Down Sizing the Future

This is the smallest quilt I've ever made (with a penny to give you scale.) It's a bargello, made from tiny scraps from a much larger quilt that I made five years ago (you might recognize the fabric, Theo.) What I remember most was wrestling with my lack of skill and how hard it was to piece with 1/8" seams. The quilting was also a challenge because every stitch I took looked huge.

While I've been working on my linen quilt I'm still struggling with my execution and quilting limitations, so in a sense size really doesn't matter. I also have a house filled with the quilts I've made over the years. Since I live a stone's throw away from the tropics we don't need even the quilts I've already made. And, of course, my arthritis is only growing worse, particularly in my hands.

Subconsciously I've been working toward smaller projects, I think, for all those reasons. This may have to be the last year that I make a traditional quilt for myself or art's sake. From now on I might limit myself to gift-only quilts and scale down my art projects. That doesn't make me sad for some reason, maybe because I'm more about art quilting these days. Art can be any size.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I did recognize it! Immediately. That's adorable! I'm trying to finish the crib quilt for Thing 2's first, but my hands don't want to work so it's very slow going. I'm wondering why I decided to do this. I'm dropping the needle more than I'm able to hang onto it. My fingers seem to have developed a mind of their own. I have to finish this one and have one to make for Thing 1 for a Christmas gift and I'm not sure I'll pick up a needle after that. I might just piece and have it machine quilted once I'm done with that. It does make me a little sad, but things change.

June 23, 2022 at 5:24 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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