tackling selvages

my next organizational tackle was this bowl of selvages. i save all selvages for some future undetermined selvage project because i think they are so cute. they get dropped in this bowl close to my cutting table. after organizing all the scraps from my backing trimmings i decided it would look better and be more effective for future use if i folded and sorted these selvages.

after folding, i sort the selvages by color into these piles. once they're all folded, i'll layer them back in the bowl in rainbow order. 

all future selvage cuttings can be quickly and easily incorporated into the system.

i found this cute piece today and it made me smile because malibu is where i'll be going very shortly. more on that at some future point.

i spent a while working on the selvages, but didn't get all the way through the bowl yet. it's not urgent and is something i can come back to later. but any progress like this feels great!

 the room is looking so much better.

a clean room is much more inviting for working in.

it still has a lot going on, so much visual clutter because of all the open shelving. this is good for locating what i need easily, but doesn't make for a clean, calm-looking environment. 

i'm just glad to have it and to have it getting cleaner and clearer all the time.

party with the quilt back pieces

as i've been prepping my handwork to go, i've been entering my sewing room a lot more often than i have been the last several months. i mentioned it was a complete disaster because i haven't been using it and that i have been studying ideas for decluttering and organizing it. so as i've been in the room the last few days, i have been doing as much or more cleaning in it as i have been doing actual sewing.

each time i walk into the room to sew, i start with decluttering/organizing first. it's kind of addicting. i just want to clean it all! getting one space cleared motivates me to do the ones next to it or whatever else catches my eye.

saturday afternoon i walked in to do some machine quilting and my eyes fell on the mess of things stuffed under my pressing table. i got everything cleaned up spic and span in about 20 minutes, then i saw this basket on the floor next to it. when i'm done trimming the quilts, i grab all the trimmings of batting and backing and stuff them in this basket which is suppose to hold it until i can separate the parts and store them in their proper places.

only i don't ever get around to processing the pieces in this basket.

there are so many long strips of backing and batting all wadded up and stuffed in this basket. it's overflowing and looks a wreck. sort of like this photo does. it was supposed to be a picture of a big long strip of fabric and batting being separated from each other. that doesn't really come across with me using one hand for a photo and one to just hold, not separate, everything, does it?

i felt like doing this project next, so i started digging through the contents and separating the pieces. i considered immediately processing the fabric scraps for storage, but that would require pressing, because all the wadded fabric is wrinkled, and a lot of cutting, which could take hours or days. i only wanted to get the basket empty, so i opted to just separate and fold the pieces. pressing and cutting can wait for my next burst of cleaning mojo.

one of the helpful decluttering ladies i've been listening to, dana k. white, says to take a photo before you begin decluttering a space so you can see the progress you make. i wish i'd done that with the other spaces in the room i've recently cleared rather than just taking a finish photo when i have it looking nice. i decided to document this little project from the beginning for myself and to share. maybe it will encourage someone else to get moving.

i did not anticipate what a trip down memory lane going through these backing scraps would be! it was like revisiting the making of many of my quilts from the past nearly decade. (yes, it's been needing cleaning that long!) i'll add in some photos of the quilt backs so this isn't just a bunch of ugle scrap photos. there's a popular IG hashtag #partyinthequiltback celebrating all the fun things quilters do on the backs of their quilts. well, the hours i spent cleaning up my backing scraps felt a little like a party with my quilt back pieces. it's the kind of fun quilters have on a saturday night, right?

some pieces were skinny strings, some were massive pieces of backing, several inches wide and the full length or width of the whole quilt, which is several feet. i found this one (folded twice already) from my older son's "blue and orange wonky" quilt that will make a nice start on a different quilt back. i'm setting it aside to use on another boy quilt at some point, maybe for one of his kids someday.

sometimes when i trim quilt sandwiches, i don't cut the different sides apart from each other. i leave them joined at the corners, like i did here on "spare pennies."

