Marching on

Finally, that's February over with. I think maybe I should have been a bear in winter, because I tend to go into a kind of hibernation.Once Christmas is over with I look around and find everything dark and dreary, I don't deal well with the cold, and although snow looks pretty on postcards, having to trudge through the wet and slushy stuff in town or trying to keep upright on icy pavements... nah, not my kind of thing.

I don't seem to get much sewing done, unless it's by hand and tend to end up snuggled under a blanket with a good book or some knitting.

Once March makes it's debut things start to lighten up again. There might still be snow and cold - "the beast from the east" is still causing trouble - but the days are getting longer, and with more daylight I also find my way into the sewing room. So I'm back in the saddle again and have spent a lot of this weekend by the sewing machine and made a lot of progress on this quilt. Just two borders left to quilt and I can add the binding.

With more daylight hours suddenly my head is full of ideas, but I have ambitions to finish three more quilts before I start a new one. And it's not just because I feel an obligation, I really want these to get finished soon.

And then I have plans to get to grips with all my scraps. I have them sorted by colour, and I have some ideas, but I bet they wont make more than a dent in my scrap pile... we'll see. at least the inspiration to sew seems to be coming back, and that feels good!

Sew Together Bag

I seem to have instagrammed every step of the process while making this bag, so it's about time I share the finished object here, isn't it? I first came across this Sew Together bag on Pinterest and followed the link to Craftsy and purchased the downloadable pattern, but it remained on file for quite some time. I was fiddling about with some scraps one day, and started playing with the idea of stitching them together in a Kantha-quilting kind of way, but to what purpose? Then it dawned on me that I could use the result for the outside of a bag, and the Sew Together Bag came to mind. I cut a piece of home-dec weight fabric as a foundation and started layering. The scraps were basted down before I started stitching lines with big stitches, using perle cotton in different weights. After a few evenings of random stitching the resulting fabric had enough stitches to make it lie reasonably flat so I cut it to size and started stitching the bag.

I won't lie to you - making the bag was a lot of work, but not too difficult, so I persevered. I also realized halfway through the process that I was supposed to use a lightweight fusible stabilizer on all pieces. Without thinking I had grabbed the first stabilizer I found, a thin fusible batting. The result is a very compact, sturdy bag, but still very usable. It has three zippered compartments with extra compartments between and on either side - seven compartments in all. With a little pincushion on one side and a needle rest on the other, it will be very handy for all sorts of sewing projects. The bound zipper on top extends beyond the sides and fastens to the sides, forming handles.

Taming the scraps

So my scrap situation was completely out of control. - How's that for a riveting first sentence? :-)
But seriously, I just didn't have room for more fabric and that's serious, right? I debated with myself about what to do with that plastic crate full of scraps - it could be put to better use storing my backing fabric, and that would make more room among my other fabric for the new purchases.

Of course the simple solution would be to just go out and buy a new box, but then, where would I put that? So what to do? Throw all those scraps out? No, I just couldn't do that - it seemed such a waste. I had started years back to stitch my blue and yellow scraps together into large pieces, intending to cut blocks from them, but I was lead astray by a new tempting project and they were abandoned to a box up on my shelves (I'm pretty sure I can locate them...).

Now I had time on my hands and an urge to continue that project. My scraps were kept roughly sorted by colour and crammed into paper bags in a crate and I could just manage to close the lid. A brief survey told me that the greens were taking over. Now politically or ecologically speaking that statement might not sound too alarming to some, but in terms of managing my scraps, something had to be done.

I started by pouring the whole mess onto the table and, boy, was there a lot - I must have used green borders on a lot of projects over the years, judging from the amount of strips I found. I sorted strips and smaller pieces and ended up with some semi-orderly piles. Off to the ironing board, where they were flattened into submission and then the sewing could beging. I started stitching the smaller pieces together into strips, trimming them and stitching them onto long strips, working my way through little by little.

