This is my first "crumb" block.
I pulled from the pile of scraps comparable to "bits of string too short to save."
"It's good yet! I can't throw that fabric away!"
I started with a foundation square that was about 4 inches. I didn't want anything too big for this first experimental attempt. In future, I might make it 4-1/2 or 5 inches to allow some room for trimming and squaring it up afterwards.
Then I just started laying bits of scraps on the foundation, and doing the sew and flip method until the whole block was covered. No real rhyme or reason ... Kind of like a crazy quilt block.
Here it is before trimming. Unruly and unkempt.
But I can still tell you what projects I used those strips of green in, and that orange wave ...
This could wind up being a kind of memory quilt, after all.
Here it is after trimming.
And no-- I will NOT be keeping those even smaller crumbs, trimmed off the edges.
I loved that orange wave scrap, but I never noticed the blue wave in
it. When it was a bigger chunk, I always saw the green, black and
orange in it: Never the blue!
I'm thinking this might be a nice warm-up or finishing exercise -- or even something "mindless" that I can do in the evenings after work where I can enjoy colors and shapes and not think too much about numbers or words.
1 comment:
I tried this a long time ago, except the instruction I was using did not have you sew to a foundation fabric. I can see that doing that would very helpful as I was not very taken with my results. I was dipping into a drawer of "crumbs" I thought could be used for some of the paper piecing I was doing at the time, odd shapes and strips still usable though narrower than the dimensions I'd determined for cutting up leftovers that would go in shoeboxes. Oh yes, at one time I tried to be very organized with these things and it did occasionally come in handy when I needed a few squares specific sizes for an odd block or whatever. I really don't quilt that way anymore, visions of scrap quilts that could be made from these carefully cut and stored pieces, but really, not enough to really make a decent top. I think one of the reasons my scrap management crumbs piecing didn't impress me was because of the colors available in that drawer - all rather leaning towards the neutral browns and reds of my reproduction fabric stash and the antique reproduction quilts I enjoyed making. I think yours appeal to me because of their rich cool colors and that orange zing running through some of them. It is a rather relaxing process, and I like your thinking that the blocks will be a bit of a memory quilt if ever sewn together into something. I don't think it is time wasted, that's for sure.
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