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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Feeling Scrappy

My rag rugs have gone a long way to lessen the amount of quilting cotton stashed away in my sewing room.


But just how small is too small when it comes to useful scraps?


Well, I now have an excuse to keep tiny pieces of cotton . . . a paper pieced quilt top!


Most of these fabrics were used to make dresses over the years, then my rag rug, and now, a hexie quilt.


This is going to be very time consuming, but so far, I am really enjoying the process.


It's the perfect excuse for tiny hand stitches - my favorite!


I have been using Gutermann quilting thread.  It's coated specifically for hand sewing to help keep tangles and knots at bay, and it is considerably stronger than a standard machine thread.


There is a lot of paper cutting, wrapping fabric scraps around tiny paper pieces, and miles and miles of hand sewing left, but I am looking forward to it!!



5 comments:

  1. This is looking very interesting, I have a HUGE collection of men's neckties and was wondering if this is a project that I would be able to use them for; what do you think?

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    1. I am no expert, but I think silk would work with paper piecing. Not sure about the laundering process for a silk quilt, but I think it would be beautiful. And I know crazy quilts often use silk scraps . . .

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    2. Thanks for your feedback, I have nothing to lose since all these ties are just collecting dust, I think I will give it a try with a couple of them and see where is goes from there.

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  2. As always, your stitching skills are impressive (actually I am jealous as my hand stitching skills are just barely basic) and you have an amazing ability to harmoniously mix colors & patterns. Maybe I'm overlooking the obvious, but I have questions so I hope you will give us some additional info: what do you plan to do with this paper pieced quilt top? how big will it be? if the paper remains in the piece, how do you clean the quilt?

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    1. The idea is to quilt this at some point in the future (quilt top, plus batting, plus backing). And I am hoping to have enough of my colors for a full/queen sized quilt.

      The paper pieces pop right out. I am leaving them in for now, but they will come out before I doing any of the actual quilting!

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