drip, drop Confetti

This month I’ve been catching my in between moments like drops of water in a jar. Drip by drip, my efforts seem small, but over time they gather themselves up into something more.

This project is suited to in between moments. The steps are easy to work in batches alongside Elora. She particularly likes dumping out my crumb scrap bins and rifling through for her favorite fabric bits. Anything with strawberries is highly prized!

Would you like to see more of my process? I start by squaring up the fabric crumbs into random rectangles or squares. I also cut long, width-of-fabric strips in my background fabric. I cut every width between 1” and 3”. They all come in handy, but I use more of the 1” and 1 1/4” than anything else.

Another time I sit at the machine and chain piece many fabric scraps to one, long background strip. I’ll let Rora hand me the fabrics she’s ready to part with and sew background fabric onto one side. After cutting to separate them from each other and pressing seams, I might sew background fabric to another random side. Or not. Variety is good.

Usually when Rora is not around, I piece them into blocks. This takes a little bit of brain power, unlike the other steps. She has a tendency to move the fabrics, which is like someone shuffling your puzzle pieces when you look the other way!

I’m cutting my blocks 8.5” square with a ruler of the same size. To compose my block, I place fabrics on the ruler in a pleasing arrangement. Next I add background fabric in ways that equalize shapes.

That’s the improv element, so it’s hard to explain. This is something you would figure out by trial and error - I did! It’s good to remember that you lose fabric to seam allowances as you sew, so you probably need wider background strips than you think.

Usually I add background fabric until I’ve created rows and then sew the rows together. This time my block turned out as a spiral that required partial seams. I added a background square in that hole at the top left, which is the center of the spiral. A little more brain power, but do-able. It’s nice to flex your piecing muscles now and then!

I had to take down my Confetti blocks earlier this week to make room for my growing Penny Sampler.  This is my progress from then. I love, love, love it! And that’s good, because I have lots more scraps where these came from. Yup.