these joined pieces don't fold nicely, so i had to decided where to make a cut now, then fold the individual pieces for storage. 

nicer for storing now. still so wrinkly! you can see why i decided to stick with the first step of separating and folding, leaving the pressing and cutting for later.

apparently when i trimmed "dreaming easy," i didn't even cut any of it apart. it was one big joined up piece still. 

 this is one of my favorite backs ever. i love a pieced backing, but i think my favorite pieced backs result from joining two large fabric panels with scraps or blocks from the front, like this. it feels more intentional and orderly, which my eye appreciates.

also, this quilt was completed in december 2015, by the way. i told you this basket has been doing duty and not been cleaned for a long time.

some pieces filled me with nostalgia and i literally cooed or exclaimed when i unearthed them, like these liberty scraps. i was like, "ahw, look! it's capel and mitsi valeria from 'liberty makes do!'"

this was the only bits of liberty in the basket. i think i'm generally good about processing the liberty right away because i'm either using it again soon or just because they're so precious and i make a point of saving every usable bit. i probably thought these strips were too small, but there was an inch there, so i did immediately trim these and add them to the scrap drawers.

and to my credit, there were a lot of quilt backs i've trimmed over the last decade that weren't present in this basket. sometimes i do actually put that stuff away. sometimes. but not all. in future, i hope to do all processing when i'm done trimming the quilt sandwiches.

some of the quilts had loads of leftover pieces, like grandma s's "groovy summer lover letters." 

big quilt, lots of scraps from those long quilt sides.

look, we're getting somewhere on this mess:

i'd say this basket is half empty, which is the optimistic view when you're talking about cleaning out something. half empty, not half full, is more encouraging in this situation.

one hour later: the batting scrap pile is getting bigger and the basket is slowly emptying. the stuff at the bottom was compacted (from being at the bottom), so halfway wasn't really halfway. but it's progress.

these two little pieces are very well attached to the batting and not worth unpicking. however, i can make them into small needle minders that are useful for my various handstitching cases. so i'll put them aside for now.

oh, the pieces from marmee's quilt - "penny patch 2.0, school pennies." the quilt i was making for myself, then gave to my mother to love her through her cancer, and got back in the end. very sentimental, lots of memories in these scraps. 

i found trimmings from each of my kids' stella grande quilts, all except for d3's "radiant suzy." there is a vague memory just out of reach of me processing those scraps for something i needed them for. or maybe for once i was good about separating the pieces and putting away scraps. if i find them in the scrap basket (which still needs to be processed), then i'll know.

there's a nice tidy pile of scraps from almost all of them. these could definitely be the starts for another quilt each. i like the idea of incorporating them in quilts for my children's children someday.

so much has changed since these quilts were made and this picture was taken eight years ago. another eight years and there could be a whole lot more people with more me-made quilts wrapped around them. so far i have 2.5 grandchildren, 1 grandchild quilt complete. what will happen in the next eight years? my children could have one each at least. it's a little mindboggling to consider.

i kept finding little pieces of d3's "star cookie" i made when she was four. as i found them i kept texting her photos. she was so thrilled. there are plenty of ideas we're floating for how to use these.

mainly she's just interested in having them for herself. fifteen years later she's still quite attached!

these scraps are actually a mystery because i used the exact same side strip on two different quilts. 

it could be from "star of the circus" . . .

