Frankenbatting Monster

 Soooooooo many batting scraps! I just finished up with the poly batting scraps! Final total? I pieced 11 battings that are matched with quilt tops. I pieced another batting that will work for a baby quilt, except I'm think I'm out of baby quilt tops, if I come across one I'll match it up. I have some misc. smallish pieces left that will work for book sleeves. I'd like to make a sleeve for my Ipad and Kindle for travel. 

When I started both of these pop up hampers were crammed full of poly batting scraps. The scraps were all compressed and it was crazy how much was in there. Not to mention all the poly batting scraps that never made it into a hamper and were just in a pile. You can't really tell in the pic, but the pile that's in there now is all fluffy and still not half full. That includes the baby quilt batting I pieced, along with the smaller scraps I want to use in small projects. 

I don't enjoy piecing poly batting, but 11 (12 counting the baby batting I don't have matched) battings basically for free? Totally worth it. I do have a tip that yields better results when piecing batting. 

I use a blind hem foot when piecing batting. If you push the straight edges towards that center blade, and use a wide zigzag, you are golden on joining the edges. Also, if you look closely, the zig zag stitches are being formed over the little finger that extends behind the needle. That makes the zig zag stitches a bit looser, and keeps the batting from bunching up on you. Of course, you still need to make sure the presser foot doesn't get caught in the batting, which is why poly batting is a pain to piece. I've never had that happen with cotton batting.

Pieced batting lying nice and flat with no bunching.

In the interest of full disclosure, I also have the skinny strips from squaring up the batting scraps. I have a lot of them.

I usually toss these, but I'm going to make a 16x38" pillow form and use these to stuff it. I think I'm going to cut the scraps up even smaller, but if you use batting scraps for stuffing and have any tips, please let me know! 

I could tackle cotton batting next, but that is not my plan. My next job is to piece backings for all the quilt tops that are matched with batting now, and baste as I can. I'm currently quilting the last quilt I had basted, so I need to baste more quilts anyway. With almost all my basting pins available, and most of the quilts needing basting just being throw sized, I should be able to baste most if not all of them. Once I'm done piecing the backings, I'll start piecing the cotton batting, whether or not the basting is done. 

When I baste those quilts, I will have scraps of batting from the Frankenbatts. What am I going to do with those? I am going to throw them away, guilt-free. I made myself a deal a long time ago, that if I make Frankebatts to save money, then I could toss any scraps from the Frankenbatting. It's worth it to me to piece larger pieces of batting, it is not worth it to me to piece very small pieces, which is what I'll have since I was making batting the right sizes for quilt tops I had. Sure, some might end up in a pillow, but if some ends up in the trash, I'm ok with that, after all, I'll have a dozen quilts that have batting saved from the trash. 

Oh, and the fabric scraps I showed in my last post, that were from the tote of fabric given to me? It did just take two evenings to cut it into scrap user system sizes. I've got something new I'm working on in the evenings now, but I'll tell you about that later 😉

Finish #6

 

It took me a while before this quilt became my main focus. DH retired the beginning of last year, and I didn't get his scrub top quilt finished until late March this year. Our anniversary is March 30, so I really wanted it finished by then, and once it was my main project, it came together pretty quickly. The pattern is called Chapel Glass. Of course it would look more like stained glass with different fabric choices (I'd like to make it again with a black background and batiks), but there were a lot of scrub tops with black in them, so I opted for a gray background instead. The size of the main unit worked well with the scale of most of the novelty prints. This pattern would be easier with non-directional fabrics, I really had to pay attention to which corner I was adding sew and flip corners to. I found it a bit funny that I was cutting apart scrub tops I had made him, then making him a quilt from the same fabric. Usually when I'm working with men's shirts, I didn't sew the shirt in the first place, but this time I did! 

I did get to give him the quilt for our anniversary. His anniversary gift to me will happen in April. He bought us tickets to see the Broadway version of Back to the Future the Musical. I love live theater, and when a good Broadway show comes to town I'm always game for it. It's been a while since we saw a Broadway show, so I'm thrilled we are going! It's hard to believe we've been married 42 years already! I'd still choose him, and I'm pretty sure he'd still choose me. 

