I Don't need no Stinkin' Pattern

This should be my life's motto, but I would like to think I'm a little more sophisticated than that! I spend Sundays at my mother's house talking and sewing. Sense my last post we have also lost my Great Granny Carathers (Frances' Mother) who was 97ish.. This loss was a little easier to take seeing as how we were all expecting it, but still none the less difficult. All of her belongings have been divided between the families and my mother is in possession of all of her scraps.. Yes all of them! Bags, barrels, and boxes of scraps! We have yet to sort through all of them, but we are finding many uses for these finger length pieces of her history. It is s neat to be able to pick out a print that I see in our quilts or barbie clothes.

While sitting with mom I just started picking up scraps and sewing them together. I have seen her do this type of piecing before, but am unaware of the process I am beginning to follow. After I completed a block of sewn together scraps I decided to start yet another quilt! And yes that means I have unfinished quilts... I am in fact my Granny Carathers!

 Now that I have finished  some of these mom asks me what am I going to call this pattern.... and I say "I don't need no stinkin' pattern!" When all along I have  in fact been following a pattern called Crazy Quilting! Now this is the part of the blog where I relate this patternless-pattern to my life.... boringggg Which I could totally do but, I'm just gonna tell you how to do it and hopefully later on I can show you the complete quilt!

First you start out by gathering scraps and strips of fabric, size or type really doesn't matter, now IRON them!

Start by sewing a small square scrap to a similar sized scrap (about 2"), this forms a rectangle. Now iron again... pushing the seam in one direction. If you look at the block at the top of the picture, the blue/yellow is my center.

You then need to start adding scraps in a clockwise pattern gradually increasing the size and length of the scrap or strip of material. The pink was my next piece followed by the blue checkered, and then the blue plaid, and then the gray, and so on until I reached  about 10." Note: Iron away from the center so all your seams face out.

When I reached about 10" across both ways I squared it up and made it a perfect 10" by 10" block. I used a see though ruler and a rotary cutter. It makes this really easy and neat!

After I finished the block I just did a zig-zag stitch around the edge to prevent unraveling and fringes... I highly encourage doing this!

I have an entire laundry bag of scraps to sort though so wish me luck on finishing this as a quilt! So far I have 14 blocks complete and I want to have about  50 to make a nice sized quilt!

Ok so maybe now I will relate this patternless-pattern to my life.. Lets see, lately work has been getting to me. I have began to notice this pattern (which wasn't there a year ago) Of waking up feeling great, driving down peaceful back roads only to have my day squashed by mundane work that I feel is beneath me. And this would make sense because I graduated from an art school a year ago and I am still at a local bakery. I feel the need to leave and reach a higher level of work and life, but I am so scared. Right now I am those center blocks striving to go in a clockwise/forward motion; growing and learning as I add on to the core person I am. So in my strive for a new job I will continue one stitch at a time trying to figure out where God is leading me.