Winter and a lower setting on the thermostat is why we have 5 lap quilts for 2 people in our house!
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Finished the quilt top!
Now I need to buy batting and find something for the back. I dug through my stash and nothing comes even somewhat close to coordinating.
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That is great, the blues really pop
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Amazing!!!
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Wow, that’s stunning!
So, I was working on the elephant butt scrap project, and I ran out of yellow scraps. Those scraps came from cutting the backing on another quilt to the right size. I still had some yardage of that fabric in my stash, too, but that was meant as backing for two other projects.
Those projects weren’t exactly scrap projects but the fabric was technically leftover from a previous project (the Dinoroar kids quilt ) When I bought that fabric, it was discounted, so I bought a little more than I needed and the shop threw in a second panel for free.
So, to get more yellow scraps to finish up the elephant butt project… I had to make those other two projects first. I cut them last weekend, pieced one top on Friday and the other top yesterday. Then I cut backing and batting for both projects and then I had this leftover:
Which probably will be enough to finish the other project (it’s a 6" wide strip and I need 5" squares).
Here are the other two tops, by the way:
Basically they are accidentally finished tops that I needed to get out of the way to get some more scraps 
I have some tiny scraps of the dinosaur fabric now but most of it is used up after these two projects. Apologies for the bad pictures, it was very late and dark when I took them.
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Aw, those dinosaur tops are so cute. Norhing like one project to spur another.
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Those are great!
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lol and this is why we never run out of scraps…
Those are really cute! I like the corners.
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The windmill corners are actually made from cutoffs from the big center blocks in the original dinosaur quilt. I always keep those cutoffs because HSTs are so versatile. I had 40, used up 16 so I still have plenty of those left! I think with those blocks and all the scraps I could maybe, potentially make a 4th scrappy dinosaur quilt…
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“I, Renstar , offer Scrappy Annoying Tote for my small September Scrap-a-thon entry”
I’m not sure if this meets the “scraps” definition. Confirmed
The green is leftover from another project (WIP) and the skelly fabric has been part used so I used some more! But my “painful to complete” tote bag. Minimal quilting across each side for structure and interest.
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Has anyone used the quilt pro software… Seems they are giving it away now.
Because they seem to have discontinued it. I haven’t DL it yet, but I will tomorrow.
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@Edel, Jordan Fabrics had another quilt video that uses 2.5" strips that you might like for stash busting. They don’t give the exact cutting sizes, because it’s a paid pattern, but it’s so simple that I’m pretty sure between knowing the width of the strips (2.5"), the fact that the pattern leaves ‘virtually no waste from a 40 strip jelly roll’, and the overall size of the finished quilt, you can tell exactly what size the cuts would be.
I feel like you could make a really fascinating scrappy version of this. Maybe each single chain link would be a different color (instead of how they have 2 flat and 2 round links shown), or maybe each row of chain is a scrappy mix of a single color (a row of all mixed blues, a row of all mixed yellows, etc.)
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Ooh I like this. Thanks sweetheart
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@edel, I will never cease to be amazed at the speed in which you finish your quilts! You did a great job showcasing those fabrics!
@MistressJennie, your diamond top looks really good. What a great way to use up all those brown scraps!
@Immaculata, your dinosaur quilts are both cute and fun!
@Renstar, your bag absolutely meets the scraps definition! Very nice job on completing it (anything ‘painful to complete’ deserves extra praise in my opinion)!
Just a reminder for everyone - please use the heading of, “I, your name , offer your item for my small/medium/large (pick one) September Scrap-a-thon entry”, so that I can make sure to properly account for all entries. Also, please make sure to use the similarly appropriate heading for monthly prompts and quarterly challenges. If you have already made a post, but did not include the heading, you can just edit the original post and create a reply letting me know you made a change. Thank you all!
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Well, we just heard what our new monthly payment for energy will be for this winter… We went from €75/month last September to €183 from February to €334 starting next month. And we’re already frugal, according to the data on my energy company’s website the two of us together consume less energy than the average single person household.
We are fortunate enough that an increase like this is not going to get us into massive financial difficulties, but with everything getting much more expensive, we are going to have to make choices. One of those choices is we’ve decided that we’re going to try to delay turning on the heating for as long as possible this year. We’re going through the first days of autumn, right now the house is still very dry so the problem of a colder night is easily solved with an extra blanket, but the damp is going to be our main issue. But even delaying the start of heating season with a week or two can make a difference. After that, we’re going to try to keep the temperature one or two degrees lower than we usually would (previously 18C, now we’re going to try 17 or even 16). But we’re fortunate already that we can even afford to turn it on and take hot showers every day. Not everyone we know is that fortunate. I’m planning to invite friends over often!
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Body heat from friends! Everyone can snuggle under a quilt!
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Ouch, the only glimmer of hope is that gas prices have dropped massively in the last couple of days and our electricity prices are tied to gas prices, so 
you’ll only have one of these bills.
We’re getting a full photovoltaic array installed on our roof, it’s going to cost about 15k but it should at the very least cut our electricity bills in half, hopefully more. We’re frugal like you guys, and so while it’s a chunk of cash, we have savings to pay for it. I just feel deperately sorry for all the people who have to choose between heating and eating this winter.
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I have knitted little bottle hats for years for a company in the UK that helps fund heating money for the elderly. Apparently, many are too proud to ask for heating assistance and end up dying from the cold!! We have a similar program here and heat can’t be turned off if it endangers people. I am going to see if I can get some little hats knitted.
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Unfortunately, our rates are always fixed for 6 months at a time. So even if the prices go down a lot now, we’ll be stuck with this rate until March. The supplier decides how high the monthly pre-payment will be based on your previous use, so in the best case scenario we’ll manage to reduce our use and get a lot of money back 6 months from now, but we’re going to be stuck with this payment all winter.
I think here the heat can’t be cut off for vulnerable people in winter either, but not cutting people off (which I think is the right choice) just means people will get into more debt with their supplier. They’re still going to have to pay for it eventually. It’s not a long-term solution for fuel poverty. Our government came up with a one-time payment of €800 for those on minimum wage, but with the current increases that’s by far not enough. Cheap rental homes are usually badly maintained, very damp and with little insulation, so the poorest people are affected the worst.
We are renovating this spring and we’ll be doing the same: we’ll get solar panels on the roof for electricity and we’re also getting a solar water heater. We’re hoping to be able to warm at least half of our hot water via the sun. For overcast days we’ll have a backup boiler. We’ll be heating our house with underfloor water heating. On a sunny winter’s day (in theory) we should generate enough warm water to heat our house with. We’re also adding lots of insulation so we won’t have to heat as much.
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