Picking up a new passenger....

on the Orphan Train *VBS* A warm welcome to Vivian, who blogs here. She has been following our progress and decided to start a blog of her own. She graciously sent me pictures of her Orphans and how she has used them. I've been playing with the Picasa Collage program. The picture should enlarge with a double click so you can see the details. I think these are really beautiful. Here's what Vivian had to say about their creation: "My first journal was made using pieces from the first three years of my quilting. It consists of test blocks, extra pieced units, reformatted scrap bits and trimmings from fabric cuts and projects made or in progress during that period. Only the crazy patch unit was made to fill the bottom of the front but is an orphan because I had just bought a new sewing machine at the time and with plans to do a crazy quilt project in the future, I wanted to try the machine's decorative stitches. So I dug through my scrap bin and pulled fabric bits and tried all the stitches on the machine and then added the unit to the cover!"
"The second journal was simpler: I had puchased the Pinapple Block Ruler by Possibilites in the latter part of 2007 and when I got it couldn't resist trying it out. The cover block is what resulted. Nice but a really big block and as I started to throw it into the orphan bag I figured it might be big enough for the cover of a journal and it was! I had also recently begun saving triangle cut offs and had a baggie that was quickly filling. I realized that the triangles could be paired together to make scrappy half squares and that a bunch of these pieced together could make an interesting "fabric" for the back. When they were done, some additional fabric was added to fill out the edges and voila!"

"Having "filled" my first two journals, I plan to make another one this year. It may be out of orphans, scrappy pieced blocks or having made my first "crumb block" top this year (see my comment on your "Pieces" blog about MAM blocks.) I may use those."

"The great thing about quilting is nothing need ever go to waste. Thanks for giving Orphan Blocks a well deserved forum where they can be showcased."