Scraps 101: Ticker Tape Quilt {Guest Post}

Today I am so excited to welcome Mariana Galvagno from Coser Tejer Crear as my latest Guest Blogger for Scraps 101.  If you haven't visited Mariana's blog before, why not pop over and say 'Hola'!  

Hola a tod@s! Hoy es un dia especial para mi. Una amiga de blogland me ha pedido que escribiera un post especial. Sarah, de mila+cuatro, esta embaracada en una aventura de retales. Su objetivo, usar todos, absolutamente todos los restos de tela de sus proyectos. Y hoy voy a comtribuir con una idea más que puedes utilizar para darle uso a esos pequeńisimos pedacitos de tela que estan dando vueltas por tu mesa de trabajo. Si, hasta los mas pequeños, esos que miden dos centimetros o tienen una forma extremadamente irregular.

Hello everyone from all over the world! Today is a very special day for me. A blogland friend of mine, Sarah from mila+cuatro, asked me to write a guest post for her Scraps 101 Series. Her main goal? To make as many beautiful and useful things as she can with all her scraps. I hope my contribution will inspire you to make something with all the little tiny scraps lying on your sewing room. Yes, even the smallest ones, those 2cm wide ones with irregular shape.

Se llama Ticker Tape Quilt. No es una idea mia, que va! Hay muchos ejemplos en la red. Pero voy a contarles como hice el mio.
Comence a coser hace 4 años nada mas. Y mis primeros proyectos fueron hechos con ropa que a mis nanos ya no les quedaba. Principalmente muñecos de peluche. Luego vinieron los quilts. Y, como nos pasa a todas, de cada proyecto me quedaban pequeños trozos que me costaba horrores tirar. Y nos los tiraba. Y asi nacio la idea de hacer Ticker Tape Quilts.

Its called Ticker Tape Quilt.  It is not my idea, of course not! There are zillions of examples on the web. But I'm going to tell you how I made mine.
I started sewing 4 years ago and I mainly upcycled the clothes that no longer fitted my kids. I made cloth dolls and rag pets. Then came the quilts. You know what I mean when I say that it was impossible to part with the leftover scraps, don't you? They kept piling up and filling up my scrap jars. So the idea of a Ticker Tape Quilt came to mind.

Lo que necesitas:
Retales de todos los tamaños y colores. Hasta los mas pequeños sirven!
3 piezas de tela en el tamaño del quilt que quieras hacer, agregandole 1 pulgada alrededor. Estas telas se convertiran en el frente, el relleno y la trasera. Puedes reciclar toallas viejas para usar de relleno. O tambien coser guata de otros proyectos. He hecho ambas cosas y funcionan igual.

Cinta de bies. Hecha por ti misma con retales de 2,5 pulgadas de ancho cosidas entre sí o comprada. Es tu eleccion. Mide el perimetro del quilt y agregale 20 pulgadas más.
Basting Spray

    

What you need
Scraps in various sizes and colors. Even the tiny bits work!
3 pieces of fabric in the size you want your quilt to finish, plus one inch all around. These will be the Top, Batting and Backing of your quilt. You can upcycle old towels to use as batting, or sew batting leftovers. I've done both and they work wonderfully.
Binding. Home made with 2.5 inches wide scraps or store bought. Your choice. Measure the perimeter of your quilt and add 20 inches to that number.
Basting Spray

Manos a la obra!
Haz el sandwich para el quilt pegando o juntando las tres telas.
Comenzando por el extremo superior izquierdo, cose el primer retal de tela; aquí tenemos dos opciones: la primera es usar una puntada zig-zag y la segunda es usar una puntada recta. Si usamos la puntada recta es una buena idea tener a mano Frey Check, un producto para evitar que se deshilachen los retales. Asegurate de que no se han movido las capas del tu sandwich. Yo uso el mismo hilo para todo el proyecto. Y generalmente elijo un color contrastante.

Continua agregando pequeñas piezas, de izquierda a derecha en la primera fila y de derecha a izquierda en la siguiente fila. Esta es una opcion.
Tambien puedes empezar por los bordes y luego ir llenando el espacio del medio. Lo importante es que te diviertas y uses todos los retales, hasta los mas irregulares y raros.

    

    

Get to work!

Make your quilt sandwich by spray basting the layers.
Start on the upper left corner of your quilt and sew the first scrap onto it. You can either use a zig-zag stitch or a straight stitch. If using straight stitch, make sure you have Frey Check handy, to avoid those tiny pieces to frey with time. Make sure there is no shifting in the layers. I often use a contrasting thread but thats just me.
Keep on sewing your scraps from left to right in the first row, right to left in the second row. This is just an option.
You can also start on the borders and fill up the middle.
Whats important is that you have fun and use up all your scraps, even the odd shaped ones.

