Scrappiness IS Happiness!

I am a wee bit late posting about this really cool quilt-a-long. Lori Holt wrote a fantastic book about using your scraps to make amazing and fun quilts. Scrappiness is Happiness is a must buy - I truly wish to make everything in this book! AND, Lori and the Fat Quarter Shop, along with a few other quilt designers, are doing a QAL (quilt-a-long) so we get to make one of every block. SO COOL!

Scrappiness is Happiness by Lori Holt

In this post I introduced you to my talented friend Pat Sloan, who is also sewing along with this QAL. So I started with Pat and her amazing quilting group back on October 2022 making one block a week from this book.

This is the only QAL I have kept up with! With everything happening in my world right now, I really need the calm of sewing and have been carving out time here and there to make these blocks. And I am SEW glad I have!

The layout for this QAL is online at the Jolly Jabber blog by Fat Quarter Shop. In the images of my blocks below, you'll see I have already started to add some sashing. Pat runs a lot of QALs and always suggests if we can begin to sew the blocks together AS WE WORK ALONG then it won't be such a daunting process at the end. You reach the last block, and voilà! Your quilt top is nearly assembled. Genius.

I am using a variety of Lori Holt fabrics by Riley Blake. Most are not available any longer, but any of her lines can be used to achieve a similar look:

Stitch Fat Quarter Bundle by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs

Cook Book Fat Quarter Bundle by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs

Granny Chic Fat Quarter Bundle by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs

Having some of Lori's Bee Backgrounds to use will help your fat quarter bundle go farther. I found these at the Fat Quarter Shop:

Bee Plaids Backgrounds Fat Quarter Bundle

Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs

Vintage Kite Bee Backgrounds Fat Quarter Bundle

Curated by Fat Quarter Shop

Or, if you have a stash of scraps, or another fat quarter bundle that you've been waiting for just the perfect project, maybe you've just found it! The beauty about this QAL is that you can start anytime. Lori is also posting YouTube video tutorials on many of the blocks. Lori also has a wonderful you should check out. On Bee in My Bonnet, she always has a QAL going. All of this information will not go away - it's out there waiting for you when you are ready to jump in. How cool is that? (But start now, because it's sew much fun!)

Oh, and I am keeping everything for this project together in one of these 12x12 ArtBin storage boxes:

Will you join me? Tell me in the comments!

(Here is a referral link to Fat Quarter Shop for new customers so you and I both receive $10 off your first $50 purchase! CLICK HERE )

Yummy fabric

Just opened a fat quarter pack of Origins by Basic Grey for Moda. I’ve had it in my stash for a while (got it at an absolutely incredible sale). Konda over at Moose on the Porch Quilts asked me to be a designer in her new Fat Quarter Starts Quilt Along, and I just knew I had to break into this fat quarter pack for it!

Sew today, I am working on my block for the QAL…shhhh, it’s a well-kept secret, considering I haven’t even sewn it up yet – ha! My block is the 2nd block in the QAL and is scheduled to come out October 11. The quilt along starts on September 27 and new blocks are introduced every other week. Plus, there will be PRIZES!

After I make up my QAL block, I have to get back to job hunting and packing for my daughter’s weekend camping trip with the girl scouts. Last year’s camping trip was really wonderful. This year the forecast is for rain, but I’m sure we’ll still really enjoy ourselves.

What are you doing this weekend? Sewing? Scrapbooking? Playing with the family? Whatever it is, I hope you put yourself completely into it and have a super fun time!

To buy or not to buy…

…Well, it didn’t take me long to answer that question! I found myself in my LQS yesterday with two children that were quiet (one was napping in his stroller, the other playing with legos the store had in their kid corner). I was there to pick up the December month of a BOM program, one for which I’d already pre-paid. Tho’t I’d run in and out, no money leaving my pocketbook and then I saw it.

And I had to have it. I told myself, “It’ll match the fabric you resurrected from 1996. Yup, that fabric you’re using in a bi-weekly block program, and that you’re worried about running out of…really, this is only to help you finish that project.”

Yeah, I don’t think so. That was a pretty lame excuse – the colors are not even close! I just wanted needed to come home with this beautiful layer cake.

And so I did.

And it’s all mine {silly grin}.