Recycle!

Gosh - I'm a slug! When I don't have an imminent deadline, I'm a slug. I did get some work done yesterday, but I also laid around, I slept and I read. A slug. It doesn't happen every day, and I hate when it happens. Oh well - today is a new day, let's get moving.

Today it's all about recycling. Remember years ago, I got on a kick of collecting other peoples scraps. What the heck was I thinking when I asked for that? I must have been totally out of my mind. People have different ideas of what scraps are! In some cases, people saw it as an out to get rid of anything textile they had in their house!

The bags were originally under the longarm but then had to be moved when I started up my Sit n Sew days again. Now all the bags are in the cold room under the front step. I've had a green garbage bag sitting in the studio for months waiting to go through it. I knew the darn thing had few scraps in it and I didn't want to deal with it. But yesterday seemed like a good day to do that.

Bear will be disappointed as he loved to sit on that bag. And I knew whenever he was in the stash room as he bounced over the noisy plastic garbage bag. That little guy - he was snoopy.

Bear taking the obstacle course to the stash room

Bear chilling out on the bag of textile scraps

Gosh - we miss that little guy. Of course, we have the two big girls but they are lunatics! Little Bear was much calmer for the most part!

So what was in the green garbage bag??? 

All of this. There were some old clothes, some FORTREL (aka as crimplene), some fabric swatches on headers, and a bunch of other stuff. NONE of it was what I was looking for.

This is what was in the green bag

However, I'm on a kick of making things with recycled goods so I did keep some of the stuff. I found this beautiful piece of shiny fabric. I have just the right use for that later this week.

Shiny fabric

 Then there were these samples. They are poly/cotton, but who cares. There are enough of them to make something. Can't tell you what yet.

Fabric samples

The headers on the fabric samples

Triton Fabrics - that company is probably long gone. It was funny to find these in the bag. OK - so while there was nothing in the bag of the genre I was looking for, it was fun to go through the bag. Call me an idiot!!!!!

What was I looking for? I was looking for the scraps of cotton that people throw away when they are quilting. Not everything else.

There was a decent size of stained white sheeting. I trimmed the edges and serge it up to make a pet mat form.

Then I chopped up the ugly bits that were leftovers from making clothing.  My rotary cutter will need a good cleaning at this point.

Chopping up the ugly bits

 There was a couple of small strips of polyester batting. That got cut up and added to the mix. Once I had done that, the pet mat was full. I serged the opening closed and it's going to be delivered today.

A pet mat

I kept the crimplene to add to my treasure boxes that I took from Mom's house. And there's nothing left to hang around. Oh yes - there was a pair of jeans with some interesting detail. I do need to cut those up and add to the denim stash. I'll do that later today. But seriously, I found a home for everything and cut up what I would never use. That was NOT the intention of that exercise. I didn't want to add anything to my stash.

However, it brings to mind an interesting thought. It's one thing to always cut into fresh new fabrics to make a quilt or other project. But I seriously believe my creativity kicks in hard when I'm handed something that I have no idea what to do with. I love when I make something creative from it. That's how I learn, that's how I grow and that's how I have fun!!!!

I was even so excited that I pulled the next bag of scraps from the cold room. Call me a sucker! This one looks more like quilting scraps from the cutting table which will get made into pet mats. It's a wonder someone can't chop up all these textile bits and churn them up and remake new fabric from them. I suppose somewhere someone is doing that. But the cost is probably more than making new fabric.

Another bag of scraps to go through

 I'm going to have to find the bag(s) with the old sheets and towels in it so I can make the forms to stuff for the pet mats. I know it's in that cold storage somewhere. Just got to find out where.


I feel much more in control today. I decided to bite the bullet since I couldn't find the first little micro binder that I was using. I cracked open the spare. On each page, I wrote the deadline and the name of the quilt that is associated with that deadline. There are 14 quilts that I'm responsible for that have deadlines. The deadlines are spread out, but I NEED to review this little book each week so I can get the right amount of work done each week. I like the binder idea because it's easy to switch the pages around if a new project gets accepted. Moving the pages allows me to keep the dates in order.

My little binder of deadlines

On that note, I'm out of here.

Oh - I should mention that Lexi blogged this morning. That silly girl. Both of them are just silly.

And today is the last day of the craft sale at The Hobby Horse. Get yourself in gear and get out there to pick up some amazing gifts. There are quilts, table runners, ornaments, placemats, bags, stuff for babies and a whole lot more!!!!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!