Fabric Fast Experiment #1: The Problem Prints Quilt.

I am having serious.fabricshopping.withdrawals. I am now very close to half way through my year long {new} fabric fast, and I'm wishing I allowed myself a little break at the 6 month mark. Sigh.

So last week I set myself 3 challenges. I want to make a serious dent in:

• The 'too hard to sort' scrap bucket (multicoloured scraps)
• The pink bucket (I never, ever bought pink fabric before making girls clothes. Now it's my most copious scrap.)
• The overflowing cupboard of scrap batting/wadding.  

And somewhere along the line I was going to stop and write about them and show you my processes, but instead I've been on a wild, quilting, hormone induced frenzy. (Not the fun nesting kind, but the disappointing 'that time of month' kind.)

So here instead, I present to you a quilt I'm beside myself excited about. This is my collection (or about a quarter! It takes a lot of quilts to empty a scrap bucket!) of my 'too hard to sort' scraps. They have big prints, lots of colours, and some of them are loud and clashy. I do like loud and clashy, I just always seem to put them aside these days for flatter alternatives.

For this quilt I basically only set one colour limit - no grey. And I made sure I included my brown background prints to create some variation in value (and because I never use those either.) I chose 2.5" squares because I wanted to see the prints all broken up, and I thought bigger or more irregular pieces would look too much like mud. And then there's the reason that all my scraps are left over from necks and armholes. Much easier to cut little squares than charms! I also used the opportunity to throw in a stack of scraps won in giveaways which aren't really my style, but fit in well here.

And Hurray! It works, don't you think? While I still feel like scrolling through a screen of new fabrics, it does make me feel like I really can use anything in my stash, even if I regret buying it now, or I thought it would only work for clothing. And look at those apples on the back. Aren't they perfect?! Here I was trying to use them for pinafores and not really liking it, but it's been waiting all this time for a quilt like this.

Driving into the city to this park today, I was reminded of all the beautiful places in this city for taking photos. So that's my other challenge for the year: no more next door neighbour's grey house! It is SO convenient, but not nearly as interesting.

I used zig-zag stitch-in-the-ditch to sew on my binding again. A kind of mix between Rachel's and more traditional machine binding. I'm sold!

Well, I have to say, I'm not completely cured of my addiction. I do love the whole process of making a quilt, including the fabric buying. But I'm trusting like anything it will come and go. And I'm leaving ample hints for Tim for my birthday coming up in August. (That's not included, right?!)

This quilt is now available here.