Almost ready to sew again

I am almost ready to put my machine back in it's table  and sew again. I have not sewed a stitch since the Jellyroll Race last Saturday and I have worked at sorting and purging all week. Once I moved everything around and make a more orderly workspace I made a lot more  progress. On Friday I thought that all  the boxes had been gone through and sorted but I found 2 more baskets on top of my bookcase that had stuff in them. One had Friendship  blocks which I am going to use soon. Really! The other one was a real mess. It appeared to  be something I swept off my cutting table to get it out of sight because I had company coming, in fact, I know that is exactly what I did. There were wrinkled pieces of various sizes, all smallish ,and squares that had been cut and 2 inch and 1 1/5 inch strips that I had cut. I was tempted to shove it all in a bag and get back to it later or, better yet, I was tempted to dump it. However there is that part of me that thinks maybe there is that 2 1/4 inch by 4 1/8 wonky scrap that is the last shred of my most favorite of all time fabric and I can't live without it. It took a long time to go through it but it is done and even though I didn't find that shred of favorite fabric I did find some things that I am glad I didn't throw out. (even though I know I would never have missed them).

I decide to give up my box of squares and rectangles for the Donna Poster pattern and I found a taker. Yeah!!!!   

I also  decided to give this up. These trays hold my 2 inch squares of colorwash fabrics. I have little stacks of 2 inch squares of each fabric and I keep the trays stacked up with a strap  around them so they stay together. They only take up abut 20 inches in width on the shelf. These are five of 8 trays of 2 inch fabric.  I found a taker for these today too. I am a happy quilter!!!!

I also have 5 trays of 1 1/4 inch squares that no one seems to want. These 3 little post card quilts are about 4 x  6; they are made with 35 of the little 1.25 inch squares (finished size is 3/4 inch. I made a bunch and these are the only ones I have left. They are up on the bulletin board in my sewing room. When I cut 2 inch colorwash squares I used to throw away anything less than 2 inches. One of friends used to pick them out of my wastebasket and save them. I thought she was crazy. One day I found myself doing the same thing because what I saw when I looked at them just sparked something. I made quite a few small pieces and experimented with different ideas. They did  present a challenge when sewing them together because the  pieces were so small. However I did have fun with the post card size as it was quick and easy to arrange the squares. I hung on to both of these size squares for a long time  but I have not made any thing with them for  years. Time to move on.

This last photo shows 1 of three sections that I put together at  least 3 or 4 years ago, using my box of 3 and  3 1/5 inch squares. Because it is large I planned to quilt it in 3 sections and then quilt the borders and add them. These 3 sections have been hanging behind the door to my sewing room and I was going to give it up but as I was looking at it I realized that I really like it and it has fabrics that go back to my quilting beginnings. It has tons of florals from my colorwash collection. It probably has fabric from every quilt I made for family members up to that time; for that reason alone I guess it is a "treasure". I think I have to keep finish this one.