. . . or from "valoe." 

hard to say since i used this strip on both of them. actually, thinking it through as i type, i bet it's from "valoe" because the reason i had it to use on "valoe" was that there was a large piece still left over from "star of the circus." ha! mystery solved. i definitely used the trimmings from "circus" on the back of "valoe," so anything further left would be cut from "valoe." in the end, it came from both of them, didn't it?

this is another type of quilt back i like to make: a large strip down one vertical side and several coordinating cuts stacked horizontally to fill out the rest of the backing. it's another pieced backing that has some order and polish to it.

some strips i found were quite narrow. for these, i lay them out on the cutting mat and cut off anything narrower than 1" wide. then i folded the strings up and put them in the 1" scrap drawer. in this case, processing is quick and makes sense to do promptly.

oh heavens, look at these gems i found at the bottom of the basket, haha. one of my girls must have made these totes out of plastic shopping bags with fabric scrap string handles. how fun. the clear one has all the scraps from "love all around" rolled up inside.

two hours later and i have the whole basket emptied, all the fabric scraps folded and semi sorted into piles by size.

there is so much fabric here! i did not anticipating it ending up this big. i could make a couple more quilt backs from these scraps alone.

in fact, while i was working on this project, i thought of a fun quilt idea: a scrappy top with all my solid scraps and a backing from all these backing scraps. wouldn't that be fun? i need to come up with a plan for how to make it not just a great big, jumbled, hot mess, but i have some ideas for that already. let's add it to the wip list!

just looking at the batting pile. the large pieces i folded up and put back in the basket. the smaller ones i bagged to use for stuffing.

the fabric pieces filled up a whole basket. these can now be processed for scraps when i'm ready. it's a lot more organized, accessible, and neat looking than the mess that was stuffed in and spilling over that round wicker basket.

the pressing table corner of my room is looking so much better! i can see floor and no crummy mess. everything is contained and neat. there is still a ton of visual clutter in the room because it's all open shelves storing a bajillion different items, many of them small. but when everything is stacked neatly, it looks a whole lot better.

what's next for my declutter/organization spree? i'm looking at this basket under my sewing table that has more fabric scraps in it. i've got my eye on you basket. i'm coming.

handwork to go

 

i've been prepping some handwork projects to take with me on an extended stay we'll shortly be taking. i got the binding machine attached to "fall paint" and "wiltshire rows" so i can handbind them. i'll be taking "cheery (easter) quilt" and "improv in an afternoon" along so i can handquilt them. "cheery" is well underway, so this will be a good opportunity to complete that. the improv quilt has been sitting in the "to be quilted" pile for a while now. i was intending to quilt it with fmq, but when i was looking for handwork it occurred to me it would be a good candidate for handquilting if i had some extra time to do it.

i need to bring notions and tools for all the handwork, so i've been gathering them together. i hope i don't forget anything! if i do, i suppose there will be quilt shops around or i can always order online. but bringing it with me would be best. so fingers crossed i've thought of it all.

i've put all the bits and bobs into this cute ruby star society vintage sewing machine tin i bought a few years ago. it was too cute to pass up, but i've not had a use for it since then. it was just looking decorative on a shelf. lucky me, it's going to have a purpose now!

a little help

my daughter and grandkids came over just as i was pinning the binding to "paint lake." little man was very interested in my project and wanted to help. i was thrilled! of course you can help me. granna loves little quilt helpers. we had to keep sister out of the pins, but that wasn't too hard.

 he kept asking me, "do you want it here? can i use this one?" at first i had him help me push each pin through, but when we reached the corner and i was working on mitering it, he just started pushing pins in where ever by himself. after that we worked in tandem doing our own pins. his pinning skills weren't the best, but i worked around him and it was good enough. there were a few ballheaded pins in the pincushion and i kept telling him to use the flat ones, but he reeeaaally wanted to use the round ones. so i let him put a few of those in. grandkids can get away with a lot.

the real fun began when we sewed the binding on together. he didn't know what i meant when i said, "let's go sew it on with the machine." usually when we "sew" together we're playing with a wooden cheese block that you push a string through. he likes to "sew the cheese" with granna all the time so he was confused about sewing on the machine. he learned real quick!

he pulled pins and ran the pedal for me. it was so cute!

when we first started out, i forgot to put the sewing speed on turtle and he laid his foot down on the pedal, giving me a start when it roared to life. he stopped immediately when i said to and we reset everything.

i mostly kept everything lined up, told him when to stop and start, and did the corners. 