 

Una vez que hayas acabado de llenar todos los espacios solo te queda agregar el bies y ya puedes disfrutar de tu Ticker Tape Quilt. Y esta técnica es genial para hacer cartas!

Once youve filled up all your quilt space you are ready to bind it. And you can enjoy your Ticker Tape Quilt. Also, this same technique works great to make cards!

 

Gracias Sarah por permitirme compartir esta experiencia con todos. Nos vemos en Blogland!

Thank you, Sarah, for letting me share my experience with you all. See you in Blogland!

Thank you so much, Mariana!  Mariana also has another great scrappy project on her blog - Fabric Postcards, check them out here!

Linking up to:
Anything Goes Monday
Sew Cute Tuesday
Fabric Tuesday

Friday Finish: Wonky Pods (TGIFF)

Hello!  This week I'm hosting TGIFF, so if you're here because of that then thank you so much for stopping by.

This week I'm sharing a special finish with you - a quilt for my youngest daughter, who will soon be moving into a big girl bed.  The quilt is my own design and was heavily inspired by some of Elizabeth Hartman's work, in particular this quilt. 

I love that it's a girl's pink quilt, without actually being overly pink.

The blocks are made using a wonky cut layout I came up with last year, after playing around with a charm pack.  At the time, I knew I wanted to float them randomly across a quilt top.

I wanted something with a lot of negative space that I could meander over, I have wanted to FMQ an allover meandering pattern for a little while now, and I am really pleased with the result.

Meandering detail

 

The back is a vintage sheet.  The batting and binding fabric were purchased specifically for this project, everything else came from my stash.

QUILT STATS:
Finished Size: 56" x 85"
Pattern: Wonky Pods - available in my Craftsy store
Fabric: a "curated" charm pack from my stash, Moda Bella Azalea for the pod borders, Moda Bella Ivory for the background.
Backing: vintage sheet (100% cotton) from my collection
Binding: Michael Miller Ta Dot
Pieced and Quilted: By me, on my domestic sewing machine- my first time FMQ meandering!

Thanks again for stopping by, now why not link up your own finishes?  I will also be linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Sew Cute Tuesday and Fabric Tuesday.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday Stash: There were tears (and a GIVEAWAY)

Welcome Glitterati!

I'm so honoured to be hosting Sunday Stash for Ms Sparkles this week.  I've decorated the blog header especially for it - what do you think? 

This week I'm sharing my stash of Charley Harper from Birch.  When this arrived in the post, there were tears - I had hayfever at the time and my eyes were streaming but, you know, it could just as well have been because of the fabric too, it's so beautiful.  I have cut into this already and am part way making through a quilt for Pepper-Mae (my youngest).

Most of my Charley Harper stash came from the lovely Lela at Cedar House Fabrics, have you browsed through Lela's fabric lately?  Some lucky person will be able to buy some of that beautiful organic fabric for themselves soon!  As part of my Sunday Stash hostess duties I'm having a giveaway - everyone who leaves a comment here will go in the draw to win a $20 Cedar House Fabrics gift certificate.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment here letting me know how the weather is in your part of the world.  The giveaway is open to anyone who leaves a comment, regardless of where you live and regardless of what the weather is like in your neck of the woods.  You'll also get an extra entry for linking up to this edition of Sunday Stash.  The giveaway is open until Thursday 5pm (NZ time).

Here's the rules, as decreed by Ms Sparkles:

Scraps 101 - Be Scrap-ful! (with Serena from Sewgiving)

Hello everyone!  I'm Serena from Sewgiving and I have a confession to make ...

Recently I was contacted by Sarah to see if I would like to contribute to her Scraps 101 Challenge.  I said "Yes" immediately and then sat back and thought to myself - oops I don't have any scraps.  You see, when I finish a project, I, Serena of Sewgiving THROW MY SCRAPS OUT - uuuuuuugh! sharp intake of air from the ENTIRE quilting community.  That's right, this little girl from nothing has grown into a wasteful creature.  I don't like clutter and, well, to me scraps are clutter.  But from reading everyone's blogs I can see that whilst they are the most common cause of storage issues, they are also little rough diamonds just waiting to be polished up and played with.

I usually only buy enough fabric for the job at hand and I.DON'T.HAVE.A.STASH ... are you still with me or have you fainted?

