My Blue Heaven

At the Friday workshop that I took in Tucson from Bonnie Hunter, we worked on My Blue Heaven, one of the MANY free patterns she offers on her website QUILTVILLE.

My Blue Heaven is written to be a scrappy quilt but I have always been a "controlled" scrapper...  meaning that my fabrics were chosen specifically and not pieced in a random fashion, but arranged in a controlled manner.  So when I decided to take this workshop with Bonnie, I really wanted to throw the "controlled" part out the window and do a true scrappy quilt.

I have been using Bonnie's Scrap Saver's System for just over a year now and I am absolutely HAPPY about how it works for me.  I looked at my scrap stash with what I wanted to be an unbiased eye and felt that I was heavy on blues....  thus, with wild abandon, I went through my 2 1/2" bin for every blue and neutral I could find.



I tried not to look as I cut them up per the detailed instructions Bonnie provides.   DH won the dubious prize of counting the pieces so I knew when to quit cutting.

There is some seriously crazy stuff in these piles....  everything from light blue with bunnies to 70's fabrics.  I have polar bears and tonals.  It is most definitely NOT the mixture I would normally choose but I am trying to stretch my boundaries. 


And stretch them I did.  I actually felt a bit odd putting fish and batiks and florals all together but I was determined!!!

What is left to do but start sewing?  And sew I do....  among looking at other quilts, helping ladies get to know the quirks of a Pfaff, getting to know people, ewwing and ahhhing over the fabrics others were using.   Lets be honest....  I hardly had time to sew!!! 

Plus, I felt like I was learning to cook on an electric stove for the first time....  but I will explain more about that later.

Sooooo much fun was had at the workshop!!  Bonnie gave each one of us individual attention and tips that looked might help us.

The bits and pieces were sewn into sections, then into larger sections, and finally, they are sewn into a block.  I used Bonnie's chain piecing/webbing technique to keep things in order.





I was really pleased with how everything was lining up....  except for a single block, which I wanted to throw away but didn't.  I really do plan on picking it and sewing it together properly!!

With all my resolve to create a truly amazing quilt (lol), I am finding that I am not feeling the love with this quilt.  However, I will continue to work on it as I am far too frugal to not finish it.

After the workshop, some of the girls went fabric shopping but my roomie, Limbania, and I went back to the room for a while.  We were planning on going out later for dinner but we were sidetracked in a most amazing way.  Stay tuned to see what happened during our adventure !!!

Try something new....  Take up a new hobby....  when we stop learning, we start dying.





My Blue Heaven - super scrappy!