Something surprising... and, I got to play!

     This week I did something I never thought I would do! Actually, it was more that I DIDN'T do something... When I get the application in the mail for the UAF Women's bazaar, I usually fill it out and get it immediately to the nearest post office. But even before the bazaar last fall, both my husband and I (he carves wooden spoons and things if you are new!) had decided that bazaars mostly don't fit into our plans anymore. I will probably still do the Raven Art Show, and maybe a smaller one here and there, but I can no longer afford the three months it takes me to get ready for bazaar season. I have too many other fun things going on! So while it was a hard decision, we're both still confident that it's the right one. 
    For now, the only place I'm selling finished quilted cards is the Quilt Tree in Anchorage.  They ordered some more this week, which was good timing, because as usual I didn't have enough in stock and had to make some. That's fun for a day, but it was a good reminder that I don't want to do 50 of those days 😂😅
     I challenged myself to use only scraps, and mostly only scraps from collage quilts, which are really accumulating... I started with one bin, now two are stuffed full. I made 13 cards today, all collage backgrounds, and didn't make a dent! I did do a couple of cool new things though, so I'm going to show you those, then scroll to the end to see them all! 

     All of the cards I made started like this... random pieces laid on batting, with interfacing for the backing. (which is my process for most things I do, sometimes muslin instead of interfacing.) Then I covered them with netting, and quilted it all together. But for this one, before I put the netting on, I covered the scraps with a bunch of thread I had saved, probably after a class when all of my threads were all tangled up😂 

    Remember the messy middle from last week's newsletter? This is it 😂 It doesn't look too promising, right? Before I get to the final photo of this one, I'll show you my second unusual technique (and tell you what I SHOULD have done 😛😅)
    I wanted birch trees for a few of them, but I thought it would be fun to collage those too. So I took strips of fusible web and covered them with scraps. I then had to tack down all of the overlapping pieces, so I should have just put fusible web on the scraps to start with. I could have fused them together on the pressing sheet, and then peeled the chunk off and cut out trees after it cooled. But this still worked ok. I saw someone this week do a similar technique, (@busy_quilting on IG!) but she had traced her design onto parchment paper, fused the scraps to that, and then she could cut it out from the back where she could see her line on the parchment paper. Brilliant! 
     I had planned to have my trees go all the way across the card, but they were a bit short. So I rounded the bottoms and moved them up a bit. Problem solved! 

     Ok, here are all of the cards. They are such a great way to try a design, color scheme or technique. I hadn't made any in awhile, so it was fun. It's pretty easy to spot the birch trees and the crazy thread, but they look better now! Even the moose screen prints were kind of scraps, as they all had imperfect feet so I didn't want to put them in kits, but I knew stitching some willows would fix that! The bindings were all from the leftover binding bin. I hope you are taking time to play too! Happy sewing, Beret