My standard quilting goal is to get two quilts finished per month. With six quilts finished so far this year, I'm right at that goal. I've already started quilting the next quilt, and both that and another need to be finished in April, so hopefully all of that will get done, and I'll stay on track.

I have already started working through my batting scraps to make Frankenbatting. I'm starting with the poly batting, because I don't like piecing it. Cotton batting is much easier to piece. So far I've made three battings to match with three quilt tops. I've got SO many quilt tops right now, I'm just matching up similar sized batting scraps, sewing those together, and then checking to see if I have a quilt top about that size. I know I'll have more batting scraps after a basting spree, and I'll deal with that later. I'm mostly piecing batting for throw sized quilts. If it's twin or larger I prefer to use batting off the roll. Speaking of rolls of batting, I just finished off another roll of batting too, so the Frankenbatting sessions are well timed. I'm going to try cutting up the smallest batting scraps into very small pieces, and make some pillow forms from them. The cost of pillow forms is getting crazy, and I have a couple pillow patterns I'd like to make.

Oh, I went through the tote of fabric I was given, and the wideback fabric was put away, the yardage is on minibolts and put away, and the fat quarter-1 yard pieces are folded and put away. 

There were a few odd shaped pieces I decided to cut up and add to my scrap user system. Compared to how much I had to cut before, this isn't much, and I'm thinking no more than a week before it's all processed. I'd say just two or three days, but with Easter coming up we've got family stuff going on, so there may be days I don't cut at all. I'm only working on scraps in the evening, am most nights for an hour or so, but since it all needs to be pressed before it's cut, it takes a little longer. At any rate, the fabric tote I showed in the last post is empty, and now that those fabrics are integrated into my stash they will get used much faster. 

Empty Bin!

My goal was to empty this bin by the end of March, and I did it! Every piece of scrap fabric in these bins has been dealt with. Strings and crumbs are in with the strings and crumbs, anything larger than that has been cut into sizes I have planned to use in upcoming quilts. A lot of the scraps have already been used in quilt tops! 

I have been watching lots of scrap fabric videos on YouTube. Mostly what I've learned is that scraps are a very personal thing. Some people don't enjoy working with them, and if that describes you, by all means, give them away, or even sell them if you can. I love working with scraps, but I have learned by trial and error what works for me.

 

I notice that a lot of quilters only sort their scraps by color, and don't pre-cut anything. I do sort crumbs and strings by color, because that is how I use them. I like crumb blocks to be one base color, and not a mishmash of everything. String quilts I sometimes mix up, but if I do mix them I tend to have a color scheme going. I currently have a blue/purple string quilt in the works, but I've done several in autumn colors, but whatever I do it's easiest for me to have them sorted by color. 

Anything larger than a crumb or string, and I only use them if they are cut to size. A bin of messy fabric scraps, even if they are all the same color, does not inspire me, it just makes me realize how much work it's going to take to press it all and get it ready to use. On the other hand, give me a box of scraps already cut to size that I can start sewing right now, that gives me inspiration! This go around, I did cut a lot of rectangles, but that is because I have several quilts I want to make that use them. Normally I only cut squares or strips. My strips are sorted by size, and color. Let's say I need a bunch of 2.5" red strips, I can go grab them because they are all together. Green 2" strips, same thing, I can go grab them. My squares start out sorted by color, but they get mixed up a lot, so normally they are not, but they are always stored neatly in stacks or rows, so it's not that difficult to go through them and pick out what I need. 

I've been wondering how much of our scrap preferences is a result of the way we think, and how much is about the size the our stash. My stash is BIG, so I never worry about the "What if I cut this down into strips, and then I decide I should have cut a larger strip?" Honestly, that question just never applies to me. If I don't have the color I need already cut to size, I'm just going to go to yardage and use a different fabric. I almost always have something else that will work. Maybe it's not as perfect as the scrap I cut up, but the person who's getting the quilt never saw the other fabric so they won't care. If I had a very small stash, that question would pop up a lot, and I could totally see sorting scraps by color without pre-cutting.

I think the size of your stash determines what you think of as a scrap too. To me, with a large stash, anything smaller than a fat quarter is a scrap, and if it's full WOF, anything narrower than 12" is a scrap. If I think it's ugly, it goes into scraps and gets cut up even if I have two yards of it. 

