While I am traveling on a road trip to Yellowstone National Park with my hubby and son, I have once again set up the Backseat Sewing Studio which really is a nice way to travel. I decided my Create On the Go project for this trip will be sewing fabric scrap pieces onto scrap batting cut to 5" or 6" squares which is a great way to use up both of these never-ending stashes. I plan on using these squares for either mug rugs or pincushions. I thought I would share a scrappy story and the blocks made along the road.
I guess my Hubby does not read my blog because he would know that a Ninja with a rotary cutter, I am not. As we started on our travels to Yellowstone, I was in the backseat behind my hubby while my son occupied the front seat next to him. After a couple of hours into the road trip, I started working on my hand-piecing project. I brought my brayer/roller so I can press the seams as I sewed along which made a squeaking sound. I could somewhat hear a conversation between the two guys; hubby asking my son a question, he responding: "What's that?" and then talking about a pizza cutter and then my son slowly turning around to look at what I was doing and then telling my hubby "No". Hubby thought I was using a rotary cutter while he was driving. I am pretty careful when it comes to using my rotary cutter--two feet on the floor, eyes focused, mindful of where the rotary cutter is going and something I would only do in the comfort of my studio/home and not in a moving vehicle. I will admit though, I did entertain a thought of bringing my Sizzix Fabi Die-cutter to cut a gazillion 1" HST while in the backseat but I didn't want to make a mess in my backseat studio.
I sewed these scrappy blocks on the way to Yellowstone The one in the top photo I'm thinking would make a nice mug trough and the ones in the middle will be for pincushions or mug rugs. (BTW, the block on the very bottom was a test block made before we left and it was trimmed.) The bottom ones are my favorite so far and I love the improvisational look. I'm sewing the scraps the Crazy Mom's Scrap Vortex method and involves finding and sewing scraps which are the same size or shape. It's really a nice, relaxing project for the road, albeit the squeaky brayer. I'll trim these squares once I'm home where the rotary cutter will be waiting for me.
I brought my Happy Trail Rails Quilt, which was finished last week, along on our road trip
(you can read about it here). Diann of Little Penguin Quilts suggested I take some photos of the quilt in Yellowstone. I am not too adventurous and still camera shy when it comes to photographing my quilts outside my house but I think these two photos turned out quite nice.
These photos are better....I'm just having a little fun here--no animals nor I were harmed; the photos are courtesy of picMonkey photo editing and my quilt being photographed at the right position. How do you like my watermark on these photos? Just like not using a rotary cutter in the car, I would never think of using wildlife for a photo prop for one of my quilts; it's not right nor allowed plus I can't run fast anymore. It sure was funny when hubby asked me how I did I that; I think for one brief second he thought maybe the quilt was actually on these beautiful creatures.
Well, it should be no surprise that I already purchased 7.5 yards of fabric before we arrived at Yellowstone. I like to visit Wal-Mart whenever we're on vacation to see if I can score any deals in their fabric department and I did find some backing and some basics. I'll tally my new total for my Minus One Hundred Yard Challenge on my next post since there may be a chance I may actually visit a quilt shop on the return trip home. Maybe I should add a rule that fabric purchased while on vacation does not count, especially if money was saved. At Yellowstone, we finally purchased our National Park Lifetime Senior Passes for $10 each, just two days before the rate was going up to $80 each, so that's a $140 saving which does buy a lot of fabric.
Linking up with:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict: Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?
Busy Hands Quilts: Finish Or Not Friday
Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework: Oh Scrap
