noelle o designs

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dandy & flirt

I’ve been dreaming up fancy ways to make use of heaps of the symmetrical scraps cluttering up my space- too small to be very useful yet too big to toss in the garbage.

For many hours now, I’ve been thoughtfully (and haphazardly) sewing them all together with a pinch of rhyme and reason but with plenty of caution tossed aside.

I generally (unconsciously) save solid colored fabrics for bindings or only sparingly mix them in with plenty of patterns- but not today. I forced myself (at least in the beginning) to only sew solid colored strips together and ended up loving the result.

When working with patterned fabrics here are a few helpful few helpful suggestions that I live by- 1) repeat colors or color families, 2) vary the width of the actual strips, 3) mix geometric, small and larger prints.

The pieced panels (solid colors and patterned) are about 17″ (43 cm) by 4 feet (1.3 m) long. Can you venture a guess at what I’m making?

11 Comments

  1. kalamitykelli

    May 3, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    Are those going to be quilt squares? I think I remember my nana making one something like that.

  2. Anne W

    May 3, 2012 at 9:52 pm

    You’re lucky to have scraps that are big enough to do that with! Mine are usually much smaller, and rattier!

    1. noelleodesigns

      May 4, 2012 at 3:18 pm

      Oh, I think we all have small ratty scraps in our closets…

  3. Time To Be Inspired

    May 3, 2012 at 11:42 pm

    I can’t wait to see, as I have huge rubbermaid containers full of strips from when I was doing more quilting… I’ll be watching.

    1. noelleodesigns

      May 4, 2012 at 3:17 pm

      Here’s to trying to get the rubbermaid size box of scraps into a small shoebox and having something nice to show for it.

      1. Time To Be Inspired

        May 4, 2012 at 3:35 pm

        Oh you misunderstood – rubbermaid box is not singular, but a part of a group. So if I could get down to a couple of large boxes, I would be making progress!

        1. noelleodesigns

          May 4, 2012 at 11:13 pm

          RubbermaidS (plural)- even better!

  4. maggiewinnall

    May 4, 2012 at 10:56 am

    I love to work this way too, making the most of left overs and am looking forward to seeing the end result!

    1. noelleodesigns

      May 4, 2012 at 3:15 pm

      So glad someone else is unable to toss any size piece of fabric- no matter how small!

  5. Lisa Yarost

    May 4, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    Looks like table runner/placemat stuff to me.

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