Playing in the Scrap Bin

Like most quilters, I have a stack of random charm squares in my stash that are left over from other projects, and this week, as I stitched up rows of my Life is A Highway quilt, I was thinking about what to do with them.  As I got them all out and sorted through the colors, I noticed there were a lot of black and white squares.  That got me to thinking about a black, white, and red quilt, something that's been on my list for awhile.  Of course, not all reds are the same, nor are all whites, so that added a bit of a challenge.  I knew I would need more than just the charm squares I had, so I looked around some more and found my Charlie Harper bird fabric, especially the red and black cardinals.  Perfect!  Those cardinals are kind of a tomato red, so I knew I needed to stick with that shade of red for consistency.

The white charm pack I ordered a while back is a true bright white, and it didn't go with the background of the cardinals or the black and off-white prints that I had, so I had to scrap them for a creamier white.  I also had a little bit of some mama birds feeding their babies in nests on a teal background, that I wanted to include, too, for a little pop of something different.  So, I fussy cut the little birds in their nests to add in.  I used the black/off-white print charm squares to make HSTs since they were actually 5 1/2 inches rather than 5 like some of the others.  (I hadn't noticed before that not all charm squares are equal!)

Finally, what kind of layout?  Another quilt on my bucket list is a plus quilt, so the rest of my play this week has been with a plus design, and here is what I came up with.

This is going to be a mini - not bigger than 30 x 48 (and that's before stitching it up), so I will probably hang it on the wall out in our family room.  My husband and I are avid birdwatchers, and we have several bird feeders hung outside our family room windows, so this seems appropriate for the room!  We wish we could see some cardinals at our feeders, but they don't come this far west, so the fabric cardinals will have to do!

Last, but not least, look what came in the mail for me yesterday!

The lovely families of the PTA at my school gave me a gift card for my retirement, and I have been spending it on quilting supplies like a new cutting mat and rotary cutter, thread, a Tri-Recs ruler, and that kind of thing over the summer.  I had $25 left on it, and that gave me just enough to get 13 fat quarters of Amanda Jean Nyberg's new Good Neighbors fabric from Connecting Threads.  Oh boy!

Linking up to my favorite Sunday afternoon party, Oh Scrap!  See you there!