Scrappy New Year! New Group Quilt needs you!

*********UPDATE 3/3/15**********

WELCOME TO ALL PINTEREST PEEPS! It has come to my attention that this block is all of a sudden very popular over there - which I LOVE! I've received a lot of requests for the pdf and I've finally figured out where it was coming from. Sometimes it takes me a day or two. Anyway, please note that while you are welcome to read all about this block and how it started life as one of my group projects, the project ended three years ago and resulted in "Kickin' Stash," my most popular pattern ever designed and still going strong - in fact, it was recently picked up by Checker. If you'd like the pdf of the pattern, it can be found for instant download on Craftsy and Patternspot.  However I am no longer giving away pdfs of the block as that was just for the group project and testing period in early 2012. Thank you so much for your interest and while this has been a bit of a crazy mystery for me over the last few days, it's been kind of awesome too! I hope you'll check it out!

Original post:

It's that time of year again. The time when I look at my overflowing boxes of scraps and think "Really, I need to get a handle on this situation, and while I'm at it I probably should make a new scrap quilt" and then seven minutes later I see something shiny on the other side of the room and thoughts of a new scrap quilt have vanished for another year. Granted, I know you are looking at that photo and saying "She calls THAT a scrap problem??? I can't even shut the door of my studio closet because I have 16 trash bags full of them/My husband has threatened to start using my scraps as oil rags because they have taken over the half bath/The Red Cross called me last week because they heard I could supply them with bandage rolls until 2037/What-evah, girl!", but yeah, I call it a scrap problem. Don't judge my scraps, I won't judge yours. I admit I don't tend to save pieces that other people consider scraps, say anything under 8" square, and have been known to stand idly by watch my friend Angie Callbeck trash barrel dive for my discards at quilt retreats and then pretend to be properly remorseful while she and others to chide me about throwing away perfectly good 4" pieces of fabric, promising never to do it again while crossing my fingers behind my back. Maybe this will be the year I finally do the kind thing and just hand them over to her rather than make her go into the trash for them. But I digress. Yes, I do find these scraps to be a problem, few as they may seem.

But hotties, let us mark 2012 on the calendar as The Year I Finally Did Something About My Scraps. And you get to help me.

I've played around with EQ and drawn a block that I really sort of like for numerous reasons, but the main ones are thus:

• It is pretty simple
• It doesn't have matching points
• It looks cool in a lot of different settings
• and most importantly, I have a prayer of getting rid of at least a few scraps

So in the interest of combining my scrap reduction with a new group quilt, let this serve as the official announcement - Scrappy New Year Group Project is ON!
Some of you may have participated in my group projects before, so you know I'm pretty easy going when it comes to running them. In 2008 I did a version of Syncopated Ribbons with 16 people participating, including an 8 year old boy and 10 year old girl, and it went on to become my cover photo for that particular pattern and is a stunner wherever it goes.

Last winter I ran my infamous Diamond Dazzle group project, wherein I almost lost my mind trying to reason with computerized design, but the actual group project part was great fun. Over 20 quilters participated in that group quilt, and while I got to use the prototype as my cover quilt for the pattern again, everyone who participated received enough blocks in return to make a table runner or baby quilt.
SNY will be the third group project of this type I have run, and I'm happy to say I've already got several people signed on who are threepeats themselves, so it must be at least a little bit fun, right? Are you chomping at the bit to get started yet? Let's get back to that block I showed earlier and tell you what we're going to do with it.
Here's the actual, real, fabric block I made.

It took me about 40 minutes start to finish, including time to locate proper fabrics, becoming distracted by many other pretty ones, cutting the pieces, winding a bobbin, breaking a thread, and an iron that I forgot to plug in. So in a perfect world, it would take 22 minutes or so.
Note that like the drawn block above, it has a white background and four fabrics from the same color family, in my case lime green. That's what we're going for this time. White background, four fabrics from the same color family. It's that simple. I am not going to tell you what color family to choose - that is up to you, and how you choose it can be as simple and scientific as seeing which of your bins is most overflowing (my method of choice), or asking everyone you know what their favorite color is, charting all the answers on a bar graph, and then throwing the bar graph out and choosing your own favorite color. Any color family will do. Really, I cannot stress enough how little I care which color family you choose.
You will make four blocks using directions I will provide to you. All four blocks can be made of the same fabrics and/or be from the same color family, or you can make four completely different blocks. Again, my apathy on how you choose to proceed with that is stunning. One of these blocks I will keep to include in the group quilt I will put together, the other three will be shuffled about and you will receive three blocks back, all made by other quilters. Kind of like a mini BOM. You can either make a few more blocks and whip up a baby quilt with a group flair, or make them into pillows, or use them as handkerchiefs or dishrags - again, I cannot stress how little I care what you actually do with them when you get them back - they are YOUR blocks, so YOUR choice! Each participant will also receive a Quilting Hottie button to prove to the world that they are awesome, and, if they so choose, will be allowed to borrow both the finished group quilt and myself for a half price "Plays Well With Others" group quiltmaking lecture for their guild anytime in the next few years, but is under no obligation whatsoever to do so. Just an offer I'm putting out there because I know this quilt will be beautiful and will want to be seen.
I anticipate wanting all the blocks in the mail to me postmarked by 2/8/12. If this is a good time frame for you and you are at all intrigued, I hope to hear from you!
Potential participants, please contact me directly at evapaigequilts@charter.net and I will email you the pdf of directions. Like all my group projects, I know this one will be a blast.