Spools Link-Up at Quiltville

Last summer Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville inspired her quilting fans to try the spool block as a leader/ender project - click here for the tutorial. Well, I already had a number of leader/ender projects on the go (like this one and this one) and was able to resist making spool blocks for quite a while. 
But then some of the Rainbow Scrappers started making pretty scrappy spool blocks and showing them every Saturday, until finally I couldn't stand it any more...I had to try one.  

I thought I'd sew just one little block to see what all the fuss was about.

And they were fun! 




Spools are great stashbusters for using small scraps, which I hoard collect. I even have sewn some blocks in a scrappy manner when I don't have enough of one fabric to complete a block. This yellow block has bits from three different yellow fabrics, and from two background light fabrics!

So I was late to the join in on the spool challenge, but still have a fair sized pile of spools to share. Here is my yellow spool collection that I sewed in June. 



I am part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so when Angela announces the colour of the month, I go to my scrap bin of that colour and start cutting for my spools.
Then over the course of the month, I use the pieces as leader/enders between whatever else I am sewing. It really does work great and no thread is ever wasted!

This is the layout I am leaning towards right now ...four blocks of the same colour sewn together in a 4 patch block, then sewing 4 of those into a large block, then putting them together scrappy style when I have enough.
This week Bonnie is hosting a link up for anyone sewing spools to show their collection, so hop over to the Spool Review and see the amazing spool quilts being created.
A big thanks to Bonnie for yet another great addiction idea!