Uncommon Quilt Squares #17 - #20

It is the end of May and I have 4 more Uncommon Quilting squares behind me.  I thought I was running out of steam on this - and way too soon.  I keep a little basket of things I find that might inspire this challenge, but it was empty!

For # 17, I decided to try the "stitch and then paint" idea that Williamson used on some of her samples. I stitched a jigsaw puzzle pattern on plan white fabric and then painted in color using regular acrylics.   

Square #18 was inspired when I was trimmed the seam allowance on a polar fleece project.  The bright, fuzzy chunks were stretchy and fun. I ended up struggling with this because my machine stitching didn't show up at all. Finally, I switched to black thread, which helped a little. Days later I added the black rickrack. What I really need is a lighter background. But, I'm not going to take this apart, and I am going to count it in the total!                                                

I started to have a little more fun creating the remaining squares. Square #19 was sewn up in a flash! I had saved the pull tabs from some cardboard packaging. I combined these with a scrap of a crocheted plastic produce bag and a few pieces of thick orange yarn. Then, I stitched around with black thread to hold things down, throwing in a few zigzag patterns.

Square #20 is one of my favorites so far.  About 10 years ago I bought a big box of zipper at a sale. Some had been used, some were still in the original packaging.  There were quite a few metal zippers and many in colors I hope to never need in a garment.  I've used quite a few of these on various projects. One of the remaining gems was the green metal zipper that is the center piece of this design.  There was an interesting glob of sewing installed by the original user to hold the zipper together at the bottom.  The stitching there is as I found it. I added a design of other zipper pieces and continued stitching with black thread.