Does that mean I don't like fat eighths or precuts? Nope, I actually prefer buying fat eighths if I want to make a Civil War or 1930's repro quilt, because I get variety without a huge amount of fabric coming in. I don't make a lot of quilts like that, so fat eighths or other precuts are a great choice for that. Because I don't make a lot of quilts like that, as soon as I'm done making the quilt, I'm going to process any scraps and just use them as a color afterwards. 

I like other pre-cuts when I want a fun fabric fix without bringing in a lot of fabric. If I wanted to try using some Tula Pink fabric, for instance, which I have never purchased but I do like, I'd be most likely to get a pre-cut, likely a layer cake since she has some large scale prints. I like Tula Pink fabric, but don't want a stash filled with it, so a pre-cut or maybe a scrap bag if I could find one, would work best for me. I could have fun making one project, and be done with it. 

Last week was spring break for the grandkids, so I didn't get much sewing done, but I finished with the scraps and made memories with the grands, so big win on both counts. I've even got all the scraps (aside from some strips) put away in their correct containers. I'll put the strips away this afternoon. 

So what is my next project to tackle in the evenings while watching TV?

I was given all the fabric in this bin, but I haven't sorted it yet. I already dealt with the small scraps and strips I was given (I've already used almost all the strips). This bin has everything from under a fat quarter pieces to wide backs. I need to sort this and get it integrated with my stash. Wide backs go into the quilt closet with the quilt tops. Anything over one yard goes onto my fabric shelves, fat quarter - one yard pieces gets folded and put into my fabric drawers. That's what works for me. I'm not likely to even think of going into the bin, I need to get it all integrated with my stash so when I'm looking for something I'll see it. There are some great fabrics in here, but I have to see them to use them. If I find any pieces smaller than a fat quarter I'll be cutting scraps again, and that's perfectly OK. 

Sorting the fabrics will give me loads of inspiration, but I'll need to reign myself in. I have two quilt tops to finish, then I'll finally move on to piecing my batting scraps. I should be able to finish the quilt tops this weekend, so April will be Frankenbatting month! I can't spend all month on batting, because I need to make a couple small projects for May birthdays, but I need to at least deal with all the poly batting scraps, and it's a LOT. I'd like to get several quilts basted in May, so spending April on Frankenbatting will work perfectly with my May goal. 

 

Still Processing Scraps

Scraps...the word brings both joy and dread to my heart. If you craft at all, you have scraps. DH has wood scraps in his workshop, DD#2 is drowning in yarn scraps from her crochet projects, and I have fabric scraps, sooooo many fabric scraps. Sometimes I am very good about processing my fabric scraps immediately, other times I toss them in a bin and deal with them later. Later has come, and has been here for about six weeks. When I am far behind on dealing with scraps, I try to do a little bit at a time to get caught up. I can't just power through and get it done in a couple of days. If you can, that's awesome, but I can't. 

I go through phases when it comes to scraps. When I first started quilting, I did a lot of kitchen sink type of scrap quilts. Mostly divided into dark and light, but aside from that, no rhyme nor reason on which scraps were used together. I love those type of quilts, give me a super scrappy log cabin quilt set in a barn raising setting and I'm in love. My family? They want a less scrappy look. I started doing color controlled scrappy quilts and those went over better. In fact, the scrappy quilts that go over best with my family are two color quilts, blue and yellow, red and white, black and pink, brown and cream, it doesn't really seem to matter which color combination I do, but if I stick to just two colors, I can get away with using any fabric of those colors and everyone is happy. I've had pretty good luck with all cool colors, or all warm colors with a neutral too. Since I love autumn colors, I still make a lot of autumn themed scrap quilts. Those get mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. 

I don't keep very many of my quilts, most of my quilts are gifted or donated. Since I know there are all kinds of taste in the world, I just hope that whatever quilts I donate end up with whomever will be blessed by that particular quilt.

I even go through phases on what patterns I use for scrap quilts. One year it's log cabins, I went through a Flying Geese stage, and HST's are always a winner. Some years it's stars, QST's, or rail fence blocks. I like blocks that chain, and create a lattice on the quilt, so Jacob's Ladder, Carolina Chain and nine patches can be good ones.

I started with my scrap bin overflowing, more than twice than what should actually be in the bin.

