Sent with Love

So, I actually wrote this post yesterday, but Blogger and I got into a fight, and guess what...Blogger won!  So, this post is a day late and possibly a dollar short...but I'll leave that up to you to decide...

Woohoo!!  I got my postage stamp quilt pieced!  Well, I'm still deciding on borders, but I got the top pieced!!  Everyone that participated said how easy it was and how quickly it went together.  Deciding to use scraps really cut into that quick part.  Measuring out different lengths of scraps and cutting them at a 2 1/2 inch width and then piecing all of those different lengths took awhile.  The only yardage I used was a little white cotton sateen I had left over from an Easter dress a few years back.  Everything in this quilt is a scrap that came from my previous sewing projects or from my great-grandmother who passed away in 2004.  Many of her scraps were given to me as I'm the only family member who sews much.  And I can tell you where each piece of fabric is from, either what I made with it, or that it's from her.  But I will say, that even with the extra cutting and measuring the scraps instead of using jelly roll strips, this pattern was super easy.  The hardest part was keeping track of how many pieces I'd made and how many I still needed!

Excuse the lighting.  There's no sun in sight and I had to make do with my bedroom floor...

  I'm thinking of labeling this one as Sent with Love since it's a postage stamp quilt and the fabrics are all from things my "Mamo" and I made with love.  I haven't decided.  If you have a better suggestion, let me know.  It'll probably come to me right before I fall asleep one night...that's how it usually goes for me.  I am happy with this one.  There are definitely seams that don't line up and a few places where I got off a quarter inch, but I'm not bothered.  I'm hoping some dense free-motion will fill some of that in anyway.  I showed it to Chris last night and he said "It looks like something that would be on a bed in Mamo's house."  I laughed because I thought the same thing.  I purposefully kept it very scrappy with no intentional design as far as colors go.  I did try to make sure matching fabrics didn't touch, but I saw it happened a few times and I'm okay with that.  So this one won't win any awards for design, but it will keep us all very warm once completed and I like that it looks like something my very talented grandmother would have made.  The fabrics are partly hers, anyway, right?

A view from the other end...pretty scrappy, huh?

I'm considering a royal blue for the border and possibly backing.  I've got yardage in a Kona blue that I used on another project.  Chris thought it should have a red border (and I initially agreed), but I don't have enough of any one red and since the whole patchwork part is scraps, I hate to go buy fabric for the border and backing if I can avoid it.  Any ideas?  When you've got every color under the sun, how do you decide on one for border strips?  But I agree with Chris that a simple border will help frame in the madness of this one.  And I believe the binding will be scrappy.  Why not?  I've got extra strips cut that I didn't use, so why not use them here to finish it off.

I'm entering this one in Rachel's flickr group for the quilt-a-long.  I got done a little late, but she extended the deadline, so I'm entering it today.  It's a perfect day for sewing.  It's raining cats and dogs.  All we are getting from this blizzard that's hitting the country is a torrential downpour.  Bad enough, but after seeing what the rest of the country got hit with, I'll take some rain any day!  For those up north, stay warm and for those down here in FL, stay dry!  How about this--for everyone--stay inside as much as you can today and let's all hope that groundhog was right...I'm ready for some spring!