Revisiting the Poly Batting Scraps

 Normally when I am making Frankenbatting, I am very careful to only use very similar weights of batting together. Of course I sort by fiber content as well, but I like to use low loft with low loft, and high loft with high loft as well. 

When I finished basting the last poly Frankenbatt that had been matched with a quilt top, I went through the remaining poly batting scraps again. I had the baby sized batting I had pieced but had no quilt top for, could I make it a bit larger and match it with a quilt top? I dug out every poly batting scrap I still had, including the pieces I had cut off from the Frankenbatts I had made after the quilts were basted, and a scrap left from the last piece of my poly batting roll. Did you catch that? The LAST piece from my poly batting roll! I am in no way short on batting right now, I have a full roll of Warm and Natural, along with a partial roll of the same (almost gone). I also have a mostly full roll of Hobbs 80/20, but as far as 100% poly is concerned, aside from a couple of prepackaged battings, I am out of poly batting. 

The fact that I'm not going to be having a steady stream of poly batting scraps coming in for a while, made me feel like keeping any poly batting scraps right now would be silly. With the decision to not save any poly batting scraps right now, I looked at what I had left differently. If I ignored loft, I could not only make the baby batting into a throw, I could also make a second throw sized batting. Sure, it was more piecing than I normally like to do with poly batting, but to get two more donation quilts finished with batting scraps? It's a win in my book.

I basted one of those, and, yes, I could feel the difference in loft while basting. I'm hoping it's less noticeable once its quilted. Would I mix lofts from now on? Probably not, but for right now, when I have no plans to buy more poly batting, and I just want to use what I have, finishing two more quilts is worth the variance. 

The last poly Frankenbatt turned out larger than I expected, but these scraps are going to be tossed after I baste it and trim the edges. I like to only have about an inch of the backing and batting hanging past the quilt top when it comes time to quilt it. I'll trim it exactly after quilting. Those batting scraps will be tossed, guilt free. Since I just opened a roll of Hobbs 80/20, I'll use the hamper I had been using for poly batting scraps for the 80/20 scraps instead. 

The to-be-quilted pile is growing, but so far the quilt top stash doesn't seem to be going down much. I have WAY too many quilt tops right now, so finishing needs to be my focus for a long while. 

Basting Spree with Frankenbatting

 Before I tackle my cotton batting scraps, I wanted to baste all the poly Frankenbattings I had matched up with quilt tops. As you can see, I have one quilt laid out ready to baste. The pile under the window holds nine basted quilts. Next to the big pile of basted quilts is one more quilt to be basted, after I piece a backing for it, and I have yet another quilt that I basted in the sewing room on my quilting table. I've been quilting too, so I am repurposing pins as soon as I take them out of whatever I'm quilting at the time. 

I think I have enough larger pieces of batting scraps that I might be able to make the batting that I hadn't matched up with a top large enough to match a quilt top. The smallest poly batting scraps I'm saving for a pillow form, the heavily pieced scraps I'm tossing guilt free. At some point it needs to hit the end of the line. 

One thing I did before I tackled the poly batting scraps at all, was to go through my fabric shelves and pull out any yardage I wanted out of my stash. A lot of those are novelty fabrics left from the scrub top days, when I was making them on commission. I'm at the point where if no one in my immediate family is interested in whatever is on the novelty fabric, and I don't like it well enough to make a quilt based on it, even for donation, I want it out of the house. I knew I could make a bunch of pillowcases from those fabrics and donate those, and that still may happen, but right now, I've been using as many as those fabrics as I can in the quilt backings I've been piecing. 

A lot of my donation quilts are scrappy, most are color controlled in some manner. For example, the one on the table to be basted is autumn colors. If there is a fabric in my stack of unwanted fabrics that matches the front at all, I'm using it for a backing. I'm still having to add more fabric to make the backings wide enough, so I'm going into my under 1 yard drawers looking for anything I can add to the main fabric to add a center strip of contrasting fabric to the backing. All in all, it's stashbusting at it's finest. Scrap quilt tops, frankenbatting, and fabrics I want out of the stash for the backings. The fabrics I'm using aren't ugly or sub-par in quality, they just aren't fabrics I'm excited about making a focus. When I was buying fabrics for scrub tops, I usually purchased 2.5 yards, so if it's a small throw, I can sometimes piece the whole backing from the fabric, but mostly I'm adding to them. 

My pile of scraps from the new backings is piling up, so I'll have to tackle cutting scraps again, but it's definitely manageable right now. I'd like to baste until I'm out of pins, so once that happens, I'll tackle the backing scraps. I'm not using any widebacks for these quilts, my personal rule of thumb is that if the quilt top isn't at least a twin sized, I would prefer piecing yardage rather than wasting wideback on it. I have more than enough pins to baste these two poly Frankenbatt quilts, so perhaps I'll be basting things made with cotton Frankenbatts soon, I'll be on my last jar of pins by then, so we'll see. Out of my four jars of pins, I've got one full jar left, and less than half of another. Depending on how it works out with quilting new quilts and reclaiming pins, and when I actually start with the cotton batting, could go several ways. 

Baby Sunflower Quilt- Finish #10

 I am actually keeping up with my goal of finishing two quilts per month!  This is my latest finish.

I had leftover bits from the big sunflower quilt I made. I managed to use them up in this baby quilt. I've got a great niece or nephew on the way, and I already had a baby boy quilt set aside for that baby, then I started thinking girl, so I finished this one. Now when they have the gender reveal, I'll be ready either way! 

