challenge

At the last meeting of the NYC MetroMod Quilters we had a scrap bag swap.  Someone suggested we come to the next meeting with something made entirely from the bag of scraps we took home.  intriguing...

but I'm a scrap hoarder and when I do use them, I need to mix it up, a lot.  I felt trapped by the challenge to use only what was in that baggie and to make something new, not just follow my usual routine of receive-wash-sort into current scrappy project piles... But that's what "challenge" is all about, right?

Here's what I came up with.

In the end, i couldn't stop myself from pulling fabrics out of my own scrap bin and using them too.  I tried really hard not to, but sometimes my eyes tell my brain what the block needs and my hands just reach out  and grab it, you know?  So there are 5 or 6 additions to the scrap baggie I received... and now that it's all together, they really stick out! OMG.  But anyway, if I don't tell you, will you be able to find them?  hope not.

This piece is small, the blocks finish at 7.5", making it 22.5"x 30".  I stopped sewing because I was kind of at an impasse as to where to go from here.  Add a large plain border and make it a wheelchair quilt for donation?  Add a more interesting scrappy strip to that large plain border and then feel more attached to it and not want to give it away? (At the moment I don't feel much attachment at all, so I thought it's a good one to finish up and pass on.)  Bring it back to the Mod Quilt meeting next month and see if someone else wants to add borders and/or finish it off in some new and interesting way?  Suggestions welcome.

I love these blocks though, and I think I really need to keep making them and then turn them into something big and wonderful like my original inspiration quilt, here.  This little piece would look good with a leafy appliqued border too, but then I'd never give it away...