unplanned pretty project that captured my attention and won't. Let. Go. Here is the link I've provided before for those who are no-reply and who I can't reach personally to let you know.
Scrap Sorting Box

I made this week's Tiny Tuesday block, also on Angela's blog, her different way of doing Card Trick. This way simplifies the piecing, much appreciated after Storm at Sea's 45 pieces little block!
Island Batik scraps again for the win. I love making these little blocks with them.

A squirrel of the glass kind has grabbed me again too. I've made three dishes, all different sizes. This is the second one of the most recent ones, and the smallest. It is great for a tea light, or a tiny succulent, as you see! That particular dish is the first one I made in this size.
I like to incorporate the odd shell or tiny white pebble I find at the beach within the dish from time to time.

The third dish is finishing drying as I type. You can see it below on the left with the first one I made in this batch of three. Because it's still drying, it still has the original bowl inside the beach glass that I use as a form, wrapped in plastic. I will be listing these in my Etsy shop shortly. They need a bit of dremel work to smooth them out. I use Elmer's school glue if you're curious.


A squirrel of the tomato kind grabbed me on the weekend and Monday. I'll save the photo for next Thursday's 'I Like/Love' post, but I made a batch of salsa, bruschetta, spaghetti sauce from scratch one night for supper, and froze 59 freaking pounds of tomatoes. Well not quite 59, but it felt like it.
Ah, I love this photo. Here they sit, in the basement where Avril my longarm currently resides. The plastic drawers are what holds my scraps that are around the 1/4 yard size, but less than 1/2 yard.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  by Angela of so scrappy (link above)
Size: 10X7X7"
Fabric: scraps
Lining: Island Batik scraps, and the bottom is a Laurel Burch
Batting: Warm 'n Natural scraps
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced on my Bernina with Gütermann or Mettler; quilted with YLI plum variegated 40 wt.

Another squirrel I've succumbed to this week is making more strippy pouches. More on these in another post.

The last squirrel is not really a squirrel but a reason I've not been blogging or sewing quite as much, and that is that I've been spending a lot of time outside enjoying this most glorious month of September with its low humidity, upper 20s almost 30 Celsius (upper 70s to 84F this weekend), and I've been engrossed in The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart. An excellent read, one of those good'uns that I live in all day in my head. Soaking up all the summer feels, as they say, is a good reason to be a bit behind on my Island Batik duties! 😎

Linking up
so scrappy
Confessions of A Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Storied Quilts

11 comments:

  1. I’m chuckling because I have quilt projects with deadlines looming *but* the weather is too glorious to miss. So I took my son out for supper where there’s outdoor dining and then I finished reading a novel. We’ve had so much rain that I had to soak up the sunlight. Rain tomorrow and quilting too.

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  2. Squirrels are running rampant in your quilting area from fabric scrap bags to gorgeous glass bowls.

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  3. My squirrels have been fairly quiet; maybe they all headed to your place! Love the purple scrap basket, it looks great with the others! We are heading to cooler temps this weekend, and I am looking forward to it!

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  4. Love the squirrel basket and the bowls but my favorite is your read. That Mary Stewart Series is one of my all time favorite. I think I should put it on my re-reading list. It's been cold in the morning here and I refuse to turn the heater on yet. Just more layers! Enjoy your weekend.

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  5. You have been squirrelly busy!! Such lovely patchwork projects! The bags look wonderful together. I can easily imagine the glass dishes with a tea light in them.

    -Soma

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  6. I'm having all the feels about your purple scraps! You have a glorious collection in this color, and it shows in your lovely new basket/bin thingie. I'm glad to hear that you've been enjoying the perfect late summer/early fall weather, too. We're lingering just south of the Chicago for the same reason. Too hot if we keep moving south too quickly :)

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  7. Sounds like you've been having a wonderful staycation and break from the computer (which is so hard to get away from sometimes). Love your purple scrap box. Hope you've got more stitching on tap for this weekend.

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  8. What fun you had with those PURPLE scraps!! Good for you (and your scrap stash, too.)

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  9. Thank you for linking up to TGIFF. When I saw the title of the post, I thought this is something Sandra would say :-)
    Love the fabric as well as the glass baskets.

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  10. Whew! I'm exhausted after reading everything you've been up to lately. Love the glassware -- beautiful!

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