Monday, July 10, 2006

The cleaning crew is a little late today so I'm going to take a few minutes to check in while they work in my office.

I had another productive day yesterday. I finished my flower blocks. Just need to lay them out on the floor and see how I want to arrange them. But I didn't feel like grubbing around on the floor yesterday so instead I pulled a bunch of floral fabrics - FQ and smaller - and cut 10-1/2" squares to piece a back. So that's done except for the border that will go around them. It will be the same green plaid that will be the border for the front. I decided not to do the pieced border I had planned. I think it would have been too busy with all the busyness of the blocks so I'm just stopping it with a nice green TOT check. It looks pretty good alongside most of the blocks and I have 3-1/2 yds of it so plenty for the border on the front and back. I do like the way the back turned out and with the addition of the border it will make a really nice reversible quilt. ALL from stash. In fact almost all from scraps. I had to cut into FQs for some of the green 5" squares and I had to cut into FQs and yardage to get enough variety in my oranges. But the rest of it came from my 5" squares and 3-1/2" squares and strips.

I do have a really large stash of squares and strips. Mostly because for several months after Mama died I just couldn't make myself sew a stitch. But I did play with fabric. I pulled every piece out of my stash - which included all of Mama's stash at the time - and I cut everything off that was odd shaped. If a square had been cut off I cut the rest of the strip. And if nothing was off - just because why not - I cut a chunk anyway. I squared up both ends usually cutting a few extra inches when I did. And I pulled out everything that was smaller than about 1/3 yd. Then I started cutting. I cut strips of all sizes from 1-1/2" to 4-1/2". Any strip that I couldn't get at least 4 squares out of I cut up into squares. The tag ends were cut into smaller squares or bricks - whichever gave me the least waste. I cut squares from 2" to 5". Anything less than 1-1/2" got tossed into a bits bin which will eventually become crumb blocks along with leftover bits and pieces from strip sets and the occasional leftover HST. At that time I cut up everything that was not at least 9" X 12". Anything from that size thru about 1/3 yd are folded with my FQs. and sorted by color in plastic shoeboxes. Everything 1/3 yd or larger is folded in my cabinets.

This is the third set of blocks I will have made with my scraps and I haven't made a tiny dent. Of course they grow with every quilt I cut as I've tried to cut any leftovers up just as soon as I finish a project. I have a large stack on the corner of the table waiting to be cut up now which I'll probably do sometime this week.

Well I've rambled long enough they're finished in my office so I guess I'd better get back to work.

3 comments:

The Calico Cat said...

that border and backing plan sounds nice... I can't wait to see it.

quiltpixie said...

Hope you enjoy how it looks when you get it out on the floor.

Shelina said...

Seems like you have been really busy. I'm always afraid to cut up my stash the way you have. I'm always afraid after I cut everything up to 2 1/5 inch strips then I will find that I need three inch strips. My luck, whatever I need, I have everything else.