This is my scrap bin right now, about half full, but considering I've actually refilled it a couple times as I clean up more of my sewing spaces, I'm pretty happy with that. 

While I was cutting scraps, I used whatever I could in current projects, so a lot of what I was dealing with was used immediately. 

The scraps I'm cutting to specific sizes are piling up. All the squares are sizes I always save, the rectangles I'm cutting are for specific projects.

When I am cutting fabrics I treat novelty scraps differently than say a floral or stripe. If I am going to pre-cut novelty scraps into sizes for I Spy quilts, my go to is 6.5" cut squares. I have a lot of patterns that use that size square, and even most large scale novelty prints do OK in that size. If I don't have a large enough size scrap to do a 6.5" square, my next choice is a 4.5" square. I don't use these as often, but I have made a few I Spy quilts with that size. I rarely use 5" squares for anything, but I do have a cat quilt partially cut out that needs 5" squares, so any cat fabrics I found were cut to that size. I have a pretty nasty allergy to cats, but several of my grandkids love them. You can see I have a big pile of novelty rectangles on the left, they are cut 3.5" x 6.5". When I'm done cutting scraps, I'm going to go through that pile and separate the fabrics into a pile of vertically oriented motifs, and another pile of horizontally oriented motifs. I want to make an I Spy quilt using Bonnie Hunter's Bricks and Stepping Stones pattern with the vertically oriented rectangles, then, with the horizontally oriented ones, I have a pattern in my head which I'm calling "I Spy a Brick Wall". I'm planning on using solid gray sashing for mortar, and with the addition of squares on some rows, I think I can get a good brick wall effect. I'm really excited about sewing that quilt up, and seeing if it looks as good in real life as it does in my head. 

I had a big pile of 3.5" squares, but those are now used in one of the latest quilts to hit the design wall. 

I had already assembled a few rows before I remembered to snap a photo, so the quilt will be taller than this. Yes, it's a kitchen sink light/dark scrappy, but sometimes I just have to, I love them. 

I did notice several of my scraps would play together nicely, so I cut a quilt from those while I was dealing with them.

I sewed up all these blocks as leaders/enders while I was assembling the orphan block quilts. Now I'm sewing these up into quilt tops so they don't get added to the tote that has quilt blocks in it. I've still not started on the batting scraps, I think that project is going to get moved to April. DH  added another scooter quilt to my to-do list, which is fine, I already had one mostly cut out, but now that I'm working on making another quilt top, I'm finishing up a few more projects that were hanging around, using all of these as leaders/enders for each other. 

I did get a couple more quilts basted, but I'm still figuring out a quilt setup. My Janome had lousy timing to break, but then again, a machine breaking is never convenient. 

This week I've got the granddogs, who I swear demand more attention than the grandkids! I enjoy having the dogs around, but it does cut into my productivity, I can only listen to them whine for attention so long before I give in. I can still work on cutting scraps in the evening, that will be DH's time to pet the dogs! 

Life Is Currently Exceeding My Speed Limit

 You know those times where everything is changing so quickly that you just need everything to slow down? That was definitely the feeling I was getting this week. Some of the things going on are good. I had two of the grandkids for four days, another two I saw two days in a row though they didn't spend the night. All good there, we had an outing with four of the grandkids to Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Ranch which was a blast, even with one of the grands finding out, yes, ostriches do bite. 

That was all fun stuff, playing games with the teens, where DH was lamely trying to say jars are mostly used for protection, so the running gag during the game of Slapzi was explaining how every item on the cards could be used for protection. Good memory making fun.

One thing that was not on the good times list, was my mom has spent the last week in the hospital. We live in a different state, so it was a lot of calling the hospital and seeing how things were going. We couldn't go out there because DH was scheduled for back surgery this morning, which coincidentally, ended up when my mom was having a heart valve replaced. In fact, I had to excuse myself from the room where we were getting the info on DH's procedure, to take a phone call from the hospital my mom was at. They were both in surgery at exactly the same time, though DH's surgery was much shorter, and his was outpatient, so I've got a bag full of dressing supplies and a recovering husband here at home. My mom came through her heart valve surgery like a champ, and she is doing well too, though in the hospital for at least one more day. Although all of that was stressful, the good outcomes put those in the good column after all. 

