I’m addicted to crumb quilting.  After seeing these quilts on Bonnie Hunter’s website called Quiltville, I thought I had finally found a way to redeem myself from  saving all these tiny little scraps and saving and saving them.  You see, I had had good intentions of using them in beautiful applique quilts.  While I love applique blocks and I have dreamed up several wonderful designs, which were going to be embellished with decorative stitching and other embellishing techniques, I just have not found the time to do all the tracing and cutting and hand sewing that is involved to make these one of a kind creations.   But now, now, I have a fast, fun way to use them up instead of collecting them.

Last week, while at my mom’s for a mini sewing retreat, I once again asked for her bag of scraps and crumbs.  Being the great momma that she is, she willingly handed them over to me, but I saw that look that I know means that she has doubts, which are not without good reason, that I would actually do anything with them.  My momma knows me very well and humors me anyway.  Yeah, I know, I am really lucky.

Anyway last night, after chasing after my grandson all day, I wanted to sew but didn’t have the mental capacity to do anything even remotely required much brain work, so I thought I would grab my crumb bin and give it a try.  Several hours later, I ended up with 17 blocks that I cut down to the size I needed and several others that are nearly there.  This was so much fun and I kept thinking I should be going up to bed but I had to use just one more piece to see what it would look like.  They are wild and so liberating.  If you are anything like me and have a hard time not being matchy matchy then you have got to try this technique.  The pieces are so small, I can’t imagine some fabric messing them up.  It really is anything goes here!  Next, I am going to try Bonnies, method of sewing the little cut off triangles into little pairs for pinwheels, hourglasses etc and then building around those.  The possibilities are endless here.    Now, my problem will be to move on to some other brainer projects that I have to work on and reserve my crumb block sewing for the too tired to think sewing sessions or as a reward for finishing a project that must get done.

My plan is to sew crumbs into blocks that I can cut into 3.5 inch squares, piece these into 4 patch squares and then sew these together with a solid black sashing.  I might then add another colorful border and bind it with black binding.  I hope to make a pretty large size quilt and now maybe my momma will be eager to give me those crumbs unless she decides she wants to make a crumb quilt of her own!