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Getting organised

After completely trashing my sewing area looking for fabrics to finish the hot and cold string pieces, I powered through getting the strips cut and sewn together and even trimmed them down so that they are ready to cut into triangles. I am making 80 of them to make a single-sized quilt.

But, this exercise taught me something: I need to get organised. It's not really my nature to be too organised. I used to be but life is more complicated these days. But, when my lack of organisation influences my choices (especially my creative ones), it's time to act.

I was also inspired by some of the posts I read as part of the linky party on Sarah Quilts called you show me yours, I'll show you mine. Some of the stashes were impressive and tidy. I figured it was my turn.

I've divided my quilting fabrics into a few categories - the ones I'm putting into this drawer are less than 1 yard but all are at least 8 x 12 inches. I have another pile of bigger pieces more than a yard. And a pile of big scraps that I will throw into a box.

One thing that this exercise has shown me is that there are some colours I have a lot of and others that I don't. I'm surprised by all the browns and the lack of greens (I always use green) - who knew?

I have a few lingering projects to deal to and then I'm planning another stash-busting project. As you can see, there is no room for any more purchases - this is a bad thing!

Scrappy scrappy scraps

In an effort to get organised, I'm attacking my scrap basket.

I want to be frugal and I want to embrace the make-do attitude of generations of quilters that have come and gone. But, like most of you I am tempted by shiny new fabric. A few years back I made a crumb quilt that was mostly made of scraps, some quite tiny. I enjoyed the process, but prefer a more controlled style.

I've been thinking about postage stamp blocks for a while now and had been dutifully cutting 1-1/2" squares when a scrap was the right size. I haven't done this for a while, so I attacked the scraps again adding 2-1/2" squares and sorting out the bigger pieces and strings.

This weekend, for a Monday Modern challenge, I put together a zippered bag using a tutorial at Noodlehead. I thought I'd use some of my little squares for the top half and a linen (leftover from some window treatments I had made years ago) for the bottom half. I drew a grid on some lightweight fusible interfacing and this made the squares easy to manage (not my idea, but lots of instructions out in blogland if you're interested).

I'm not totally happy with the zipper top-stitching and tab (I might redo these if I have some time) but I am totally in love with the little squares. I tried to fussy cut when possible and all the little faces make me smile. Apparently the bag's cuteness has not gone unnoticed and DD has claimed it already.

Meanwhile, my pile of scraps does not appear smaller even though I've cut hundreds of little squares. I suspect the scraps were pretty compressed in there, so now they have more air to breath. I too will breath easier when this job is done.