Omakase Quilting, Ish Quilting, and No Fabric Scrap Left Behind

I'll never catch up on all the blog posts I have neglected to make in the past year, but I can give you a little snapshot of a few things. I guess I am coming to terms with who I am as a quilter right now and that is basically temperamental. I had an epiphany several months ago about how to describe my quilting philosophy. I shared it with Ellyn during Crafty Tuesday at her house some time ago and she said I should write a blog post. Well, I am finally doing it; I am apparently as temperamental about blogging as I am about quilting.

Have you heard about omakase dining in Japanese restaurants? It is basically chef's choice where the diner trusts the chef to make an amazing dish of his or her choice and the chef works to be innovative and make something delicious. This sums up how I feel about quilting. I have a really hard time with actual orders; it's not that I can't do it, I just want to sew what I want to sew, often when I am inspired to sew it. I try really hard to make something people will love and an item they have expressed they want or that I think they need (ha), I just don't want them to tell me exactly how to do it. I think we both win - I get to create something innovative on my terms and they get a handmade item that they love. I think it is very frustrating for a lot of people who want me to make something for them, but I can't summon the energy to feel bad about it. Omakase pretty well sums up my quilting philosophy.

Some Omakase gifts I have given:

 
Extra Large Patchwork Pouch with a View.

 A Supernaturalish teeny patchwork sew together bag using the method here.

A miniature version of my Tiny Scrappy Circle Mini.

Which leads me to my current quilting style. I'm calling it "Ish Quilting" - 1/4"ish, straightish, wavyish, stitch-in-the-ditchish, decentish. What it really means is that I am setting aside my typical OCD need for perfection. It is so liberating. Omakase me is giving people Ish Quilted items.

Here is an example a placemat I gifted myself with some Ish Quilting - those quilt lines are all over the place and I don't care. I just posted about it in my post about glue basting binding with Elmer's glue stick.

I am also eyeball deep into my No Fabric Scrap Left Behind project that I have posted about quite a lot on Instagram - check out the #nofabricscrapleftbehind hashtag, but not much here (maybe at all? Why don't I know this?). So, people are getting omakase, ish quilted, scrapbusting items. You can see from the pics above that I like sewing my bitty scraps.

Scrappy, omakase, ish quilted gifts. I am way into quilt as you go potholders right now. Check out Tara Rebman's Quilt As You Go Patchwork Bags class on Craftsy. It will make you want to dig out your scrap bin.

My self imposed rule with the pot holder project was to only use what I pulled out of some shoeboxes full of unprocessed scraps, It meant less editing than I usually do - less matchy matchy. It was so much fun and so fast. Even stopping to make the bias binding strips, these are <1 hour potholders. It's so messy though.

And finally, here are some scraps I have been processing and creating with - this is where I have been for months.