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!