I'll admit it wasn't all fun, and it seemed to take ages, but I rewarded myself with other sewing projects along the way (which is probably why I have managed to make two quilt tops so far during my holidays and quilt one complete with pieced backing...), but eventually I had assembled enough large pieces to start cutting. I decided on 8 1/2" blocks, because I happened to have an 8 1/2" ruler nearby ...  I ended up with 54 blocks - enough to make a whole quilt - I know! Isn't that an amazing result from one small paper bag of scraps?

Now while I was out shopping the other day, I came across a plastic crate, half the size of the ones I had, with six compartments inside - well they are actually buckets that you can take out, and oh so handy! I had just the right slot for a crate that size, and promptly started sorting through the rest of the scraps. I still had some greens left over, but not too many. Neatly sorted in piles first and then put into their own compartments, I managed to fit most of them in. Now the blue and turquoise ones had to be crammed in, so I see where I have to go next when I feel up to a new scrappy sewing session. I still have the black, white, cream and brown scraps to sort through, but I did manage to find room for those backing fabrics, so I'm well pleased with my organising so far.
 

Now of course, I'll have to come up with a quilt design for these scrappy blocks, but I'll have time to think while sorting out the rest of the scraps little, by little. Any suggestions?

Scrappy mug rugs

My scrap bin is overflowing, and I decided that I really need to do something about it all. I have a plan, but more about that later...
These recent scraps didn't even make it into the scrap bin, because it was so full and they were so lovely, that I didn't want them to get lost in that wild jumble of wrinkly old bits and pieces. So what better use for them than stitching up a new pile of mug rugs?

There are pieces in there from my latest cushions, bags and quilts - some lovely Reunion, Henna Garden, that great house print from Spoonflower - lots of lovely fabric where I couldn't bear to throw away even the smallest pieces.
I just stitched bits and pieces together randomly, sliced and stitched some more. I ended up with ten tiny quilt tops ;-)  They were all quilted with wavy lines with varigated thread, cut down to size - I make mine 6 x 8" - and given polka dot binding as a unifying factor. Now I don't expect that they'll all stay together, they will probably find new homes with friends and relations soon enough.

Except for these two. I don't know why, but they just make me so happy. Orange and aqua is not a colour combo I would have thought of, but with a bit of black and white it really works for me, so these are staying.  Perfect for enjoying a cup of tea and a bit of knitting on a rainy day. My last precious piece of Aunty Cookie Knit One fabric matches so well with my knitting bag as well. Yes, these are definitely staying!

The blue quilt

Another finish. Actually this quilt has been finished for a while, but it is such a long quilt that I have been struggling to find a way to photograph it indoors and yet show the whole thing.

The idea for this quilt began while I was sorting through my stash last winter and realized that I had an awful lot of blue fabric that never seems to go with anything. I had amassed a lot of fabric with planets, stars and clouds while planning the Space Quilt and the Kite Quilt for two of my nephews, but as they never were used there, they just stayed on in my stash. When visiting my sister on a cold winter's day and seing my 13 3/4 nephew trying to cuddle up under a tiny knitted afghan, I realized that he has outgrown the quilt I gave him some years ago. I totally get that cats, bats and toads might be a bit uncool when you're almost 14 and your friends come around! So, the idea of a new quilt was planted. The colours of his favourite sports team are blue and orange, so my blues could be put to good use. I purchased a length of orange polar fleece (I asked for two meters, but it turned out to be 2,2 meters) and used that as a size guide. I pieced the smaller scraps randomly together into blocks of different sizes, cut some of them up and kept some, adding strips of different widths, and whole lengths of fabric in some instances I also dipped into my favourite blue fabrics to bring it all together. It was all very haphazard, but I enjoyed the process. Eventually I ended up with ten full-length strips and stitched them together.

The quilting is very simple  - just some horisontal lines of variegated red/orange thread to hold it all together. And there you go: I've got room for more blue fabric in my stash and my nephew will have something to keep him warm through next winter. A win, win situation, wouldn't you say?

