Bonus Quilt

 Some of us call them free quilts but, as my husband pointed out to me, they are not really free. However a bonus is just as good as free. There are leftovers from the Alphabet quilt and I do not want to add any more scraps to my overwhelming collection of scraps.  This is the bonus quilt made with the Alphabet leftovers and a block from my leftover blocks box and a piece of flannel for backing that was leftover from making flannel board for a kids activity at church. 

It is 26 inches square.

At one time, I asked The Friendship group for 12 inch Anvil blocks with improv centers and bright color HST's. I think I made a top and sent it to Victoria Findlay Wolfe. On her blog, she had asked  for Anvil blocks with blue backgrounds to make quilts for cancer patients.

 I found three leftover Anvil blocks in my block box.  Days earlier, I had found an extra large zip lock bag with a bunch of leftover pieces of various Laurel Burch fabrics, I wanted to use the block and the LB cat fabric and the HST"s and the striped fabric were perfect together. So I replaced the center improv pieced square with the LB cat fabric. 

I've had fun with this, I didn't obsess over every little thing and my workmanship is pretty good but not perfect, after all, THIS IS FOR A CAT AND I HOPE HE LIKES IT.

As I started putting things away, I found three more boxes of scraps that are unsorted. This is what happens when when I need to clean up my sewing space in a hurry. I stuff things in boxes and then never get back to it.  Who would believe that when I finished my first bed quilt in 1985 I thought that was the only quilt I would ever make?  And who would ever think that I would have accumulated so much stuff?

Three More Blocks

I sewed 3  Framed 9 Patch blocks even though I am still cutting for them. I just want to sew and see how they look. So far I have completed 13 blocks and I realized that I need to see them all together in order to make color choices for the solid fabrics.

These are the 3 blocks I sewed today. I think from now on I will  use different solid colors for each block when I make 2 or more of the same print.

These are the 13 blocks I've completed.

Wow! Lots of green prints so far.  I consider green a neutral and I apparently like it but I am not aiming for a predominantly green (or blue) quilt, I see a lot of blue too. I have a lot of both in my scrap and leftover bins. However, it is early in the process and now that I have this up on the wall I will be  better able to make those visual decisions.

I am also noticing that the smaller scale prints look better, for the most part, that the medium scale prints,  I know that for overall interest I need to use different scale prints in my fabric choices so I will not be eliminating the blocks that look a little chunky.  I am, after all, working mostly from my scrap supply and my objective is to pare it down to something manageable.

 I am having fun doing it

Back Again to the Scraps

Tuesday, I started on another box of leftovers and scraps and finished going through it Wednesday between loads of laundry.  This was another box that I had somewhat sorted earlier. I made some good  progress this time around. I stated with the box marked Parts Department (from Collaborative Quilts book by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran). I found some things that should be combined with the same thing in other boxes. I ended up working with three boxes.
I found zip lock bags with Laurel Burch leftover HST's  and a zip lock with 4 1/2 inch Laurel Burch fabric squares and a sizable piece of fabric from which I had fussy cut squares for this quilt.







































This is from several years ago and was the last of a series of my original layout quilts using pictorial fabric and Birds in the Air blocks and this quilt also had some "North Wind" blocks. I loved the fabric I used and I had a lot of fun figuring out the on point setting and putting everything together.

These below are some of the pieces I found Wednesday in different boxes. The HST's are 2 1/2 inches. There are some improv blocks, a bag of 4 1/2 inch squares, and that large piece with 3 jungle cats that someone gave me. I found  pieces of the black dotty fabric and the fuchsia fabric as well as odds and ends of partial blocks. Now that they are all together in one place I see that I have enough there to make something. I am looking forward to making something. I found even more Laurel Burch cat fabric Thursday when I looked for something else. I am pretty happy about all of the Laurel Burch fabric I found.




I stuck this panel up on the wall over the yellow and orange blocks and I remember doing this another time. I have something in mind to make using the panel and orange,yellow, blue and green. It will be small and I think it will be soon.

I came across a lot of good things that I can use, zip lock bags with twenty or more of the same or coordinating fabric some are HST's, some are 4 patches both kinds are a variety of sizes. There are also filler or border strips of small blocks in usable sizes, and there is even a lightning bolt strip.

Almost everything is put away now in a way that will be easy to find and use. Next I might tackle the HST box. After that I think I will actually work on one of the projects the has piqued my interest.

