It’s the 15th of the month (ok it’s really the 17th but I have back dated this post, ha!) and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong run by Kate and Gun. At the end of this post I have a link to the other blogs participating in this monthly event in case you’d like to check out their ScrapHappy posts.

I’ve had a very busy summer so far and I recently returned from a trip to the Philadelphia area to visit my brother (and I spent time with one of my long time blogging buddies that some of you know…but that is a separate post coming later this week). Currently we are hosting three different sets of out of town visitors over the next 2 months. So crafting is sort of on the back burner, but I didn’t want to miss out on the monthly ScrapHappy post.

I’m in my 11th year of blogging with lots of posts in my archives. I looked through my blog category Fabric Scraps Obsession and found a couple of posts from early 2018 to share about a “Scrap Party” I had with a quilting friend, to celebrate the love of fabric scraps!

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From the Archives:

Scrap Party! (03/30/2018)

It’s no secret, especially if you’ve followed my blog for a while, that I am obsessed with fabric scraps. I won’t try to link any of my numerous previous posts on fabric scraps. If you are new to my blog, you will have to just trust me 🙂

Well one of my quilting friends, actually the one who got me into appreciating the value and opportunity for unlimited creativity provided by using fabric scraps, is coming over tomorrow for a SCRAP PARTY!

She had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and we are going to do a belated celebration by going to out to lunch and then coming back to my house and spending the afternoon playing in my fabric scrap pile:

I did not post about it (as those of you who’ve followed me for a while may have grown weary of my constantly talking about fabric scraps) but last weekend I thinned out my scrap pile. I pulled out any remaining old lower quality fabric and donated more to a local charity thrift shop.

During a previous donation, a volunteer at one of our local charity thrift shops (for our local Humane Society shelter), told me that fabric scraps sell very well at the thrift shop. They cannot keep fabric scrap bags in stock, they sell out immediately! (See there are more weird obsessed people like myself in Central Oregon).

So what are we going to do at a so called “Scrap Party”? Well I am going to dump the whole box onto a plastic tarp on the floor of my master bedroom (as not to take up precious space in my tiny studio space that we will be sharing) and let my friend go wild playing with my fabric scrap collection. She is really into improvisational piecing (she is the one who helped me move from traditional quilting to art/improvisational quilting) so fabric scraps are one of her favorite textile mediums!

I’ve set up my travel sewing machine for her in my studio so we can sew together. I have two design walls (a small one on the closet door in my studio and then the big one in the hall way) so we won’t have to battle for design wall space!

I’m not sure what she is going to work on, but I plan to work on some paper piecing. I’m trying to spend more time with my extensive (ridiculous) craft book collection and rediscovered in my craft book collection – 50 Little Paper-Pieced Blocks by Carol Doak. Playing with fabric scraps seems like a great time to work on my paper-piecing skills.

My friend is bringing over her miniature schnauzer so Mike will have a furry friend visiting.

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) made us chocolate chip cookies (to keep our sugar fueled energy level high for crafting!!!):

Of course I will share the outcomes of our Scrap Party!

Two Quilters and a Bed Full of Fabric Scraps (04/03/2018)

I know you’ve been waiting…and here is the follow up to my 03/30/18 post  Scrap Party! , where I had a special birthday celebration play-date with my fabric-scrap-loving quilting friend.

It started with this plastic bin of my fabric scraps:

Dumped onto my bed (the bed has a plastic sheet from packaging material covering it):

Before we dove into this delicious (or suspicious) pile of fabrics, first we needed to fortify ourselves:

After a few minutes of frolicking in the fabric scraps, my quilting friend pulled her initial stack and got to work on making improvisational blocks. As a challenge, in addition to access to my crazy fabric scrap collection, I assigned my friend these pieced block discards/trimmings to try and incorporate into her improvisational blocks:

During our fabric scrappy play day I thought I would also take the opportunity to practice paper-piecing (Not the fun “English Paper Piecing” type but the “flip and stitch” type of paper-piecing that I suspect is what you have to do all day in the “Underworld” if you are bad in life and go there after you die…um, I would like to choose the “fire & brimstone” instead please…).

I signed up to participate in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show’s 2018 Wish Upon A Card Fundraiser & Fabric Challenge sponsored by Robert Kaufman Fabrics. I needed to make a 4′” x 6″ fabric postcard to donate to the fundraiser, incorporating the two feature fabrics provided by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

In general I love Robert Kaufman fabrics, but I was completely underwhelmed by the fabric pieces they sent me to make the postcard:

Thank goodness my friend helped me pick out some coordinating fabric scraps for my postcard.

Here was my first (actually second, as the first was a legendary-paper-piecing-screw-up disaster) attempt at paper piecing a little house for the postcard:

Hated it!

Here is my second (okay actually third) attempt and the final version with my embellishments:

I mailed it off yesterday to Wish Upon a Card and I will not be offended if they say they “never got it in the mail” or they accidentally let it slip into the trash can – ha!

Now I bet you are curious: Did we make a dent in the pile of fabric scraps? Not really. Here is the tub of fabric scraps cleaned up from the bed and put back into the closet after my friend left:

It appears I have enough for another Fabric Scrap Party (or 200+ Scrap Parties)!

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Here are the other bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Nóilin, Viv, Karrin, Amo, Alissa,Lynn, Tierney, Hannah and Maggie