Scrap-a-palooza!!

AH -- you make me blush! But thanks for the comments about the scrap quilts, but I have to say that I'm HOOKED! That influencer - Linda!

Now here's the thing - I was NOT interested in precutting my scraps - not in the least. I had tried it in the past by cutting some fat quarters into strips and I was totally uninspired and I'll be handing that to Diane soon. But this? I now have a couple of patterns in mind and we had a chat last night and I now have a couple more. 

So are you anxious to see what happened? 

This is my cutting station last night before I went to bed. And let's say that it was late before I went - there were loads of comments and I did sleep in (until 6:30 am) this morning! WOW! 

My cutting station before I went to bed

I decided to continue to work on the scraps this morning, so I put the other stuff away. That leaves my cut pieces at the top of the photo, the scrap bits in the bottom left. Some odd bits in the plastic bag and one box of ironed and sorted pieces and ONE more messy box of brown scraps. 

Here's a close up of what got done. 

The cut pieces

That is HUGE and I can't be happier. Since I've had so much fun with this and I want to continue, but how to find the time. As I was evaluating my schedule, I realized that this is the perfect thing to do during Monday sewing days and the Virtual Retreats. I'm not good at sewing because I like to stay close to the computer. So guess what? I can put the computer on the cutting table and I can cut away! I love WHEN I find a solution to a problem!

There are a "few" boxes of scraps that need to be dealt with and last night I was introduced to several other patterns, so the idea is to look at the sizes of the shapes. NO -- I'm going the other way -- these sizes I'm cutting seem to be good ones, so I'm going to find or create patterns that fit these sizes so then it's easy to find the colors I need. 

Because my definition of brown - well, sometimes it seems that I used the term "brown" rather loosely in some cases!!!

OK - so when you look at those piles above, you're not impressed, but look at one of them from the side. 

A HUGE pile of scraps

Yep -- positively overflowing!

Another pile

All the piles are over the top of the containers. I should have brought more containers, but no worry - I'll find a safe place to stow them for the trip home and then I can dig out some containers or bags to keep them. Now I need to decide if I'm going to make a brown quilt or save these and mix them with other colors. 

The last pile of scraps

And here it is -- the entire result of my 2 1/2 days of cutting. Remember, this might not be the most productive environment to cut (loads of distractions), but that's OK. All progress is progress. 

The fruits of my labor

Now I have a dilemna - what am I going to work on today? As I said earlier, I will focus on this to get as much done as I can!! I can sew and putter on my own this afternoon. 

I know I'm keeping way too much, but that's the way my brain is wired and I'm organized so I can live with that. But I will go through the sorted bucket another time and this time I'll cut any strips into 7" pieces and I'll cut 1 1/2" squares. Then I'll seriously evaluate ANYTHING left and most likely toss it. 

But look at some of the stuff I found in the container. Seriously? Why would I keep this? That was a hoarding moment for sure!

A "useful" scrap - NOT

Thankfully, the next box of brown srcraps is not nearly as full as the last one, but I still envison it'll take several Mondays to get to the bottom of that. 

And I may keep a box for each color going forward or will I cut as I go? I'll have to decide that when I get there. All this to find out that one of the retreat goers is already doing this as well! I am BEHIND the eight ball! 

Here's the second container of brown scraps. 

The second box to cut

See the height of it isn't bad, but the top is still popping off. HEY -- I need to rejig my guild scrap presentation! And there was discussion of having a scrap quilt club in the fall to keep us all motivated. WAIT -- I was supposed to be cutting down, not adding! So as much as I would like that -- I will NOT be hosting a scrap quilt club in the fall. Find a time and cut your own scraps!

The box from the side

But cutting scraps requires stamina! So I had my own buffet on my cutting table. 

My personal buffet

The morning was consumed by chatting. Yep -- we've chatted loads and I LOVE having that time to catch up with friends. 

Then we went to the used bookstore so we could check out what they had. Look what I found! This is the same book that I still have at home and it's a GREAT book! 

The Vogue Sewing Book

I also found this one and I was tempted, but there was a note inside that this book is going for $65 US on the internet and I didn't think it was that valuable to me. It was printed in 1953. I just double checked this and it's way overpriced. I can buy it for $10 and that was the original price she had on the book! 

Singer Sewing book

I drove, so I wouldn't feel so guilty making them stop at a cemetery to get a geocache! How's that for being sneaky! I wasn't the first one to spot the cache so someone else has an eagle eye, but I knew that it was an easy one. 

The geocache

And as we were driving around the cemetery (too smoky for walking), we spotted this giant headstone with this huge story on it. OH my -- what an interesting character and this memorial was erected years after he died. We would never have found it, if we did not do the geocache!! So there is always interesting things that are discovered. 

Beautiful headstone

Hmm -- here's a mystery -- we cannot find anything about this guy online, but his story is very cool and it's all on his headstone. You cannot read this, but I took a picture and I'll try to post it tomorrow. 

So you want to know why I'm still geocaching? Well, it's the Virgo nature in me. There's a chart on the geocaching web page that shows which days of the year you have geocached and the idea it to fill in the entire chart. If you were good, it would take one year. But I've been geocaching since 2008 and there are still gaps, so I decided to fill in the gaps for June. And now I find out that the hard task for July is to geocache for 28 consecutive days. I goofed for June -- you needed to find TWENTY caches, but they did not need to be consecutive. Sigh --- I misinterrupted that one!

Well, we'll see what we can do and just keep on caching!!

On that note, I'm out of here! 

Have a super day!!

Ciao!!!!