Months ago I volunteered to do a project for January.  Sounded like a good idea at the time, and since I had time off during the holidays, it would be a fun after Christmas project.  I had taken the samplers and scraps from the quilts sewn from the Canterbury collection home, and there they sat. As the date got closer, I really had to get moving on it.  I had selected one project, but due to a number of things, I had to make a change at sort of the last minute.   Then along came a book titled Friendship Strips & Scraps by Edyta Sitar.  It was the perfect match for the bag of scraps I had waiting for me.  I knew I didn’t want to make a big quilt, but when I saw the wall hanging with the scrappy strip house & appliqué, that was IT!

It was such fun picking out the scraps that there was 'enough' of for each part of the wall hanging.  I’ve always had some 'issues' with strip piecing: I always had that rainbow shaped piece when I was through, and have never been very happy.  Edyta has wonderful tips about sewing the strips together in order to have success.  She was right!  She has you make a bigger piece than you need, and then you cut your piece (the house in my case) out of the best part!  What a great tip.  Then I was on to the triangle pieces.  Even though I had some points disappear, there’s enough going on in the piece that I didn’t fret.

I absolutely love the end result, I quilted it as Edyta suggested in the book, although I did take a little artistic license with the outside border.

The date I embroidered is the year we were married.  Come January 29th, it will be 39 years!  It does seem like just yesterday.

-MaryJo