For a variety of reasons I have been on a self - imposed "no buy" of fabric since I retired about 18 months ago. I have to admit I've done pretty well with this but have bought some backing fabrics and picked up a few remnants a couple of times when I was at Hobby Lobby. Over the years I usually bought small 1/2 yard pieces of fabric for the stash so I could have a variety of different fabrics to work with. But I have always kept a bin of larger pieces of blenders and tone on tones - depending upon price they were 1 or 2 yard cuts. I recently looked into that blender/tot bin and panicked because it looked like the fabric was running low and immediately felt like I should make a fabric purchase.
But then I took a deep breath, calmed down a bit and proceeded to prove to myself that I still had enough for a lot of quilts in that bin.
I dug into some UFOs - mostly donation quilts.
I finished off 120 six inch animal themed Happy Blocks (above) . These have four inch centers and 1 3/4 inch sides. Some of the blocks were actually swapped with an I Spy Yahoo Group and some of the centers came from other swaps I have participated in over the years. These will be set 10 x 12 for a quilt 60 x 72.
Then I finished a set of twenty-four 10 inch Owl and Pussycat Sawtooth Stars. Set 4 x 6 they will make a nice sized baby quilt at 40 x 60. Lately I've been making Flying Geese for Sawtooth Star Points but on these I had used the "flippy corner" method to make the points. With the "waste triangles" I started making some Wonky Stars but forgot to take a picture of those.
Then I dug into the Happy Place (a box of incomplete sets of different themed Happy Blocks most with six inch centers and 2.5 inch sides) and finished a set of 24 butterfly themed blocks...
...a set of 24 baseball themed Happy Blocks...
...and a set of sport themed Happy Blocks. A kind soul sent me that sport themed fabric in the background to use on donation quilts and I think there's more than enough for backings for these two sport themed quilts.
The Happy Blocks all left me with 2.5 inch scraps for the 2.5 inch scrap box that will get used in other quilts. That scrap box actually needed to be refreshed a little so this little exercise was timely.
And, guess what! The blender/tot bin is still half full. Phew. Crisis averted. No fabric purchase necessary (right now at this moment).
9 comments:
Looks as though you've having a great time playing in your novelty stash. Good for you to resist buying!
How sweet . . . I especial love that fabric with the little boys in their baseball uniforms. Adorable! This is going to be such a sweet quilt.
Happy October!
Connie :)
I enjoy the way you theme your donation quilts. They are perfect for children. Colorful, happy, and something to talk about. Yay, you.
Wow, my mouth was watering as I read through your post, Cathy. All those gorgeous fabrics and great sets of blocks. No wonder you enjoyed working on them. Loved the little hedgehogs and those beautiful pink and mauve owls in the Star blocks are marvellous.
Happy blocks are a great idea. I have a lot of kid themed fabrics acquired over many years and should make some of these for donation quilts. I need to do more simple blocks so I can use up the stash without driving myself crazy with time-consuming patterns. I spied a few fabrics in your blocks that I own as well. But aren't you secretly hoping that one of these days you'll discover you need to buy some new fabric?
Pat
Cathy...thank you so much for the highlight on Happy Blocks and Sawtooths! Much appreciated. Will keep you posted. Blessings. Oh, and btw, I am NE of you, not NW!
I'm glad to hear that using your fabric convinced you that you had enough fabric to use! The nice thing about a well rounded stash is that there's always something fun to play with :)
One good thing about scraps - you never get tired of sewing with the same fabric.
I love how prolific you are with all the projects you make. They are so very colorful. I love your lady of the lake blocks.
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