Sunday, Sunday

I hope everyone is staying home and staying healthy.  And, I hope everyone is getting some good sewing time in.  Sewing is what has kept me sane for the past month.  This is a time when a good stay-at-home hobby can save us.  

This time has also given me a chance to go through some fabric bins and to do some sorting.  I don't even want to say how many bins of fabric I have in this studio.  When my son and daughter-in-law were here last month, Laura got started on organizing and getting my stash all together.  Usually, I am so involved in several projects at one time that I only contribute to the mess and find myself putting scraps and leftover fabrics in yet another bin, thinking I will tackle it "someday."  But, now Laura has me inspired so every day, I have been tackling another bin; sorting small scraps (anything less than a fat quarter) by color for one bin, pressing and measuring larger pieces and putting them in larger bins.  I have drawers that are sorted by color and those scraps are cut into strips.  I have several quilt patterns that require strips so these are handy to have when I want to get some blocks made quickly.

I brought out a bin that looked like it was scraps but inside, I found a treasure trove of blocks that were completed but not put together.  This bin was from our demos at the quilt shows.  I found blocks for three quilts that were ready to assemble!  How thrilled I was to find these.  I held them out and sorted the rest of the fabrics, finding half-done projects but at least now, they are better organized and stand a chance of actually getting done.

I found these twelve Crazy Quilt blocks completely done.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them because I have no coordinating fabric for a border.  I had to really scrounge to find enough bits and pieces to make the corner stones and the Sawtooth Border.  This morning, I am adding the outside border of white (its a white on white tiny swirl print) and hope to get it on the machine shortly.  I am loving the sweetness and softness of this quilt.  I am thinking that a nice soft flannel for the back will be perfect.  As to the binding, I really don't like white binding, even on a white border of a quilt; its just my preference.  As I was working on this yesterday, I was thinking about the binding, wondering what I would use since there isn't hardly a morsel of any of these fabrics left.  And, suddenly, it dawned on me that I have a big box of fabrics that over time, I have designated as perfect binding fabrics.  Mostly, these are stripes because I love bias binding from striped fabrics.  I jumped right up, went into the fabric room, grabbed the box and was thrilled to find three one yard pieces of the coordinating striped fabric (its used in the blocks).  I guess when we cut the kits, the stripe was left over and I put it in the binding box.  I was so thrilled.  This quilt was just meant to be.

I have another set of blocks that I think I will pull out to put together and another couple of Crazy Patch items to finish up.  My Crazy tote is virtually done and I can't wait to share all of those with you.

Stay safe, stay healthy and HAPPY SEWING!