Scraps

I'm so glad I didn't give up on that book - Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty. I'm now at 88% and well, the characters are so real. Neurotic, but isn't the way we all are? Except that the story is told from different points of view and there are things said or thought that we think, but we never say! That's the fun part of the book. We're not alone in thinking things that we would never say! Isn't that awful?

Even though these books are novels, there's a very important message in the books. It's OK to talk to your friends and spouses and BE TRUTHFUL. Yikes - that could get us into trouble, but if we don't, we can be in constant turmoil! Decisions, decisions..............


Today - it's all about scraps. Over the last couple of days, I've been digging through stuff - looking for things. But in the process, I found other stuff.

You're not allowed to judge! OK - you can call me crazy to my face - I'm OK with that.

I unearthed this blue bucket. What's in the bucket? Why half square triangles that were made with cut off pieces of borders or bindings or trimming flying geese.

A bucket of half square triangles pieces

Here's the best part - that entire bucket is sewn together and trimmed. Those half square triangles are ready to sew together to make interesting scrap quilts.

Half square triangles ready to sew together

The best part is that they are also sorted by size. The most common being 1 ½" and 1 ¾". In the bottom of the bucket are some "extra"  1 ½" half square triangles that didn't fit into the tin.

Half square triangles in the bottom of the bucket

Tin? What tin? Yep - there's an entire tin container FILLED with half square triangles that are trimmed and ready to sew together. This is in addition to what's in the blue bucket.

More half square triangles ready to sew together

Seriously, I've spent a HUGE amount of time on this project over the years. When I was sorting the bags, I did come across an issue. First, the bags weren't labeled and that was an issue. And there were multiple bags of the same size. Now all of the same sizes (I think there are about 8 different sizes) are sorted into bags that have a label on them indicating the size.

I found a bag with these ones in it. What size were they??  1 5/8". For heaven's sake - why did I do that? They are now trimmed down to 1 ½".

Half square triangles trimmed to 1 ½"

I trimmed a bunch more this morning. And they are filed into the appropriate bags. There's a few more to file and well - this story is going to continue tomorrow as I found even more stuff and I don't have time this morning to get it all in one spot.

But here's the thing. Even though I have a lot of those half square triangles finished, I have buckets of raw material to deal with.

Here's one container that's filled with the cut off pieces. They need to be sewn together and then trimmed.

Triangles to sew together to get half square triangles

 And if that isn't enough, here's one more basket filled to the brim with triangles that need to be sewn together.

Basket of triangles that need to be sewn together

And why stop at two baskets, when you can have THREE. Yes - there is one more that is totally overflowing.

One more basket of triangle pieces

 I know - that's terrible. Well - not really - I love doing that kind of thing. I just don't get as much time as I would like.

Oh and also in that blue bucket is this bag of trimmed half square triangles. They came from a very specific project and so I'll make something just with the pieces in this bag. Hey - these are fun to put together and by twirling the seams, you reduce the bulk and they are fun to play with.

Bag of half square triangles

 I have several ideas of what to do with all these pieces. I just need the time! But they make great enders and leaders.

You may have noticed a precut in the blue bucket as well. This is a turnover - they are NOT a popular pre-cut. But I have this one and I have another one in Studio B.

Turnover Pre-cut

I had been looking for a bag of blocks that I wanted to take a picture of to submit to a magazine. I couldn't find the darn bag, but I did find a whole lot of other "missing" stuff. I'll share that with you tomorrow. I managed to find a picture of what I was looking for on my blog. That was good enough for the submission. Should they accept that quilt - then I really need to find that bag. I just had the darn thing so it can't be far away.

By the way - I do NOT want any scraps from anyone. I have loads.

So on the question of time and how I spend my time. I've decided that I'm going to start treating my time like I should be treating stuff in my house. You know how we're supposed to ask ourselves if this thing gives us pleasure. Well, I'm going to ask myself the same thing for the different ways that I spend my time. Do I enjoy this activity? If not - then it's gone. I've already made a couple of decisions about things that I do and I'll be sharing those with you as time goes on. Don't worry - Sit n Sews are going to be going full force by July if I have my way!!!  What I'm trying to do is get rid of things that require paperwork.

Life should be about enjoying every day (for the most part) and so I want to carry that out as much as I can. Come on - it can't all be exciting - we do have to do paperwork from time to time.

Here's an article about one of the subsidiaries of F+W Media. They published great books. Who knows what is going to happen? But the fact that these giant conglomerates buying up these small companies is a huge issue. The huge conglomerates have ZERO interest in the craft or the product. They just want the money. And when things don't go right because they haven't given it the attention (investment money) necessary - they sell it off or it goes down the toilet. You'd be surprised at how much this is happening in the craft industry. It's huge and it covers books, magazines, fabric companies, sewing machines, and a whole lot more!!!!

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!

Ciao!!!