Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share and a Happy International Quilting Weekend to you all! Bring along your project(s) and take part in the sharing of ideas and inspiration and more by our Worldwide Quilting Community. It’s easy to share, just link on the links below and leave an encouraging message or a helpful tip in the comments sections of the blogs you visit – the writers really appreciate receiving messages from fellow patchwork-quilters 😊

The weekend before last I was home alone and thought I’d whip up a couple of quick gifts – Ho! Ho! Maybe I was more tired than I knew or maybe I should know by now I don’t do ‘quick’? Anyhow these Emmaline Trifecta Retreat Bags worked out well but left little time for any of the other projects I’d had in mind!

This week I’ve been preparing to go on the Purple Stitches Sewcial Retreat. By ‘preparing’ I of course mean disappearing down rabbit holes and being distracted by squirrel projects! The BIG squirrel in my sewing room has been a sudden urgency to sort out fabric scraps!

My little colour sorted bins, holding pieces of fabric smaller than a quarter metre, were stuffed so full it had become a chore to look through them, knowing to secure the lid back down would take a lot of re-folding and squishing…

Scrap bins sorted, Amaryllis for scale!

I’ve worked my way through each bin removing any fabric pieces less than 5″ wide. Most of these pieces and long strips (many from trimming quilt sandwiches after quilting) have been cut into 2½” strips before being sub-cut into 2½” x 5″ rectangles or 2½” squares.

These are coming on Retreat with me. I plan to make a quilt with columns of ‘Stacked Coins’ alternating with columns of Nine Patch blocks on-point…

Any 2½” strips longer than 21″ have been stored with left-over Jelly Roll and WOF strips – that bin is now full to bursting! I’m thinking these could be the making of another Trip Around the World Quilt. Back in 2019 I shared the finishing of my first Trip Around the World quilt in a blog post and there’s a quick block making tutorial too.

I selected a few of the strips for future scrappy bindings, cutting them into 2¼” strips, and have stored them separately.

I did mange to throw some of the smallest off-cuts into the waste bin but inevitably a lot of them have ended up in my already over-flowing string scraps collection (all colour sorted!). Enough to make at least one quilt if not more…

Thankfully all that squirreling, sorting and rotary cutting has made me better able to see the wood for the trees (or the quilts for the scraps?). Having the scraps prepped, ready to be stitched into quilt tops is exciting because, well, new projects are always exciting and because I’ll be making use of lovely fabrics that were in danger of becoming more of a burden than a delight 🙂

Between sorting and cutting I’ve stitched a few lines of the Baptist Fan pattern through my Blue Rail Fence quilt – hand stitching definitely has a beneficial calming effect. At this early stage I’m not worrying too much about stitch size or consistency, just on a relaxed journey to discovering my own ‘big stitch norm’. I’m using an Aurifil 12wt 100% cotton thread – it has a pleasant silky feel and I’ve had no issues with twisting or knotting.

Stitching through the wool batting is just so easy – a real luxury experience.

Here are the links into our Worldwide Quilting Community:

Wow! Read Yvonne’s post to find out what it feels like to win a major award at Quilt Con. She was totally bowled over to win the ‘Best Machine

To see more of the quilts that hung at Quilt Con visit Leila Gardunia’s blog. She has compiled a gallery of her favourite quilts for us to scroll through. Take time to look at the colour and shape combinations of the patchwork and think about how the maker has developed quilting designs to interact with the patchwork.

Aby shares the projects she worked on during a recent sewing retreat. I’ll be well pleased if I make half as much progress during my weekend away! I do like the Quarter Log Cabin blocks – definitely one on my list – maybe an opportunity to use more of my stash along with more of my (so well organised!) scraps 😉

Carole is getting into the swing of Worldwide Quilting Day/Weekend, preparing for a local exhibition to celebrate the event, enjoying a quick make using a Jelly Roll and sharing favourite projects.

As part of Worldwide Quilting Month Melva has three of her quilt-along story quilts hanging in her local library. I really enjoyed stitching along with one of these QALs, Melva has such interesting first hand tales from history to share.

Day break on Worldwide Quilting Day – the view from my hotel room!

Saturday Morning: Well! I am the luckiest of the lucky on this Worldwide Quilting Day as I am on a quilting retreat! Staying in a hotel with 40 other quilting ladies, enjoying their company as we learn from free motion quilting expert Trudi Wood. It’s going to be a fun weekend… I’ll be needing a cooked breakfast to get things started 😋

Linking with Alycia for Finished or Not Friday.

Happy Stitching!

Allison