a little bit at a time

Last Friday I saw a post on Crazy Mom Quilts blog about a rag rug she had just finished by knitting together scraps. My daughter has been wanting a different rug in her room but I don't knit, so I did a quick search and found a crocheted version on the same blog. I haven't crocheted much since I started making quilts, but figured I could give it a try. She recommended a P size crochet hook. I only had an N and decided I would try to make it work. It seemed to be fine as long as I cut the scrap strips at around 1" wide. I quickly made one pass through all of my scrap bins and got started. After cutting the strips, I sewed them end to end then wound them in a ball. The next day my daughter helped me make a second ball of fabric yarn. It was taking a LOT of scraps to make a decent sized rug.

Thankfully I had some waiting time on Saturday to sit and work for a bit, and a road trip on Sunday (as the passenger) to get most of it finished. I finished it up in time for my daughter's return from the grandparents earlier this week. I love making something with tons of scraps and such a quick turn around!

I still have trouble keeping the rows even. I got much better with that when I crocheted a lot three years ago, but this one definitely looks a bit wonky around the edges. BUT it is rainbow colored and that makes up for a lot.

I have spent most of my free time this week getting last minute items ready for a garage sale, but did work a bit on some other projects. I started some hand stitching on this quilt. It took awhile to figure out where to buy the perle thread, but was able to find the red and navy locally. The rest that will coordinate (I hope) with the other stars should arrive in the mail tomorrow.

My mom showed me a stack of embroidered flower panels she found in her mother's things, and asked me if I wanted to design a quilt for her with them. Each panel is 9" square. I spent some time this week looking through some of my books and fabric for some ideas.

While I was digging through all of my scraps, I found a lot of the "low volume" strips from backings I had cut off of the edges of quilts after they had been quilted. I pinned them up on the flannel boards. Yesterday I realized I had pinned them up on top of the fabric for a quilt I really wanted to start, so I started sewing these together. 

 

Once I get them together and see what I have, I'll decide if it is going to be this strippy kind of baby quilt that it looks like now, or turn it into something else. Mostly though it needs to get sewn together and out of the way.

A little bit at a time and I'll have another finish or two for next week!