A scrap happy day!

What a fun day! Well, most days are fun, but yesterday was an exception and something very good came out at the end.

It was a community project quilt sewing day in Studio B. There were six of us in total and the plan was to work on string quilts. For some reason, I've acquired a huge amount of 2" fabric strips. I'm not even sure what I was going to do with them. Most of them were crammed into this wire basket. I think I bought a bunch of ugly fat quarters and was going to make rugs or something. I've no idea.

Wire basket that contained the strips

Once I emptied that wire basket onto the tables, I got a CUBE of fabric. That's how compacted the strips were in the basket.

A cube of fabric strips

We tossed the bunch of strips down the length of the worktables. There are six tables and there were six of us. It worked perfectly.

Mad sewing in progress

I had a laundry basket of odds and ends of fabric which you can see in the foreground. We didn't really dig through that, but it needs to be sorted for the next round of community project sewing. That's a job for this coming week.

When I say those fabrics were crammed in that wire basket, I mean they were crammed. See what I mean - some of those fabrics were in desperate need of some pressing.

A few wrinkles to press out

I think we had made one random colored block and then decided to made blocks by color. More cohesive and nicer looking quilts. And so the progress began. I was the trimmer, in addition to sewing blocks. Once I trimmed the blocks, I stuck the blocks on the wall so we could see our progress for the day.

Let the string quilt block making begin

I'm not sure at what point, this next picture was taken - sometime in the afternoon. For a pile of scraps from random fabrics, these blocks are gorgeous!!! The funny thing was that the pile of strips on the table did NOT seem to decrease. Matter of fact, it looked like way more strips than when we started.

Progress!!!

And this is how many blocks we completed in one day.

Progress for one day

We did combine the browns and reds. Not sure that's what the final quilt will look like, but we'll see.

Here are the red/brown blocks that we managed to make. Twenty-four in case you're counting.

Red blocks

Let's just say that there were a LOT of blue fabric strips in the basket. We ended up with 61 blue blocks. We need 80 for a quilt. Isn't it nice how all those various blues and the odd pop of color make a really nice looking quilt?

The blue blocks

And we made some green blocks as well. There are 18 blocks of green.

The green blocks

So the grand total for the day was 103 blocks. That's pretty impressive considering that I had to trim all the blocks, we did stop for lunch, everyone came and went at different times and Diane cut up another sheet to use as foundations. I think we were all extremely pleased with how the day went.

However, as I mentioned, there's still a huge pile of strips. You can see that some of them are sorted. I think that most of the reds have been pulled out. My goal is to sort through the remaining scraps, sort them by color. We have blue, green, red, brown and other!

The pile of leftovers yet to be sewn

Then the next day we sew, we can each work on a specific color or someone could take home a specific color and make the blocks at home. There are two laundry baskets of scrap fabric and strips that have to be cut up or just sorted to add to this mix. A bit of prep work on my part, but this is MY stash that the others are helping to get rid of. It only makes sense that I put some serious time into the process.

Some pretty wild stuff in there!

I think we had sorted most of the greens out as Diane was tucked in the corner and did mostly green blocks all day.

The pile of green strips

This was the basket of "tips" that we used if the corners were short of fabric. We didn't have anything at the beginning, but after trimming a block or two - we were good.

The little cutoffs for the corners

 We still have a nice stack of foundation blocks. These were cut from sheets that were donated for the pet mat project. I have one more sheet and one more large piece of fabric that need to be cut into the foundation blocks. Cutting for another day. Again - I love doing prep work and since it's my mess to get cleaned up, I'm happy to put in the time knowing that it's all going to a good home.

Foundation blocks ready

And here's the scrap box on the cutting table at the end of the day. It is now wildly overflowing. I need to get down to Studio B and do a major tidy up. I've also got some urgent computer work that needs to be attended to today. It's supposed to snow, so that's two perfect jobs for a snow day. Besides shoveling the snow.

The overflowing scrap bin

But just because it's going to snow, doesn't mean that I can slack off on those darn steps. I'm now only 8.6 miles behind the pace. Oh yes - I've been making up miles like crazy. I think I made up 7 miles this week. I hope to be caught up by the end of this month. Then I can relax a wee bit. The only problem? I'm hungry! Now it's just a question of finding the right things to snack on. No EXCESSIVE sugar snacks.

And it appears that I'm not the only one who is walking to do errands. The husband of one of the ladies who was here (he's retired) is now walking to their grocery store to pick up a few things. He bought an insolated backpack from the store and he's set. The distance to my grocery store is small as I cut through the forest. John has to walk 3.5 KM ONE WAY. I'm totally impressed. Seriously though - walking to do your errands is a perfect way to stay in shape and walking outside - well you can't be grumpy if you walk outside. I don't care what the temperature is.

The backpack is the way to go, especially if you have two crazy dogs like me. After everyone left yesterday, I also walked to the grocery store with the girls. I swear I should get extra points when I walk with them! Now I need to look into that backpack. Thanks for the tip John!!

A HUGE HUGE thanks to Diane P., Lynn, Sharon, Rose, and Diane S. for making a small dent in that basket of strips. It was a fun day, we made enough blocks for more than one quilt, although we're going to wait until we had enough of one color to make an entire quilt.

Do we want donations? Nope - sorry. We ONLY work with stuff that belongs to those that participate in the community project days. BUT - why not organize something yourself. Get your friends together and have a sewing day. They are fun. It does take a wee bit of organizing, but honestly - it's better to use this stuff up than to have someone throw it away when you're no longer around.

Oh, shoot - I forgot to take pictures of the two quilts that Diane S had sewed at home. I'll take pictures of them tomorrow and show you. We still have a couple of tubs of kits and some quilts need the binding sewn on. That'll have to wait until next month.

I've got a lot to get done today so I'd better get started. And I cannot believe that I'm waking up EXCITED to get to the gym. I've gone totally mad! Sadly, I'd have to admit that I have some obsessive traits. Very obsessive traits. But channel those obsessive traits into good things and well - that's a good thing!!!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!