I went to the Farmpark Quilt show today and it is vendors weekend. I told myself I could not buy anything unless it is something I need to finish something from one of the things I found these past few days. Well...... I have never liked being told what I can't do. I bought 2 pieces of fabric but I can justify my purchase because I planned to come right home and make potholders with some chicken fabric. I have some metal roosters above my kitchen doorway and I wanted some chicken potholders. I haven't started them yet,,,,,,, but maybe Monday.

The Farmpark quilt show was very nice.  The Best of Show was a wonderful quilt with amazing workman ship. The quilter's statement said it was a ten year project.
Click here to see small sample of the quilts, including Best of Show.

Back to the Scraps

Due to high wind advisories yesterday we stayed in all day. That gave me time to get back to my project of cleaning up/organizing/getting rid of my overwhelming collection of scraps.  After I put away the Christmas things, I had them all out and all over every flat surface in my sewing room. I just could not stay focused; I ended up sorting things in some vague sort of organization and putting it all  away.

Today I pulled out one storage cube to work on. I decided that I would do some sewing and trimming and discarding, whatever it took to make some progress and some sense out of all the stuff in that cube.

 These are some larger pieces of "made fabric" from which I have already cut, and used, some 4 1/2 inch or slightly larger blocks. I folded these and set them aside in a zip lock bag. I will probably keep adding on to them for cutting smaller blocks.

This is a pile of  smaller pieces that are "made fabric" starter or in progress blocks.









These are some of the blocks from that pile. I trimmed the edges so they are straight and ready to have additions on any side. I set these aside in zip lock bags as well.  Most likely, these will be trimmed when they are close to the size I want to use for something. A few of them may grow to be  bigger pieces to cut into several blocks.




Most of these 8 1/2 inch blocks look  like yellow blocks even though here are small amounts of other colors. Most of them were finished and trimmed to size. The 4 blocks on the left in the top row were incomplete and I decided that I would finish them. They asked me for orange strips and I obliged.
It was after I finished them and put them on my design wall that I saw that they were orange and the other blocks were yellow. I had formerly thought of them all as "citrus".  These are still on my design wall and I am thinking about what I want to do with them and what I will need to make to go with them.

Everything else is put away again in the storage cube. It is sorted in away that I know I can work with. There is one bag that didn't make it back to the cube. For now it will go into the laundry basket under my cutting table "to be addressed".  I  still have a long way to go in order to make my space more workable.  I have one project that is near completion but has been set on hold until I can decide on borders and backing; it is a need to finish project with a deadline.

Only things that are needed will  be worked on for the time being, All large goals are being put off or abandoned.  I need to make changes in my sewing room that will result in not having to move furniture in order accomplish ordinary tasks, like cutting and pressing.  I need to have most of my supplies where I can reach them without standing on a ladder or digging them out of a closet in another room.

Who knows where this will lead? 

I might end up with a more usable sewing space 

or even a guest room or TV room.

Pink

Last Saturday, I went to our quilting group at church where some of the ladies were sorting through a very large shopping bag of donated scraps.  I hadn't brought anything with me to work on so I went to work helping them. The fabric donor has given us an enormous amount of fabric before this and it is all wonderful quilt shop fabric, some large pieces, some half yards, some fat quarters; it is all washed and pressed. This bag was an assortment of colors and sizes, all jumbled up together. It was like digging into a treasure trove. One of the ladies was looking for "I Spy" pieces and found  a lot of them; the pink scraps caught my attention. I had finished with some orange and yellow improv scrap blocks from my own scrap and was ready for another color. PINK!! 

I started sorting the scraps I brought home and at one point I had a little pile that called out to become a block.

This is the block I made. 

Everything else I was doing got put on hold as I trimmed and cut squares from the scraps and then going through my bins and cutting squares from smallish pieces.

So, I have been energized to tackle  the bins of pieces and parts that are taking up space I am focused on cutting for a few specific patterns that use random scraps.  I  have stacks of cut squares, random strips sorted, by color, into my scrap bins, a big bag of dog bed scraps, and a few empty boxes.

Maybe one day 

I will have a sewing space 

where I can work  without frustration.  

We'll see.

Yellow Scrap Blocks

After I finished the Dresden Rings and cleaned up,  I guess I just couldn't stand a clean room so I tackled the yellow scrap bag. I saved it for last because I have more yellow scraps than anything else. I went through everything in the bag and sorted it so all the large pieces and the smaller scraps of the same fabric were together. I then made a pile of usable pieces that were either loners or just 2 or three smallish pieces and  I sent a bunch of small pieces to the dog bed bag. I did  this over 2 days, taking breaks when I got bored . Then I cleaned it all up again.

