I've been off list for a while but am back with what-I've-been-doing report. I'm a tad proud of myself so let me brag.
I consider myself lucky that I have a foot in both quilting worlds. I love quilts that stress the new, the bold, the embellished, the technique, the hand-dyed, the purely decorative, the arty, even the artsy-fartsy snooty. I also love traditional quilts. Those would be the scrappy, the flannel, the loved to death, the antique, the fabric on sale, the colors don't quite match but it looks good anyway.
All summer I dragged my feet about finishing an art quilt. It was a good learning experience, but it didn't make it into the juried show. Rats! I needed something to help take the sting out of the disappointment. Meanwhile, a friend who's only been making quilts for about a year came over, saw my stash, and told me that all that fabric would drive her crazy. She may have been tactless, but she had a point.
I wouldn't have called my sewing space disorganized. Anything but. I have nice shelves, a few milk crates on top of those shelves, and while not everything is neatly folded, it is roughly color coordinated. You CAN find the sewing table. I CAN find my scissors and rulers and sewing machine. It wouldn't win a prize in Better Homes and Sewing Rooms, but the department of health wasn't closing me down either.
To prove the point that I didn't have too much fabric, I got down the highest milk crate, looked in it, and realized that's where I kept my solid fabrics. When I started quilting 20 years ago, I knew so little about fabric and fabric marketing, that when Joann's ran a sale on solids, I thought it was my last chance to buy them. I got a bunch, quickly realized that I WAS comfortable matching colors to patterns (at first that had seemed too hard), and never used them since.
It's time, I told myself.
And that's what I've been doing madly ever since. I've been making quilts for my guild's quilts for chemo patients project. I've been going through plastic bags filled with neatly flattened orphan blocks that are too good to throw away but that haven't found their way into a hug quilt or a quilt of my own design. I've been using them willy-nilly in quilt tops. I've set myself the goal of using those solids. They've been going together into backs. It's like a puzzle. I get out all the solids that rougly go together by color, then I sew them together by size. The idea is to find two edges that are the same size, sew, and trim. Eventually I have something big enough for a back.
I plan to give them to my guild so they can donate the batting and the basting. Then I'll take them back and machine quilt. I have that McTavishing book that I haven't read carefully. The benefit quilts will be great for me to practice on.
Right now, it doesn't look like I've made a dent in the solids box. They must get fluffled up or reproduce in there or something because I've used all the purples and am now working on the blues, but the box is still filled to overflowing with neutrals, whites, tans, and odd orangey yellows.
I have a use-it-up buddy now. My friend who told me my stash would drive her crazy and I have been making scrap quilts galore. The solids are just going to the backs. For the tops, I've been delving into the baggies filled with uniformly cut squares and strips. We're sewing fools. I've completed the blocks for my first log cabin. Together we made something odd and busy from a pattern she had. This is a wild feeling of abandon. I do pay attention to color and what looks good, but where I normally enjoy fussing over design decisions, now, whenever I have a decision to make, I give myself 30 seconds to make it and try to come down on the side of using the most fabric most efficiently.
The work goes quickly. I've got 3 top and back sets done and am quickly on my way to having completed 3 more. The guild's year starts in September, and I want to be ready.
--Lia