I had planned to spend March piecing batting scraps together, and that is still the plan, though I haven't started yet. I had a few more quilt tops I wanted to sew together from my February "Let's get these quilt blocks into quilt tops" push. 

I did get the remaining quilt blocks/misc. units into one tote! Considering I started February with almost three times this much, that's a win. I put the tote under the stairs, and don't really have plans to pull it out again until fall/winter, when my goal will be to get the blocks into a smaller tote. I'll always have leftover blocks/units, so I know I'll never have it down to nothing, but since I'm down to one tote, I'd like to keep it that way. If I can sew up the next  blocks I make as I go, there's hope I can keep the extra blocks to one tote. I will dig the tote out of I need a backing just a bit wider, because a line of orphan blocks is a good way to make that happen. Some of these blocks are orphan blocks, some are enough to make a quilt from, but didn't make the cut this time. 

I finished sewing the last of the quilt blocks from the February push into rows while DH was napping. I have four quilt worth of rows sewn, none of which will be getting borders, and I have one quilt center that needs borders. I'll work on getting all of that pressed later today, so I can work on finishing those quilt tops up over the weekend. I have a quilt top laid out for basting this weekend too, but I did get a quilt basted while I had the grandkids. 

I also have a finish!

I sewed this Spring Twist quilt top in a hotel room in Arkansas. The pastel strips were given to me from an acquaintance, the green accent was leftover quilt wide back, and the border fabric was from my mom's stash. That border fabric is OLD. I know my mom made DD#1 something from it back in 1980's. I really think this was a good project for it to shine. 

I went to start quilting another quilt, and I had a part on my Janome break, so it is now in the shop. When it works, that machine is amazing, but I am a really prolific quilter, and I think maybe it's not the right machine for me. I'm also not a fan of the Janome dealer, they said six weeks for the repair, but I've had them take over three months before. Time to weigh my options and consider a change. I have two Bernina 440's and they quilt beautifully, I just prefer a larger harp when quilting. I could just concentrate on quilting some smaller quilts for a bit, or I could get a different machine, time will tell. I am so blessed to have more than one sewing machine, so even a broken part doesn't completely derail my plans. 

Finish #4

 The fourth quilt of 2026 is done! It's queen sized, and since I don't have an immediate recipient for this one it's hanging on the huge quilt rack in my living room. I've made several quilts from this line of fabric, but this is the end of the line. I may have random bits left in the scrap system, but overall, this line of fabric is out of my stash. 

You can see the quilting better on the back. I used a lavender thread, because I didn't want a dark color on all the white on the front, but it shows up a lot on the back. 

I've got the grandkids this weekend, which will be great! It won't allow much time for quilting, which is fine. I've been really productive this month, taking the time in January to clean up my quilting areas made a big difference. 

For March I really want to dive into the batting scraps, but I need to assemble a couple more quilt tops before my remaining quilt blocks will fit into just one tote. Considering I had quilt blocks everywhere, getting them into one tote is a huge win. I haven't kept count of how many quilt tops I've made in the last month or so, but it's a LOT! I don't like assembling quilt tops in the summer, but I've got a plan for most of the quilt blocks in the tote and when I dig it out again in the fall or winter, I'm hoping to be able to get the blocks into a smaller tote. There are a lot of random units in the tote as well, besides quilt blocks. I have a growing pile of orphan blocks in there too. I may go into the tote if I need a bit of extra width or length for a quilt backing. Making a row or column of orphan blocks can be a fun way to make a backing a little larger. I'm almost out of basted quilts, so a basting spree is on my mind, but I want to piece some batting first, so I use the Frankenbattings during the basting spree instead of storing them. I feel like I'm cleaning up the quilting area the really slow way. Sure, it looks tidier now, but It's not until I have a bit more breathing room that I'll feel like it's really working. 

Slow Going

Things are progressing around here, albeit slowly. I haven't done any FMQ in a week. We've had more going on lately than I was thinking we'd have, and I get off track when I can't keep to a schedule.

I'm still assembling quilt tops from blocks that were already made. I found SO many quilt blocks in the January declutter, that I don't want to stop assembling quilts until I can get all the remaining quilt blocks into ONE tote. I'm not down to one tote yet, so I keep making quilt tops. Most of these quilt tops will be donation quilts, and I'll likely do simple quilting on them to get them done. 