Before I put it all away I thought I might as well make a few blocks, that clean room syndrome again I guess. I only made 3 - 8 1/2 inch blocks.

I intended to make the blocks all yellow. but I always seem to get off track when I try to work with one color. The closest I came is the one on the left. I thought of fixing the one on the right by cutting through the wide green strip on the right side and adding a yellow strip but I am leaving the blocks as they are. I didn't make these to use at this time so who knows what I will want to do when I get around to using them or even if I will ever get around to using them. For now they will stay on my wall so I can look at them, when I need the space maybe they will go into the odd blocks box and maybe someday..............

We'll see!

Progress

When I got started yesterday I thought I would be forever getting everything sorted into colors.  I soon realized that I would get nowhere going through all the bags and pulling out one color and then go through them again and pull out a different color. I am not sure why I even thought to do it that way. I guess I didn't realize just how many mixed up bags I had and how badly they were mixed up. I switched gears after I did that once. I made piles of different colors on my tables and floor and I am amazed that I have all the colors sorted.

This is where I am now. There are 4 - 2.5 gallon bags, 13 - 1 gallon bags, and 2 pint bags. That pile of empty bags that held all of the mixed up colors has 11 zip lock bags, either gallon or pint size, 2 quilt batting bags, 5 plastic grocery bags and a couple of quilt shop bags.

Beside the scraps sorted by colors there is one bag of fusible pieces. I also found many 2.5 inch squares in a small bag (I might throw those away), some scraps that are sewed together (they look like starters for "made fabric"), lots of 4 patches, many half square triangles, pieces of strip sets, and a bunch of folded prairie points.

My next step will be to go through each color bag or bags and sort out smaller pieces from larger pieces and of course there will be scraps for the  dog bed donation.

I won't say that this is never going to happen again but I hope that I have learned my lesson from this mess. I will remember how easy it was to forget to go back and sort the scraps, at the end of a project,

once everything was out of sight. At least I hope I will remember, my memory is not what it used to be.

Taming the Scraps

I have decided to tackle my laundry basket of scraps. At one time it was well organized and easy for me to get everything out and organized for sewing. Not too long ago I was looking through what I have and realized that it is a mess. Over time I cleaned up in a hurry and shoved what I had left over for the scrap bags into a plastic bag. I meant to go back and sort it all out into colors when I had time. Right now I have more unsorted bags (10 bags) than bags that are sorted by color.  So I am taking time out from sewing and I am going to put this in order.

The laundry basket is 16 inches across at the top and 17 inches high. Here is oneshot  from the side and one from the top. You can see that the basket is over stuffed.










 This next photo is a few of the bags opened to show what is inside, all colors, unsorted. I have started by making piles of scraps by colors as I go through the unsorted bags. I will probable do some sorting by size after I get the color sorting finished.









This is a reason that I have decided to get this  done now. My grandson's wife wants to learn to quilt and she wants to use my scraps. She is going to make a Disappearing Nine Patch.  She is a very accomplished busy young woman, working full time as an ER nurse and going to school. This quilt will take some time but little by little I am pretty sure she will see it through. 

Jenna working on and showing off her first block.

Getting There

Every box and Rubbermaid tub is unpacked and most things have found their permanent place. The sewing room is getting there.

This morning I emptied the Rubbermaid tub of all my fabric scraps for improve piecing. Once upon a time I had all my scraps in 2 large popcorn tins. I could never find anything when I wanted something so I set about to organize everything by cutting the scraps into strips and squares of the sizes I used  most often. Then I started following Victoria Finlay Wolfe's Bumblebeans blog and I started saving uncut scraps again for "making fabric" and improv piecing. I sorted my scraps by color and put them in ziplock bags and stored them in that brown plastic laundry basket. When I wanted to work with the scraps I put them in shoe boxes on my work table, with a box for each color. That way I didn't have a big tangled pile of all colored scraps. When I was finished with the project I put the fabric back in the ziplocks and stacked the empty shoe boxes. That system worked very well.......until I put a bag of scraps in the basket without sorting them by color. I was cleaning up after a project and " I would sort them later". Multiply than scenario by at least ten times and it isn't organized anymore.  I now have my plastic basket filled with the sorted scraps and next to it are seven bags of unsorted scraps from many projects.  I plan to tackle this soon.

But Not Today!