Hey Everyone, welcome back to Stitch Along Sunday.
Well, it has been quite some time since I participated in a Stitch Along Sunday. Ruth from Arbee Designs as decided to start them up again and I figured there is no better time to jump back in and be creative.
The great thing about a stitch along project is that it is small – usually the size of a standard piece of paper but I often tend to make mine bigger (11 x 14 or 11 x 17), gets the creative juices flowing, lets you try out new and different techniques and it is finished by the end of the month. No unwanted UFO’s sitting in the studio waiting for your attention. Believe you and me I have enough UFO’s vying for my attention that I don’t need another one.
This week’s rules/instructions can be found on Ruth’s blog – March week 1 instructions.
Gathering up the neutral fabrics was quite easy as I had actually had many of them out for another project this week that I am in the thick of making. They didn’t get used for it but are perfect for this month’s stitch along.
Selection of neutral fabrics ranging from black to almost white
But then I reread the instructions and Ruth had suggested that we try and use up scraps. My scrap bin isn’t very full as I tend to give away my scraps when the bin becomes overflowing because I don’t do many scrap quilts and figure my scraps are treasure to someone else and can be put to good use rather than sitting around my studio.
Anyway I went back to my cupboard with my neutral fabrics and found a whole bunch of small pieces of neutrals that I had cut up for some other project. I’ve made a run of fabrics with them and now to decide if I want to cut up the yardage or use the scraps.
Second set of neutral fabrics selected from a pseudo set of scraps
Now I have a dilemma. Which neutral selection do I like better?
The contrasting fabric is a little more difficult to choose as I have 4 cupboards of contrasting fabrics – narrowing it down was fairly easy when I opened one cupboard and saw these 3 fabrics just sitting there. I’ve had them for quite a while and have only used a tiny bit of one in my Dandelion Puffs quilt.
Three contenders for the contrasting fabric
Which colour should I use? I think all 3 are fabulous. I am leaning towards the lime one but you never know my choice could change by next week or maybe I should use all 3. With not knowing how they are going to be used or what the next set of instructions are going to be it does make the choice a bit more difficult.
The scrap neutrals with the lime fabric
Then I did dive into my scrap bin and came out with this fabric for the contrasting fabric. Notice it is lime too! I think I am really wishing for the green of spring to appear. It was – 20 here this morning.
Another contrasting fabric to select from
Moving on; the rules say to cut the fabrics up into pieces without using a ruler – free form cutting with the rotary cutter. If you have never tried this it is a lot of fun. The cuts can be straight or curved. I went with straight edge cuts rather than curved.
Black fabric cut in free form method
Here are my neutral fabrics all cut up in different shapes and sizes.
All the neutrals cut into free form shapes
I’ve decided to wait until next week to choose which contrasting fabric I will use as I want to see what the instructions are and choose the best one. Is that cheating?
Feel free to join in the stitch along and I’ll see you next week for the second week of the March 2017 Stitch Along Sunday.
Happy Quilting!
