The Secret Exchange

A few years ago I met a professional quilter online who over time has become a good friend. She proposed we do a craft exchange this year, and I got brave enough to accept. We decided to do medium size projects, and I thought I'd make her a recycled linen nap size quilt. That's what I was working on for the month of February and part of March.

The pattern is called Wave Runner by Cozy Designs, and was fairly simple to put together. I stayed with a three-color design using these remnants for the top so I could make the waves in the colors of sand, sea and snow. I used a variety of embroidery threads to quilt the piece, from #3 cotton perle to some of that ball thread I picked up in a bag from Goodwill. The poem that I wrote and embroidered on the quilt is all about my friend (and in a way, me back when I was writing PBW.)

Everything I used to make the quilt was what I had on hand, recycled or leftover from other projects. Even the tag I put on the quilt is a piece of white fabric from Fabscrap. It's not perfect, of course, but I'm quite proud of how it turned out. I'm also not going to post a pic of the finished quilt because what I wrote on it is very personal.

For her project my friend made me this beautiful beach bag. It's not only perfectly made, but in my favorite colors with a lovely bird so much like those we see when we walk by the lakes.

My friend is a little psychic, too. I think it's safe to say that whatever happens to me, I do refuse to sink.

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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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