FABRIC SCRAPS AND WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

 This past week I have been working on dealing with an enormously growing amount of fabric scraps.  Luckily I happened on to a post by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter discussing Sorting, Saving, and Using Fabric Scraps.  I spent the week doing something about my problem with great results.

I cut up all my scraps by color into some 4 1/2" and 2 1/2" strips and loaded them into plastic containers.  What a chore, but finally I am able to do something constructive with them.

My pink container has both pink and purple strips and yellow/gold and orange that share a container due to those colors that I seem to have less scraps of.  They are 12 inch blocks, and I managed to get 3 blocks of pink and orange and 2 of the purple and yellow/gold without repeating any fabrics on each block.

Blue, red, and green scraps each got 5 blocks each from them.  I have ended up with 25 blocks, a charity quilt is now on its way.  And no those scrap containers are far from empty but at least now I have a good plan to get them into some useful purpose and maybe actually gone. 

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APRONS, A RUNNER AND SUN BONNET SUE FINISHED

I accomplished a good deal over this past week.  Both the Raiders aprons are finished and I had enough fabric left over to make a runner to go with one, both are gifts for two friends of one of my daughters.  

 

I am  pleased with how easy the aprons were to make and the runner came out nicely.  I had left overs from one Raiders fabric that I used to make pillowcases and another runner durning the Christmas season for one that same daughter's friends.

I finished the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt this week.  I am so pleased to get it done, as it was started a good 20 years ago.  It goes to my  granddaughter Suren that started it with me when she was 10 or 12 years old.  When I reorganized the storage systems in my sewing room I happened upon it, forgotten for years.  

This is the backing fabric.  Yes it is perfect for it.  I happened to pick this fabric up off the free table a my guild meeting several months before unearthing the quilt.  Who would have thought at that time it would be the perfect backing for that long forgotten quilt.  

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NATIONAL QUILT DAY AND SOUTHERN CHARM FINISH

On Saturday I attended  my guild's National Quilt Day sewing event.  We celebrate by making pillowcases for a local children's hospital each year.  About 20 of us gathered and between what we accomplished on Saturday and what we will take home and finish we will donate 125 pillowcases to the hospital.  

My contribution was the one on the far left with the blue rabbits print and the green cuff, and the tan polkadot with the dark red cuff next to it.  I have two more I still have to finish at home.  

My Southern Charm came back from the quilter last week.  So pretty!

I really love this back on it too.  Also have a good deal left over from it to use making something else. 

Oh, the quilting Hollie used on it is just wonderful.  It is a pale green and the pattern is just perfect for it.  I never select either the thread or pattern when Hollie does my quilting for me.  She is an artist, and I just let her loose to do her magic.  

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BOUTIQUE SEWING AGAIN, SCRAP BINS AND SUE

 This has been another week of sewing for my guild's quilt show boutique.  A request went out that the boutique needs many more home made items.  Our last quilt show made a profit of $15,000 and the boutique contributed $5,000 of that.  Obviously it is important to stock the boutique well.  Placemats, table runners and table topers were the primary items that sold like crazy.

I knocked out these nine this week and have another 7 ready to go.  A good part of all this sewing is cleaning out some of my scraps bins.  

I have 5 wire racks with scraps in various colors in my sewing room closet like this.

Three wire bins like this.  Really time to try to clean some of this out.  So I fear that the next couple weeks will be madly sewing boutique items.

I did take a bit of a break though and worked on the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt.  This is the fourth and final row ready to quilt.  I will admit that it has been a real chore, but it is going well and I am very happy with the quilting results.  

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RAIDERS FOOTBALL APRONS AND PATTERNS

 This past week had me spending some of my time working on finally preparing appliqué pieces for my Sweet Tweet final bird block number 9.  I still have vines, leaves and a couple more flowers to cut out and fuse, but I am getting there.

It's a start, as fabric selection is the hardest for me and takes the most time to pick out.

My daughter recently asked me to make Raider football team pillowcases for her friend for Christmas.  So this past week she asked if I could make an apron for this friend for her birthday.  Yes, Raider themed.  I headed to JoAnn's to pick up a pattern.  After a good 30 minutes and selecting multiple patterns, every one was out of stock.  To make matters more interesting, patterns are very expensive.  Yes, a simple apron pattern runs between $15.99 to $19.99.  While they offer 30% off not one of them was available.  Only choice at that point was Amazon, yes $15.99 plus tax.  I am putting this one in a very safe place.

The good news was I found Raiders fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby at 40%, and it is 90" wide and a nice heavy weight fabric for that pattern.

Plus a perfect back for my Southern Charm quilt top too.  Off to the quilters this coming week.

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