Vintage Quilt & Patchwork Flips

I have a new side project for fall: making something out of four old quilts and one quilt top that I acquired for $5.00 each. Recycling old quilts is fun, and you don't have to cut them up to make something new out of them.

This is the smallest of the five; a tied doll quilt with no batting.

This baby quilt is the best of the bunch.

I've blurred out the name on the quilt label, but I will keep that intact to honor the original maker.

This tied cheater cloth throw is identical on both sides, and has no binding.

This teddy bear child's quilt is in the worst shape of the group; it's been well-loved.

Finally, the quilt top. It's huge with meticulous piecing.

As you can see from the back side it was pieced by hand. All the red in it worries me, as does the age of the fabric, so I think this one will be my biggest challenge.

To recycle a quilt or top you first have to look at how much you've got to work with. The pink doll quilt is about the size of a placemat; the quilt top is either queen or king size. The bigger the better, right? Not necessarily. Stop in tomorrow and I'll show you what becomes of the doll quilt with a flip that's easy and works for any small quilt.

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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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