Quilt Guild Trunk Show

Last Tuesday was our weekly quilt guild meeting and Joan Ford came from Syracuse, NY for a trunk show!

Both the white sample and the black sample on the sales table were gorgeous. I have this pattern and it's probably top on my ST list of patterns to make.

Joan started the Scrap Therapy system back when I lived in Miami. We had a cutting class at my local store and then worked on some of the patterns. I even got to raid a friends huge stash for a cutting party before I moved back north.

Even the sashing is made from squares.

Millie was trying to hide - Gotcha!!!

I've been trimming scraps into 5", 3.5" and 2" squares (and into Bonnie strip sizes) ever since but I have yet to make another ST project...I've been using the squares for all kinds of other things :) This trunk show was just the bump I needed - I've cleaned up my cutting table by cutting almost all the scraps laying around into strips and squares. Now I just need to pick a pattern to start with...

I forget what Joan called these blocks but they look like the granny squares that are all the rage lately.

The large red HST are pieced!
Joan is on the left.

As some of you might be familiar with, Joan cuts all her scraps into 2/3.5/5" squares because the math works. Sew two 2" squares together and what do you get? A 3.5" square! Sew two 3.5" squares together and what do you get? A 5" square!

Sadly, both of my photos of this runner are blurry. All of these HST were made with special paper and 5" squares. If her credit card machine was working I would have gotten some of the papers.

It's a little hard to imagine sewing squares together when I am sew much better at sewing strips and subcutting but her patterns are gorgeous. Joan has taken her patterns and written a book that uses her 7 steps of dealing with scraps, creating a system and then using them.

Closeup of the pieced HST.

She also wrote a second book based on the same theory but it's titled something like scraps plus one. Take the scrap squares and add one other fabric. Some of the designs needed pieces bigger than were in her system so she pieced them together. Brilliant!!

Another scraps plus one quilt.
The One was actually the striped fabric which eventually lead to changing out the border fabric.

Scraps plus white. The 9 patches all finish at 2" to match her 2" blocks!

I also received a great gift from my secret sis but forgot to take a picture - I'll be sure to share it Thursday. I hope my sis enjoyed her gift!