Scrappy New Year!

I sewed up Block 1 from Pam Buda's  Orphans and Scraps sew along:

I think it's just the sweetest thing, measuring in at 4 1/2 inches.  The purpose of this sew-along is to use bits and pieces from previous projects to come up with something new.  I have lots of CW repro fabric swirling around the sewing room right now, and I was especially happy to be able to re-use fabrics from this pile of light scraps that were leftover from another project.

How much of a dent in the scraps did I think I was going to make with a 4 1/2 inch block?

On a slightly larger scale, I finished putting together the Monkey Wrench blocks I have been creating since the start of the New Year.

I haven't yet settled on a final border, but at least the blocks are all sewn together. (The brown fabric in the background was a contender for the border, but it didn't make the final cut.) For the sashing,  I had a very hard time trying to choose a fabric.  I kept coming back to this striped fabric:

It's not a CW reproduction fabric but I thought it suited the style and colors of the quilt. (The closeup photo of the sashing fabric is much truer to the real color than the picture of the overall quilt.)  I have never used a striped fabric for sashing before, so this was one step further out of the box for me.

I think I like it.  I'll know for sure when I get a border fabric.  I know of a quilt shop within driving distance that features lots of reproduction fabrics and I'll be heading there soon. I hope.