I quilted the same freeform sunflowers I quilted on the larger quilt. I even used the same thread color because I was happy with how it looked on the big quilt. 

I sewed a crochet hook roll for one of my granddaughters, but I was in such a hurry to get it in the mail for her birthday, I completely forgot to take a photo. If you are in need of one of those, I used this tutorial, which was easy to follow. 

Civil War Progress

 All of my Civil War reproduction fabrics are now cut into strips, for the patterns I'm currently cutting. Most of the strips are normal sizes, only the 1.25" strips are odd for me. If this is too much fabric for what I am making, no worries, with these sizes of strips I have a lot of options. Since my goal is to bust all of this fabric this year, I may as well cut it into strips. 

The 1.25" strips were turned into four patches.

For the Trail Mix quilt, one of the blocks needed these tiny four patches, and another needed the tiny four patches plus 3" nine patches.

I lost count and have a few extra of both of those, but I never worry about extra units, they all get used eventually, and I already know I need to make a table runner from these fabrics, so extra units will likely end up there. 

As I'm cutting for the second two quilts, I'm clipping everything for each block together, and putting the fabrics in the tote bag. Trail Mix uses five different blocks, but the third quilt I'm making is repeats of one of those blocks, I'm almost done cutting Trail Mix, then I'll just be cutting the last block until I'm out of the correct sized strips for it. 

I've already put my 2.5" and 1.5" strips downstairs for now. I've used all I needed from them for now, so these will become another project. These strip sizes play together nicely, so no worries on that front. When I decide what I want to do with them, I may go ahead and cut the project, or I might just make notes and cut it later. I've got several leader/ender projects cut right now. so until I make progress on those, these strips can wait. 

As far as the Civil War Sampler quilt for DD#1 goes, I've finished sewing the scrappy sashing and scrappy cornerstones. The purple in the bottom of that basket will be the setting triangles. The pattern shows scrappy setting triangles, but I usually prefer them to match, so I bought some yardage.

I've got ten of the sampler blocks done now. I'd like to have this done for Christmas, but we'll see. It's not my main project, I'm doing it as leader/enders as much as possible. 

Now that I've used the 1.25" strips, and I put aside the remaining 2.5" and 1.5" strips, I'm only working with 2" and 3.5" strips. I'll keep cutting until I'm out of these strips. I'm sure I'll have a stack of squares of each size leftover, but I plan on cutting as efficiently as I can to get the most blocks as I can. Not all of the Sampler quilt blocks will be good leader/enders, but the blocks I'm cutting now will all work quite well in that role. 

Even if I don't show this project for a bit, know that it's being sewn in the background. 

Finish #9

 Things are moving along here. I needed to make another scooter quilt, because DH added another scooter rally to his business trip. I had one cut out, and now it's finished. 

I really like doing split borders on Attic Windows quilts. I feel like it really brings the interior design to the border. 

I've been doing a lot of non-quilting related stuff too. DD#2 and I have been been splitting produce boxes from a no food waste program. You get 70 pounds of produce for $20. You don't get a choice of produce, it just whatever there is excess from at restaurants and grocery stores that donate. 

We did it two weeks in a row, so we had 70 pounds of produce each over the two weeks, even splitting boxes. Since the produce needs to used immediately, we've both been meal planning around what's in the boxes, but there's still too much to be used right away. Good thing I'm an old pro at freezing produce. Needless to say, there's been a lot of blanching, ice baths, and chopping of stuff around here.

I made a big batch of salsa verde from the tomatillos I got, and last night we had Salsa Verde chicken made in the slow cooker. Today I froze the remaining salsa verde, some in an ice cube tray so we'd have small amounts for eggs, and the rest in the amount I need for salsa verde chicken. DH wants salsa verde chicken burritos next time, last night I served it over cilantro lime rice. Burritos are tricky since he's gluten-free. So many of the GF tortillas fall apart. I'm thinking I might try making an enchilada casserole type thing with the salsa verde chicken. I've got enough salsa verde in the freezer to make it several times, so I can experiment a bit. 

I tried making a raw Brussel Sprout slaw, and it's pretty good, the recipe I used called for dried cherries, but I subbed cherry flavored craisins because they were half the price. I had the sliced almonds the recipe called for, so no problem there. Usually I roast Brussel sprouts, but we had a bunch of those last week, so I wanted something different. 

I froze some tomatoes to use in sauce later on, and I actually tried freezing cucumbers in a sugar brine, which I had never tried before. I froze some green beans that I'll cook up on Mother's Day, they wouldn't have lasted a week in the fridge. I also froze a bunch of bell peppers, some sliced for slow cooker fajitas, and some diced for our frequent Cajun dishes. DH and I like our food spicy, so Cajun and Mexican foods are a regular around here. 

Tonight or tomorrow night I'm going to turn a stuffed acorn squash recipe into more of a casserole. I've always found eating stuffed vegetables fiddly, so I'll take the same ingredients, but cut them up and layer them. I'm using Italian sausage and spinach with the acorn squash, and I think it will be delicious. 

I've been reverse meal planning for a while now, always looking at what food we have in the house, and basing our meals on that instead of deciding on a menu and buying all the stuff for that. Reverse meal planning saves us a lot of money, and it keeps us from wasting food that we already paid for. By meal planning in reverse and freezing extra meals I can usually skip the grocery shopping one week a month, which again, helps us save money. Having meals in the freezer also gives me more sewing time, which is another win!