My Happy Scrappy Quilt Finish

Way back in March 2020 (I know, it feels like a lifetime ago!), the world really, uh… “hit the fan” and shut down. Those of us with kids suddenly found ourselves supervising home learning, many of us were juggling working from home at the same time, and for some strange reason, everyone bought up on toilet paper. And in the midst of that unprecedented chaos, we found solace in our quilting.

I hosted the Happy Scrappy quilt along to provide a free, mindful-yet-mindless way to spend a little snippet of time each day sewing something. I had come up with a quick design that made  a 51″ x 51″ quilt from a variety of 9″ quilt blocks that were super quick to cut and sew (I wanted to be able to make them within 15-30 minutes or so), and also super scrap friendly – use what ya already got! You can find all the tutorials for Happy Scrappy here.

We had the most wonderful time together, sewing our way through the quilt blocks over a few weeks. It was a mystery quilt design, so it was super fun seeing all your guesses at how it all went together! By the end, most people had it pretty much correct, and it was so amazing to see all the different versions people had made. You can see everyone else’s finished quilts under #HappyScrappyQAL on Instagram and in the Blossom Heart Quilts Facebook group!

Soon after finishing my Happy Scrappy quilt top, I had an unpleasant basting experience… I ran out of basting spray 1/3 of the way through, so had to pin baste most of it. And when I sat down to quilt it with the trusty ol’ wavy stitch, it seemed like the quilt wasn’t basted well, so it got folded up and sent to the naughty corner. Where it sat through a move and a second lockdown, until at last I pulled it out to take with me to a charity sewing day with friends for Very Snuggly Quilts.

And when I unfolded it, thinking I was going to need to re-baste it, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The stitching was fine, there was no puckers or tension issues… I have no idea what I had originally seen to make me think it was all wrong! So, I got on with the quilting, zizag stitched on the binding, and voila!

Looking back at this quilt reminds me of such a good part of 2020. When there were so many hard, dark times throughout the year, the memory of that period where the quilting community gathered together (safely online!) and sewed our way through those first couple of months of craziness together… definitely a warm, light time of the year! In fact, I recently was able to recap the whole experience for the quarterly Victorian Quilters magazine that came out this month.

I’m putting together a post sharing a big range of Happy Scrappy quilts you made, so stay tuned for that one!

Pssst… Did you know that Happy Scrappy actually inspired my Backsplash quilt pattern! I took the centre block design and repeated it to create a tile design… hence, “Backsplash”! If you love the tile effect too, you grab the pattern below – use the code HAPPYSCRAPPY to get 10% off the Backsplash pattern (code expires Jan 31, 2021).