Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Taming the Scraps

 It's springtime here in Australia and I've been inspired to start spring cleaning. The weather is lovely and that has made me feel like clearing out the old scraps so I can make more new quilts. I've taken 4 weeks off paid work and we were supposed to be going to Western Australia. However we've had a change of plans so I'm enjoying some time at home.
 My lovely father is 87 and has had some recent health challenges which has resulted in him relinquishing his driver's licence. Luckily he is mentally able to accept this decision but it has meant a change in the amount of support he needs. It's been lovely to have more time to spend with him, taking him shopping for his groceries etc and just having a cup of coffee in the sun. We are deliberately making time for short outings so he doesn't feel house-bound and I've been quilting late into the night instead.
   Last night I was sewing until 11.30pm and didn't even realize that it was so late. I managed to finish 2 QAYG quilts from donated blocks as well as making more QAYG blocks from my many scraps.
It's a good way to tidy up my sewing room by sewing scraps into blocks and I find that I use up the scraps if I leave them in long skinny string pieces rather than cutting them into different sized squares. Cutting the squares is not the problem but when they are cut and sorted into storage I seem to forget them and I don't use them in my scrappy quilts. Whereas if I have lots of leftover string pieces of scraps, or even sew several smaller pieces into long strings then I use them up quickly in QAYG squares. Have I tidied the sewing room yet? No but it's an ongoing process LOL!
 Every now and then it is useful to examine what I actually use the most of and not waste time cutting pieces I won't use.
 I'll show both the quilts on my other blog tomorrow when I have another one of today's finishes photographed and ready to show. Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs, Jan Mac

4 comments:

Sue SA said...

What's not to like about strings, so much nicer then squares!

Sharon~Two Bits Patches said...

I like squares, but when I fill up a plastic box they look so neat I don't want to use them!

Jan Mac said...

Hi Sue and Sharon! Yes Sharon maybe that is what happens to me too. I find it much easier to use the cut off strings from trimming the backings and binding leftovers before they get put away. Out of sight- out of mind I guess.
Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs, Jan

Maria said...

Another lovely quilt Jan!