I had set aside the first quarter of the year to work on whatever I wanted to work on. I did the decluttering and cleanup in January, and I thought I'd be working on Frankenbatting in February, but I think that's going to wait until March. I've got several more quilt tops ready for assembly, and I'll spend the rest of February working on that. 

One thing that's been going amazingly well, is my dealing with my scraps. I've been cutting scraps almost every evening, and since I had so many scraps from quilt backings, It's really been well timed  to use scraps in the quilt tops I'm currently making. When scraps are 108" long, even narrower strips go a long ways. 

I used leftover backing fabric for the sashing on a couple more Dancing Nine Patch quilts. 

I've been making a bunch of hourglass blocks to alternate with scrappy nine patches. I love hourglass blocks as alternating blocks because it makes the quilt look on point when it's only straight set. The number of hourglass blocks I get from my scraps determines the size of the quilt. If I have quite a bit of one fabric all in odd sized pieces I don't want to stash, I cut them into either sashing or blocks, then I use what I cut the evening before as my leader/enders while I'm assembling a quilt. By the time I'm done assembling the first quilt, I often have the alternate blocks sewn up for the next quilt. By using backing scraps four my hourglass blocks or sashing, I'm making quilts from 100% scraps, since the blocks I'm setting are scrappy too. 

Some of the sewing I'm doing is also using up cut pieces I found while cleaning up. They may be pieces leftover from a finished project, or cut for a project I never made.

I had a stack of 2.5x6.5 cut pieces with white and cream backgrounds. I had some narrow backing scraps in blue that I could cut into 2.5" strips, and this quilt top was born. 

I've still got way too many 6" scrappy blocks to set, but I wanted a break from working with that size.

I put two quilts on my design wall, one with 12" blocks, one with 8" blocks.

I don't mind these blocks set right next to each other, but I only have 18 blocks. I could set it 4x4 and have two blocks left over, but I don't want leftovers, I want to bust these blocks. I went to the scrap basket, and cut out two more blocks. I hope to get those blocks sewn up tomorrow. 

On the other side of my design wall, I put up some 8" blocks. I have 35 blocks, so I can set it 5x7 with no blocks left. I don't like these set right next to each other, and I don't have enough of any more scraps to use scraps for the sashing. I grabbed a slate blue from stash, and I'll cut both sashing and borders from it. There's enough different prints in there already, that I think just a plain sashing and border will calm it down a bit.

Lately when I make scrap quilts I've been more intentional with my color choices, and I make a lot of two color scrap quilts or stick with a more cohesive esthetic. Most of these blocks are left from my kitchen sink days, and I still love those everything goes quilts. In fact, I've started a new
kitchen sink scrap quilt since my 3.5" squares overflowed their allotted space. I'm making a big checkerboard quilt, alternating dark and light but using all the colors. I'll run out of light colored squares first, but by then I'll be able to fit the 3.5" squares left into their correct bin.

Since I'm mostly working with finished blocks, I'm not having to sew that much to get quilt tops done. I've had more Nana time than sewing time lately. I had grandkids for the weekend, and I'm watching a couple of the grands tonight too. Tomorrow will be a day trip with the grands. The weather has been fantastic lately, and around here, you try to do as many outdoor things as you can before it gets too hot. It's been a very warm February so far, which doesn't bode well for summer. I don't like assembling quilts in summer, but don't mind FMQ in summer. I've got so many quilt tops made I'll be good for a couple summers at least! 

My scrap basket is just over half full, when it was overflowing stacked twice as high as the basket. Basically, I've processed about 70% of what I started with. I've gone through what's still in the basket, and I found leftover masks cut out in 2020. If anything, I found that encouraging, because it let me know I do actually process my scraps, I'd have had a lot more scraps than that over the last six years than this. I think the basket mostly fills up when I have to make the fabric room look presentable in a hurry, like if we are hosting a big event, or we are getting ready to leave town and I don't want to come home to a mess. That's when the scraps get tossed on the basket instead of dealt with. I'm hoping to have the basket empty by the end of March at the latest, but I might be able to do it before then. Most of what's left needs to be pressed before I can cut it, where the stuff on top was less wrinkled. I'm making good progress anyway, and the end is in sight, even if I can't finish this month. 

