There are a couple of fun “Sew-Alongs” I am taking part in at the moment.

The first one is the #sunnylogcabinsal. I haven’t made a log cabin log in so long and when I kept seeing pretty little blocks popping up in my feed I knew I had to stop everything and join in too!

I decided to finally cut into my Bluebirds on Roses stash, I’ve been cutting quite a bit of it for orders (you can buy yours here) and I was just itching to play with some myself, it’s so pretty!!! Now I want to make everything with it! I originally started with 2 inch strips but decided I wanted the block to have a more delicate look so I unpicked what I had started and trimmed the strips down to 1 inch. This was so much fun I now want to make a load more, although I don’t think it’ll be a quilt, maybe something like a coaster or mini pouch! What do you think?

The second Sew-Along I am joining in with is the #libertysocietykanthastitchalong. I missed out on this sal last year despite really wanting to join in. As you all well know by now I do love hand stitching and to combine it with Liberty fabrics what more could I ask for!? So what is Kantha? Kantha is a form of embroidery which comes from India. The traditional form of Kantha embroidery was done with soft dhotis and saris, with a simple running stitch along the edges. If you take a scroll through Pinterest you will see how visually stunning such a simple stitch can be.

So as the tag suggests this sew along features Liberty fabrics and traditionally this is done with scraps. Sewing scrappy is not something I am very confident at!

I have been saving up my scraps from my Blooming Blossoms Quilt and had quite a nice little pile! There was a part of me that was very tempted to either cut into a new bundle, or even purchase some more. But I am determined to stick to my resolution of stash busting and spending less so I decided to be brave and go for it!

You know what? It was actually very fun and very liberating. I literally just sat at my machine with a pile of mis-matched odd shapes and sizes scraps and a rotary cutter, ruler and mat. Absolutely no planning or prepping went into it. I just trimmed the fabric to size, cutting off any pointy ends and then tried to find a fabric that would fit next to it. Then just sew the seam and look for the next piece. I built up mini blocks and rows and when I thought I had enough I pieced it all together!

The time it took me to make it, was probably actually the time in the past it would have taken me to pick fabrics and arrange them. Instead in the space of an hour or 2 I had a sweet little scrappy panel ready for some hand-stitching!

It has definitely given me confidence to try again, although I feel I cannot take all the credit, Liberty does seem to have this wonderful ability to blend so well together no matter how many mis-matched scraps you use. Mis-matched is something I am not very good at, I am more comfortable with neat and precise but I will certainly give it another try!

I am really looking forward to stitching this, I hope I can do it justice!