Shoo Fly blocks

My One Monthly Goal for July was to add 4-patches to my L&E challenge Shoo Fly blocks, and I was madly making 4-patches until my drawer of 2.5" strips was empty. Then I tried the layout:

all my 4-patches, and less than half my shoo flies.

I found that the 4-patches were overwhelming the shoo flies, and much too cumbersome. More importantly, this was missing the real target: to use all the shoo fly blocks.

Rethink.

Move the goalposts!

Keep it on point.

Add 1.5" sashing with neutral cornerstones

More work but much more satisfying. And so it continued until 61 of the 64 shoo fly blocks were included.

After adding the setting triangles my goal has been achieved.

I still have to trim the setting triangles and then I think I'll add a border, even though I'm not really a border person.

Measurments: 45" (114.5 cm) square

Fabrics: sashing and setting triangles: "Basic Twist" by Stoffafabrics; the rest from scraps.

fun owl donated by a fellow member of the Double Dutch Bee in Leiden.

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Stay safe and keep healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Dark blue Scrap Snap

This month's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is dark blue. No Beads blocks this month, I'm afraid, but here are my Scrap Snap quilt blocks.

These blocks work very well as Leaders and Enders, so as I needed more L&Es I cut dark green fabric and made May's blocks as well,

while I was sewing the blocks for the Sugaridoo Bernina QAL row 8 (this link is to the Dutch version of the blog, but if you click on the tab "taal" at the top right of the page you can go to the English and German versions of the post.) :

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Be safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Shoo Fly Leaders and Enders: a new goal

About a year ago Bonnie Hunter suggested making Shoo Fly blocks as leaders and enders. I've never been very successful with the L& E challenge, because

1. I can't stop what I'm working on to cut more pieces for the L & E
2. With chain piecing I use the pieces I'm working on as L & E

This year, however, I have sixty-four 4.5" blocks.

That's considerably more than I've made in the past. For a few weeks I've been thinking how I would lay them out, with which block would I combine them. While various ideas occurred, most would involve buying more fabric, while the object is too use scraps. Yesterday I saw the answer - not in my imagination, but in Bonnie Hunter's blog post! Shamelessly I'm copying her and combining the Shoo Fly blocks with 4.5" 4-patches. Yesterday I cut up almost my entire draw-full of 2.5" strips into 5" and 7.5" strips, and found a few 2.5" squares along the way.

My goal for July is to convert these strips into 4-patches and to make a top, which should measure around 50" square. A reasonable size for a lap quilt I think.

In case you're wondering what happened to the wonky log cabin table runner: yesterday evening at the bee I started hand quilting it! I think it will be finished ....

in a year's time!

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Happy Sewing

Marly.