sometimes he would tell me to do the pins. he pushed the needle up/down button, scissor button, or held down the reverse lever for me when i asked. sewing on the turtle speed, which is best for the walking foot anyway, was nice and slow, easy to manage with a two year old on board.

he stuck with me right up until about a foot from the end, which is when i needed to join the tails anyway.

what a fun time we had and how good he was at helping! granna will sew with this little man any day.

trimming success(es)

one of my quilt room wishes is that i have a large cutting table covered in mats, large enough to trim my quilts on the table rather than on the floor like i do now. doing it on the floor at least allows me to be over the top of it when i'm cutting. 

but there's all the sliding around of the mat for each cut, the crawling along on my hands and knees, and worst of all, when i overshoot the mat and hit the tile with my rotary cutter. it ruins the blade every time.

not today! this time i was very careful with cutting on the mat and managed not to ruin my blade.

as i was lining up the rulers for cutting, i found the ease of lining up the rulers along the piece edges within the quilt refreshing. squaring up on a top that's already pretty square and has pieces that line up with your ruler nicely make the whole job faster and easier.

 

 i pulled out the binding options to make a final decision. originally, from the beginning, i planned to use the blue print with strings of lights as the binding. i hunted down another half yard of it after a lot of looking. when it arrived, i realized the print runs parallel to the selvage instead of perpendicular to it - the opposite of how i wanted it to make nice long cuts for binding. i started to worry i wouldn't have enough, too.

i auditioned a few other prints from my stash and decided i liked this birch tree on a goldenrod background. it wasn't part of the original pull the fabrics originally came from, but it worked well with them.

so when i pulled it out again, i intended to use it. but then i took another look at the blue lights print. i think it calms the quilt down where as the goldenrod energizes it. i like the calmer vibe with this quilt, so i opted for the original blue print after all.

once i had the quilt trimmed, i immediately processed and put away the trimmings from the backing. i was able to cut most of it into 1" and 1.5" strings. these are sizes i can use for various projects i have going.

i put them in the drawers designated for their sizes in my new scrap drawer tower. it felt so good to have everything dealt with and put away rather than lingering, languishing in some spot in the sewing room for ages as has previously happened with such pieces.

knowing what size scraps are useful to me and cutting for them is also so helpful. it makes putting pieces away for storage simple and more likely to happen, and it will make using the pieces more likely to happen, as well. win/win!

next up was making the binding. i made my first cut the wrong direction and winced. i did check first, but i thought it out wrong before i made the first cut. when i saw the piece and how the lights were lining up along it rather than across it, my brain immediately righted itself and i knew i'd done it incorrectly. ouch. i was already worried i wasn't going to have enough because of all the extra joining up (fabric loss) that would occur when using shorter pieces. i shrugged it off, telling myself i'd either work in the piece i cut wrong if i needed to, or i would add a strip of something else entirely. no use crying over spilt milk/cut fabric or worrying until i had it all complete and measured up on the quilt.

since i was short on fabric and because i wanted the design to be continuous without interrupting diagonal lines, i opted to join the binding strips end-to-end rather than with the diagonal joins i usually use. the design looked really good this way once sewn together. 

i got to wondering why it is i use the diagonal joins anyway? i never cut my binding on the bias. bias binding is where those diagonal joins come from, i think. the diagonal joins are probably more secure, but with the way my binding is double folded and then folded over again on the quilt edge, it seems unlikely there will be much stress on those little joining seams. maybe that's overdoing it? it certainly produces more waste with all those leftover triangles and requires more fabric to start with. i save my triangles for a scrap project, but are they even necessary?

well, all my worry about having enough fabric for the binding was for naught. even without that strip i cut wrong i had a whole extra strip leftover in length. i probably could have even done the diagonal joins and been fine. but i like the way it looks on this print better, so i'm glad i didn't.

all-in-all, it was a successful set of trimmings all the way around.