Diving Into My Scraps to make a Summery Quilt

I’ve done several year-long projects and the fabrics get collected in a bag, a box or a bin. When the quilt is completed, they just stay there! I went up to look at my stash this week and found several collections of scraps. There is almost no yardage. It’s strips and pieces. Good enough to use but difficult to put back in the general fabric stash.

Also this week, Cheryl Arkison posted on Instagram about one of her work in progress which had been in a box for years! The fabric collection was all there and she had some completed blocks, so she decided to work on it. The pattern she is using is “Beach Grass” from her second book, A Month of Sundays.

I own the book, so I pulled it out and looked at it. It’s a really simple block with some fun cutting options. And my collection of scraps looks like beach grass…or maybe more like beach glass! Either way, it looks like a fun summer project.

And here is a challenge to myself: yesterday I was watching Thomas W. Schiller on YouTube paint a watercolor picture of a view from Central Park in New York City. He was chatting to an audience in the room who was watching him work. I caught this gem in his monologue. This is a paraphrase of his comment—not an exact quote.

“Color is usually the question. Value is almost always the answer.”

Yes. As true in quilting as it is in painting watercolors! Can I pick fabrics with different values to make this a better quilt? Let’s find out!