Cleaning up

I've been jumping from project to project for quite some time, and sewing haphazardly on varous new ideas, before abandoning it all to do another thing. It was a mess, and finally it got so I couldn't work in all the litter anymore. So I started to tidy up.

I sorted out all the various things I'd been dabbling with.

Shirting Spinning Rectangles, with leftovers from my Zigzag top. So many leftovers. 

I have 32 of these, and many more pieces.

Flying Geese leader-enders. I now have 210.

Lots of 3" triangles, leader-enders again. These will go in the project box with 70 or so others.

Another Carolina Chain, because I enjoyed the last one, and there were leftovers from that, and I like making these blocks. 12 more to add to the box.

And some madness made me start stringing together all the shirt collars from the many, many shirts Mereth and I have collected. I made my first shirt quilt in 2018 I think, and though I've made many more, I still have some of those first ones. And I saved all the collars and cuffs and yokes, to make something string pieced.

The amount of fabric in the side of a shirt collar that doesn't have interfacing is pretty small, same with the cuffs. After about 16 blocks I was running out of choices, so I had to raid the scrap box for other strange shaped offcuts. I cut a strip off the yokes, and the remaining shoulder and neck bits were pieced into this.

It's not pretty, but it's frugal! I think I'll make a piano key border out of the Zigzag leftovers, because I found a heap of them already sewn together. I have no memory of doing that, but it was probably a leader-ender move.

Mereth always tells me to chuck out the little weeny bits, and now I'm inclined to agree with her. I looked at the overflowing box of dark shirt collars, and put them all in the bin. I have boxes of patchwork fabric strings to deal with, and I'd rather be working on them. 

Candelwick

This was the candlewick quilt that I finished earlier this month. 

It was 96"square, and I was so worried that I was going to get it dirty, or mark it in some way. 

I cleaned the machine every time it went on, covered up all the tracks than can leave black marks, covered it in sheets when it was on the bed so I could finish other quilts. 

I bound it as well, so that involved obsessively washing the floor and sewing table and dusting everything it might come in contact with.

 I was so glad when it was finally finished and returned to it's owner. 

It just reinforced my feeling that I don't want my quilts to be precious, and to have years of my life caught up in them, and to worry and have anxiety over somebody using them, or what will happen if they're washed. My quilts are fun to make, and hopefully they will be used and appreciated, and if they get worn out then I'll make another one. I know my daughter puts the family quilts in the washing machine, which I do only to spin them dry, but the quilts have to fit in with her busy lifestyle, and so far they've come to no harm.

I finished up 2 beautiful cot quilts for 1 year old twins. Their grandmother was going to give them as birthday gifts, except the backing wasn't big enough for either so I had to wait while she purchased more material; she then decided to keep them for Christmas. When she picked them up she said she was relieved I hadn't finished them in time for their birthdays, because they'd had a vomiting bug and all their bedding had to go in the wash. Oh dear, but that's life for a baby quilt.

They had lovely Australian animal images, plus cute puppies. 

I'm sure the girls will love them on Christmas morning.