Scrappy sewing Saturday at the Chookshed

Every year about this time Chooky celebrates her Chookshed's birthday by spending the weekend sewing with real and virtual friends.
They say every cloud has a silver lining - my niece and her family were coming to visit this weekend but a bad case of the flu has kept them at home. We were disappointed that they couldn't come and stay but it did mean I could sew along with Chooky and friends.
I had been going to make the 3 year old visitor a pillowcase to use while he was here (after deciding all the snuggly pillowcases in my cupboard were rather girly) so while the fabric I'd pulled was out, I decided to carry on with the plan.
I found some brushed cotton pieces leftover from a quilt backing and some Happy Pants for a son-in-law. Of course none of the pieces were the right shape, and I had to do some joins - the back is two coloured and the contrasting flap is made out of several pieces.

The front

The back, it's supposed to be all the feature print but you can see I didn't have enough!

I've seen these burrito style pillowcases called 15 minute ones (or similar). Because I was sewing with scraps and figuring it out with extra piecing to make it work, it took me a bit longer than that!
But it's done :-) It will go into the post this week sometime.

Last week I tested another pattern for Juliet of Tartankiwi.
Here is the gorgeous hedgehog I made. Isn't he cute?!

This was another gloriously scrappy affair —

All lined up ready to sew

Juliet's pattern was for a 16" square cushion. Here it is made up to that size —

I decided I really need to carry on with my hedgehog so he doesn't end up in my Pile Of Ufos - he's too cute for that.
I also decided he will join a couple of other cushions on the couch which are both a bit larger, so I've altered the outer borders to enlarge him a little.
I spent some fun time scrappy sewing; finding big enough pieces to make the back, fusing together bits of batting. I do enjoy the challenge of scrappy sewing but it does mean the job always takes longer while I fuss and trial and join and measure and trim!

Joins here there and everywhere!

This leaves me with a wee pile of quilting to do today :-)

Juliet has now released the pattern for the hedgehog cushion. Details of where to buy it are in her profile on her instagram page.

And in between it all, I've been leader and ending with some of my smaller scraps. I've been making more 9-patches for my Omigosh quilt using 1" scraps. Once again, quite messy and time consuming in a way as I try to use every last inch!! Usually I just sew the strips together until I get sick of the piles of them taking over and then I focus on pressing, trimming and joining.

One of the many of these I've assembled lately.

I haven't made any of the blocks below for a while so think I might start on some of these next. The HSTs take slightly bigger scraps!

Last night before I went to bed I put some soup in the crockpot - I woke this morning to the delicious smell of bacon and vegetable soup wafting through the house. The weather has suddenly changed and we are finally going to give in and light the fire this morning.
It feels like another perfect day for spending celebrating Chooky's Chookshed Birthday!

'til next time,

Happy stitches,