Creativity Month Week One

Finishing a big quilt on the first day of August set the tone for the month properly, I think. Making my memory quilt out of old t-shirts and thrifted materials also made me happy. That put me in the right mood to try to be creative every day.

I grabbed these leftover patchwork blocks to make something out of them that would use all five.

While cleaning out my stash, I promised myself when I kept this collection of five inch squares that I would also make something out of them this month -- and I did.

These pieces from my scrap bin inspired my next mini project.

I then tried an online tutorial to make an sunglasses case with these scraps.

More bits from my scrap bin inspired yet another mini project.

Hurricane Debbie kept blipping our power, so I decided to do a no-sew project out of two things on the road while I was out walking: a broken necklace with a crystal pendant and a silver butterfly charm.

Also during the hurricane I took these two cutter quilt pieces out of my stash to make a new pillow for my knee to use while I sleep.

While working this week I also realized I maybe not always start and finish a project in one day -- what I made from the five leftover patchwork blocks took two days -- so don't expect that all month. Also, I'm not showing you the finished projects yet because I want to do a big wrap-up at the end of August. So stay tuned, as the finish line will be awesome. :)

Comments

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

Search This Blog