Scrap Square Rail Fence

As I was going through my sewing room, I found so many things I had cut with the best of intentions, but somehow got set aside. Most of it, I knew exactly what I had planned, but some of those, I no longer wanted to go along with my original plan. Some of those I using in other projects that I am more excited to do.

I had a stack of 3.5x15.5" cut gray rectangles. I knew I had cut them for a hashtag quilt, but I've already got at least two hashtag quilts going, where the blocks are done but I need to assemble the quilt top. I could have cut those rectangles down into other sizes, but I looked around for scraps I already cut that could work with them. I had a big box of 3.5" cut squares. Five of those sewn together would be the same length. I started playing around with EQ8.

I could make columns of just alternating strips and blocks, and flip every other column over. This quilt would be 50% scraps, 50% background. 

I could make rail fence blocks with 5 rails, every other rail being blocks. If I make rails 1,3, and 5 from my scrap squares for every block, I end up with this.

With all the rail blocks made the same way, the quilt is 60% scrap squares, and 40% background.

Would it look better if I made half the blocks with rails 1,3 and 5 scrappy, and the other half the blocks rails 2 and 4 scrappy? It would be 50% scraps, 50% background.

All of them were valid options, but I liked the idea of busting more scrappy squares, so I chose option 2.

Here is just one block...

...and here's a quilt set 4x5 on the design wall. With those big 15" blocks, a 20 block quilt will be 60x75 without borders. When DH saw the quilt on my design wall, he said, "It looks like a maze quilt, but it isn't." I agreed, and told him it was much easier to sew than a maze quilt. The designs it makes to me looks like vertical and horizonal belt buckles. 

I'm sure I'm not the first to make this block, but I did not get it from a pattern, it was just what I came up with to use the rectangles I had cut, with the scrap squares I had cut. I have a lot of squares in my scrap user system that I could make this block with. If you use squares cut from 2.5" jelly roll strips, the finished block size would be 10" Use 2" cut squares, and your finished block size would be 7.5", 1.5" cut squares, and you'd have 5" finished blocks. My preference when busting scraps is to have less than 50% background, so making every block the same and only having 40% background fits that goal better. 

I'm going to end up with 2 quilts from these blocks, plus a couple orphan blocks that will likely make their way into a quilt backing. That's fine with me, I busted those strips without going into any yardage at all. I always try to use scraps first, otherwise they never go down!

Good Start to the Year

 January has been a good start to my personal goals for the year. I've pretty much decluttered all the areas I wanted to declutter. I've always got a donation box going, so I'll toss things in there as I come across things I can pass on, but my major declutter is done. I was writing on the calendar how many things I got rid of each day, and my January total is 529 Items donated, 4 trash bags full and 2 boxes of things I didn't count individually. I really wanted to get to 500 items, and I passed that so it's a win! 

This was a no-buy month for me, and I did well on that too. Every time I thought of something I wanted, I put it on a list, and by the end of of the month, aside from a couple of grocery items, I only had one thing left on my list. What happened to the other things? I found stuff during my declutter that could be repurposed and made buying unnecessary. 

Here's a good example of that. I've been wanting a basket to store my onions in, to keep them away from the potatoes. My potatoes were sprouting too quickly near the onions. When I was decluttering the sewing room, I came across this basket which works fine for the onions.

I usually have far more onions in the house, the basket was full when I moved it to the kitchen. Onions are on my grocery list 😉

The one thing that stayed on my list, I broke no-buy for and picked it up at the thrift store I was dropping stuff off at. 

The plastic basket I used to keep my quilting tools in in my living room craft corner broke, and I needed something to put my tools and a couple small rulers into. The basket was probably 20 years old, so it wasn't really a surprise it broke. I had found something on Amazon that would work for just under $20, I wanted something that looked a little nicer than what I had. I looked around the thrift store for something that would work, and I found this.

Yes, I broke no-buy for it, but it was $8 instead of $20. The only other time I broke no-buy this month was when I suggested DH and I get to-go coffee on a daytrip to his sister's house. I, of course, paid all the bills, and took my turns paying for lunch when my sister and I go out each week, but that was a given. 

