Busy as a Bee in the Sewing Room

I’ve been happily sewing away in the New Year.  I have vowed that 2015 will be the year that I use my fabric stash and scraps to make interesting quilts for children.

This is a low-contrast top I made on New Year’s Day from fabric I’ve had for several years.  The two colorways of the floral fabric look brighter in person and I like the design called Chain Reaction from a recent Fons and Porter Magazine.

I  joined the Stashbusters Yahoo Group for more incentive to dig into that stash of mine.  My first step was to officially join their 2015 UFO Challenge … and I actually dug out a few of those UFOs and counted them and sent in my entry.  Wahoo!  That’s progress already because I know now that I have too many UFOs (well, you would have thought I’d have known that before now, wouldn’t you?).  But now they are organized and readily available for me to sew them up.  And I joined the Numbers Game whereby they draw numbers and you work on that number from your list should you choose to do so.

The first numbers drawn were 8 and 35.  My #8 was a homemade kit for a kid-size Warm Wishes design using fabric printed with tropical fish.  It was in pieces before and I sewed up the top today:

And my #35 was strips that I had cut to make Mary Johnson’s Quick Strippie.  She says it is her favorite quick donation quilt and it really is so easy that I can’t imagine why mine is still a UFO.  Anyway, I sewed the strips all together today to make this quilt top (it’s actually straight, but I didn’t take the time to straighten it out on the rug):

 

The star print and the checkerboard are actually a dark Hunter green

I have desperately wanted to get rid of that checkered fabric that makes me dizzy looking at it – what was I thinking when I bought it?!!  They have to be quilted and bound before they are considered finishes for the UFO Challenge, so I have some work to do.

I also have a new button on my sidebar, Oh Scrap, that links to a blog that will have linky parties beginning on Jan 4^th where people will share their creative ideas.    Cynthia Brunz sponsors the linkies and has a blog titled “Quilting is More Fun Than Housework” (you had me at the title, Cynthia!), also with numerous ideas for how to use those scraps.

So 2015 should be great fun in the Sewing Room!