The best laid plans...

Anyone following this blog could have predicted it. Big words are followed by ... Nothing!
Here I was, confident that I would finish quilting my Sunflower quilt last weekend. I had the whole weekend to myself with no plans at all. Well, there was the fact that my sewing area was a bit messy, and I had just bought a couple of those handy storage boxes with snap on lids. Hm, maybe I should tidy up a little bit before I started sewing? Yes, let's!
I started digging out all the bags of scraps, batting, rulers, frames and what have you stored underneath (and somewhat in front of...) my cutting table. Things were sorted, a pile for recycling, a pile for the bin, some things for the basement and some to be found a new home somewhere in the room. I made great inroads in all the stuff, and although the table is looking like this at the moment, the floor is clear and I can actually stand upright right next to the table, which is a relief :-)

My scraps are sorted by colour in paper bags in one of the new containers, and my batting in another, so I have made great inroads in all the mess. But I haven't sewn a stitch all week. But I will get there, and I already feel that I can breathe more easily in the room because it seems so open and light compared to what it was like when I started. Had I been a better blogger, I would have remebered to take "before" pictures, but at least ou will get "after" pictures once I have finished - but don't hold your breath!

Oh, and it's not true that I haven't sewn a stitch, by the way! I have sewn many - a whole block by hand, actually! Remember the block-of-the-month thing at my guild? I decided to choose new fabrics to make it more interesting (and it turned out that this new round is for 7" blocks, and the old ones were 6", so I couldn't have used them together anyway!).

So here it is, my hand-sewn Card Trick block. It needs seeing to with a hot iron, but at least it is finished with time to spare before the next guild meeting.

Conquering the stuff

After finishing the bag the other day I was all set to continue with another project - I have enough UFOs, or "marinating" quilts as Jan of Be*mused calls them ;-), to keep me busy for a while, and there are an insane amount of ideas for new quilts in my mind and in my notebook. Enough to keep me busy for a very long time! I just couldn't seem to settle on anything I wanted to do. I could blame the heat for me not wanting to spend time in my sewing room, but no - I had to face the truth: I didn't want to spend time there because it was too messy!

So the last couple of days have been all about conquering the stuff that has invaded every available surface and trying to find room for it all. I'm not there yet, and the room actually looks worse than when I started, but I have done a lot. First of all I tidied all the 15 mushroom crates of fabric I have stacked under a shelf by the window - refolded and sorted fabric and managed to find room for the newish ones that have been cluttering up my cutting table for far too long. All the scraps have been sorted by colour and put in paper bags, waiting for more of this. I have been meaning to get round to making these in all colourways and that might just be my summer project this year. I also sorted the two boxes of backing fabric, and other big pieces of fabric that will be used for something "special" (like the two red/orange/white IKEA prints in the second picture) I found that putting the fabric vertically in the boxes gives me a much better chance of seeing what I've actually got in there, instead of piling it all in a big heap. Well, I did actually add another layer to each box, so there will have to be some sifting through layers, but still...
So that's it for now. Tomorrow I will deal with the work surfaces, and little by little the room will be brought to order. Eventually I might even share some pictures of my space...

Scrap happy

This weekend my guild arranged a get together - "bring your sewing machine, fabrics and whatever you would like to work on and let's have fun together" the invitation read. While trying to decide, I happened to glance into my scrap bag. It seems to have grown a lot lately and I had thought to myself that I wanted to do something about it. So that's what I brought.
While the rest of the gang got started making fancy quilts and bags, I sorted my fabric by colour and started piecing the scraps together. We had lots of fun, chatting and giggling and the piecing went like a dream. I ended up with this large blue piece and
this yellow one. The idea is to treat these like yardage and cut them into patches. I will do the same with my red and green scraps too, and use them all together in a quilt. Maybe combined with black? Or some other plain colour. I will have a while to decide about that, though. There are still lots of scraps left...