Come with me and take a look inside "15 Minutes of Play". I love deep, rich beautiful colors. When I was introduced to the work of Victoria Findlay Wolfe at Quilt Beach  quilt show I fell in love with her quilts. I love her randomly beautiful color choices and her technique of playing with the fabric until something interesting emerges.

 I saw some of the things in her quilts that I had been messing around with when I chopped up and rearranged my scraps from my Herring bone quilt and turned them into pillow shams.  Victoria has seemed to perfect the art of making random scraps of fabric unite into something unique and beautiful, reminiscent of early "crazy quilts' but with a fresh spin. 

"15 Minutes of Play" Sewing Book Review

Victoria published a book about her process called "15 minutes of Play"  (aff. link)

It is such a great read if you get a chance to pick up a copy. In this little world of blogs and Pinterest I find that I've become a browser. I skim pictures more than really reading every post as I browse for something fun to inspire me. 

Beautiful and Inspiring

 I picked up "15 Minutes of Play" and started reading about the inspiration behind Victoria's quilts and it was so nice to pause and delve into the deeper meaning behind the projects. Her "Polka Dot Squared" quilt is one of my favorites.

Fresh and Fun!

Her approach is fresh and fun, and not tedious at all.  It seems, looking at her quilts you might feel overwhelmed at what it would take to put all those little bits and pieces together.  But you would be surprised at how many scraps you can sew together in 15 minutes.  In her book she goes through the basics of making your own fabric and then gives you a series of challenges to inspire you to make something completely your own, letting your creativity run wild.

Bite Sized Sewing Sessions

So that's what I did. I  spent 15 minutes of play at a time sewing up scraps, and I sewed up quite possibly my favorite quilt I've ever made.

It started with scrappy straight lined log cabins since most of my scraps are in strips. Then I chopped them up in to a star. I got so excited about this I had to snap a few cell phone pictures and send them to my Sis and Mom

I pieced more fabric and cut them into squares for a border.

I backed it with soft minky. Gray, of course.... I have an obsession.

No batting! This will be a lightweight but snuggly baby quilt for a dear friend. I quilted it with a large meandering stitch.  There are a lot of great tips for quilting with minky fabric in this Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial.

This was so much fun to make. So creatively satisfying. 

You can visit Victoria's Blog for more inspiration and there is also a 15 minutes of Play Blog with challenges where you can play along and share what you've created.  Let me know if you've tried her technique, I want to see.

Happy Sewing!

UPDATE: I just posted a mini tutorial with the dimensions of the quilt blocks so you can make one too if you'd like...

Go to the BIG STAR BABY QUILT Post

UPDATE No 2: Since one of my goals for the new year is to empty my scrap bin I decided to challenge myself to sew scraps up for 15 minutes a day.  Do you want to join me? Read all about it...

Go to the SEW YOUR SCRAPS CHALLENGE Post