The only scraps or cut-offs that I do keep are the little triangles that are the result of when you trim your binding pieces after joining the strips.  I was hoping to make my future grandchild a baby quilt out of them.  It's going to take a lot of saving, but with daughter's only aged 2 and 3, I've got plenty of time to save!

So without further ado (and because I have no other scraps to speak of) I shall dive into my treasured lot of triangles and prettify my new daggy 2014 diary ... ugly, isn't it?!

I started by pairing solid and patterned triangles together to see how big (or teeny, weeny small!) they would end up.

Then I measured my diary to see how many I would need to sew together to cover the diary.
I added a seam allowance of 1/4" to the final measurements and figured that I would need to add a small strip of fabric to the bottom to round things up.

I have a few layer cake pieces of Aneela Hoey's Posy range left from a recent baby quilt make, so I used these to make the final pieces of the cover.  You see, I'm getting the hang of this scrap business already!

I needed two pockets on the inside of the diary cover for the diary to slip into.  To one side of each pocket I folded and ironed 1/4" twice then top stitched for a neat finish.

I cut a piece of the text print, for the lining, to match the size of the HST front panel.

Now the diary cover needed a bit of substance added to it, so I used a bit of quilt wadding left over from my last quilt (I'm feeling more thrifty by the minute!) and quilted the front HST panel.

After trimming up my newly quilted front panel, I sewed the stripe pockets to the text lining (wrong side of stripe fabric to right side of text fabric) to complete the inside panel.

I then sewed the two panels together (right sides together) leaving a small opening at the bottom so that I could turn it out.

I then pinned and ironed the opening closed and top stitched to finish.

And there we have it.  One scrap-o-licious diary cover for 2014!

Scraps 101 has been such a wonderful series to follow so far and I'm pleased that I've been able to contribute a little to it.  If anything, it has taught me to be more aware of what little pieces of treasure I could be throwing out ... I shall be more grateful or scrap-ful in future!

Thanks for having me Sarah!

Serena xx

Thank you so much, Serena!  If you've never visited Serena's blog then now is the perfect time to pop over and say hello because she's having a GIVEAWAY!  Woohoo, who doesn't love giveaways?

I am simply astounded that there is someone in the quilting world who throws away their scraps!  Does anyone else throw them away?

Linking up to:

Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts
TGIFF hosted this week at Quilty Habit
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?
Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest

Scraps 101: Organization & Storage with Sarah from Sarah Quilts

Hi! I'm Sarah from Sarah Quilts and I am so pleased to be a guest at mila+cuatro today as part of Scraps 101.

It takes time to acquire an interesting and diverse collection of scraps. You can cheat a little and buy scrap bags, but nothing beats an assortment of small cherished pieces of all your favorite fabrics from years of quilting.

I'm not quite there yet but I am to the point now that I need a system for organization. So when Sarah asked me to do a guest post for her series I knew right away that I wanted to talk about organization and storage, if only to give me an excuse to address mine!

First I needed some baskets. I thought 8 was probably the maximum number of shelves I wanted to devote to scrap storage and also the maximum number of baskets I would be willing to make.

I used the Noodle-head divided basket pattern but I made a few changes. I left off some of the details that I knew wouldn't be useful for this purpose (primarily the divider and the pocket) and I made it 4 inches taller. When I did my first test basket it looked like there might not be enough structure for the basket to stand so tall, but once it was all sewn together it stands just fine. They do hang open pretty wide (possibly because I left out the dividers) but that doesn't bother me.

I pondered for quite a while how I wanted to sort them. I wasn't sure I wanted to sort them by color because I don't often go looking for scraps just based on color. In the end I decided to try sorting by color for now and see how it goes. I'm starting with these 8 categories:

• Low volume
• Blue-aqua
• Green
• Yellow-orange
• Red-pink-purple
• Gray-black
• Strings
• Multi-color scraps

I pinned a scrap to the outside of each basket to identify the contents. I have seen some quilters actually construct the baskets themselves from the color of the scraps they contain, which is a pretty cool idea. I decided not to go that route because I wanted to base the colors of my baskets on the decor of my sewing room. It also gives me the flexibility to decide to change the categories if they aren't working for me.

I used a cool Kokka print I had in my stash. I only had a half yard so I used other prints for the backs. I can always turn them around if I tire of them.

If you're interested in seeing the rest of my sewing room, I've posted a full rundown on my blog today. Spoiler alert: fabric shelf!

Linking up with Crazy Mom!

Rolly

This is Rolly, my pet owl.  Rolly was inspired by this post from one of my all time favourite blogs El Hada de Papel.  As you can no doubt tell, Rolly is incredibly excited - today he is a guest over at On the Windy Side, Adrianne's lovely blog.  Check it out!