When the scrap bag gives you mud

Everybody’s got one…that piece of ugly, mud colored fabric that someone else might love, but you just can’t find a thing to do with it. 

I bought a flowery fabric on deep discount, years ago.  I bought yards and yards and yards of it in two different colorways.

What was I thinking?  As a new quilter, I was building up a stash.  But, this wasn’t a good decision and no one was more surprised than me when I got this pretty Linus quilt out of it two years ago.

I pieced the back out of that flowery fabric, too.  I managed to use up most of it, which was the goal.  But, I had 72 leftover half square triangles that weren’t pieced with that pretty orange.  They were pieced with a fabric the color of mud.  They’ve sat around and were in the linus bag, waiting for me to figure out something to do with them. 

Apparently, I love a good challenge.  It’s like an ugly fabric challenge for me and I know lots of people participate in those.  The challenge is to use these fabrics in such a way that it hides the mud colored fabric.

Step one, find a way to add more color.  This little stripe has an orange that’s almost the same as the mud color and a green that’s almost the same as the flowery fabric.  But brighter!

And, then, hit the scrap bag and start adding color.

Funny how that terra cotta color starts to disappear, eh?

I got a pattern in the mail for a quilt that used the snowballs and the four patches.  Not quite how I’m using them, but close enough.  I just had to adjust the size to go with my squares.  That was easy enough. 

There’s lots more planned (like a divider between those bright blocks and the dull ones), but this is as far as I’ve gotten.  You’ll have to stay tuned to see how it turns out.  But, I’m pretty excited, trying to figure out a pattern as I go that will fill in around all that mud color and make it disappear and is based on three inch squares.

This is the third Linus quilt for the year.  It’s not what I should be working on right now, but hey, it is what I’m working on.  I’m at a stop because I ran into a place where the blocks won’t fit the space, but I’ll solve that soon enough. 

Looking for the picture above, I found pics of my previous Linus quilts.  No wonder the fish quilt I made this year was such a disappointment.  I’m used to making much nicer quilts for Linus than that.  I don’t want to keep knocking it, but really, that quilt was a learning about how little effort I can put into a quilt…and why I shouldn’t.  Even to give away anonymously.

Be well.  Have a great Tuesday.  I’m feeling the need to take some days off for a bit of a recharge.  I’m feeling pretty backed into a corner right now by life, and thinking that a couple of days to do just exactly what I want to do may be called for so I can feel like I’m actually in charge of my own destiny.

Lane