January’s project from Little Handfuls of Scraps was not my favourite when I looked through the book. But I’m doing the patterns alphabetically and this one was next in line.

I was pleased that I had enough strips from a neutral-coloured jelly roll to use as the background. There was a lot of tracing, cutting and bonding to do but it really wasn’t difficult.

I originally thought I would machine appliqué the pieces but by the time they were all cut and placed on the background I realized that would be a daunting task for such a small project. I used the mattress stitch on my quilting machine and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Now that it is done and hung, I think, so far, this is my favourite project from the book.

I bought this kit at the Saskatoon Quilt Guild’s quilt show several years ago. I had seen the poppy fabric when someone from our Guild was using it; when I saw the fabric used in a kit I had to have it.

I’m not sure why it took so long to quilt; it had sat finished and sandwiched for a long time. It became one of my first quilting projects after treatment and it went very well. I used the same pattern for some placemats so I already know the quilting pattern I will use.

In my mind I had put some Christmas fabric on the back so it could be reversible but the fabric I picked wasn’t the best. With black binding it doesn’t look as Christmassy as I would have like so it probably will only be used for the month of November.

As I didn’t get this finished before Remembrance Day this year it now hangs in my sewing room hiding some bins of scraps.

At a Guild meeting several years ago a bag of hand-pieced blocks were offered to the members. No one stepped forward so I said I’d take them home and do something with them. It took a long time before I put the top together.

The fabric was very fragile and there were age marks and stains on several of the pieces. I asked for suggestions for cleaning it but they all involved scrubbing the spots with various solutions and I felt the fabric wouldn’t stand up to that sort of treatment.

When I was almost finished the quilting I went back to the woman who had offered the blocks and asked if she would be able to track down the woman who donated them to her. It was a friend of her daughter and they were able to contact her to see if she was interested. She was!

It was her grandmother who pieced the blocks so the quilt will be going back to the family. It was an honour for me to be part of the journey.