I reverse meal planned all month, starting my meal planning with stuff I already had. I managed to skip grocery shopping all together one week, and had two weeks of only spending $60, which with today's grocery prices I thought was great. I'm going to continue the pantry/freezer cleanout into February. DH won't complain a bit about that, he's been eating well, homemade pot pie, homemade soups (we love soup), Korean BBQ fried rice, gumbo, chili, spaghetti, etc...

In the evenings I've been tackling the backlog of fabric scraps. Since I just found all the quilt blocks I have made, I'm cutting whatever I need from the scraps to get those blocks into quilts.

I like the Dancing Nine Patch setting, so I've cut the scraps of several widebacks into the sashing for these quilts. I've also been cutting a lot of larger scraps into hourglass blocks for alternate blocks to go with the blocks I've already got. I'm sewing up the alternate blocks and sewing the sashings on the day after I cut them. I haven't been taking photos much, But I have assembled a lot of quilt tops this month, and my piles of quilt blocks are going down. Smaller scraps I'm cutting for the scrap user system. 

 I've cut some borders out of the scraps for quilts that need them. I found a group of scraps that work really well together, so I am going to cut one new quilt from those, but I will add some other scraps from my scrap user system to the new scraps, and the pattern I'm going to use need no background or borders, so it's a great scrap buster. 

I still have a lot more scraps to process.

This is the basket I keep for scraps at my cutting table, and yes, it's still full, a bit over-filled in fact. When I started processing scraps I could have filled this basket three times with all the scraps that were tossed all over the fabric room. I've got to have another basting spree, so I'm going to be making more scraps from making backings. I'm hoping to have an empty scrap basket by the end of March. Yes, it will fill up again, but if I can empty it, it won't be so overwhelming, and I am much better about using scraps when they are pre-cut. 

My other January goal was exercise, and I exercised 4-5 times per week which was my goal. 

So what's up for February? Now that my fabric room is cleaned up, I'm going to trash it by going through all the batting scraps and piecing Frankenbatting. I haven't tackled batting scraps in a couple years, so it's a huge undertaking. I'm going to be basting quilts too, so I'm not even sure I'll finish that in February. I'm almost done quilting another quilt, so most of my basting pins are free. I need to get another pile of quilts basted, and if I can use Frankenbatting for a bunch of those, it will help clear out space in my quilt closet. Piecing batting is not my favorite thing to do, but saving money on batting is something I do like, so it's worth it. It's also not that hard to do, I just procrastinate on doing it too long so I have a ridiculous amount of batting scraps to deal with. I don't mind piecing Warm and Natural, so I have pieced quite a bit of that for table runners and such, but the poly batting? Not much fun piecing that. I've debating switching to only using Warm and Natural batting, but with the number of quilts I tend to make, I can't afford to do that. Someday, if I find myself quilting less, I likely will make the switch. 

Since we didn't have any travel planned for the first quarter of the year, I really wanted to tackle the stuff I've been putting off, and set myself up for a successful year. If I can do as well in February, as I did in January, it will be great!

Too Many Plastic Containers and Finish #3

 I'm still in the decluttering, tidying up mode. Part of the reason my sewing areas got so out of hand is because of all the traveling we've done over the last few years. We've been gone a total of one year over the last four years, which is crazy! Every time we are getting ready to go away for an extended time, I try to tidy the house before we leave, so I don't come home to a mess. The thing is, a lot of those trips I had very little notice of, so it was more of a hide the mess situation, and pack for the trip. Several of those trips I had a sewing machine and projects with me. I haven't been brave enough to try actually quilting a quilt in hotel room, but I am great at piecing in a hotel room. 

When I'm not home, I'm not finishing any quilts, but I may be creating more quilt tops. When I get home, the projects I was working on in the hotel get set aside, and I often go straight to deadline quilts because someone is getting married, having a baby, or one of the grands asked for a quilt for their birthday. Can you see where I'm going with this? The projects I was working on before I left got set aside, the projects I was working on in the hotel got set aside, and then I start something new. Now if I know about a deadline quilt before we leave, it will likely be one of the projects I take to the hotel, so sometimes it works out OK-ish, but overall, the last few years have only added to my UFO list. 

The only way to evaluate what you have, is to dig it all out, which makes a massive mess. I showed a photo of my trashed fabric room in the last blog post. As I was digging down through the piles in my fabric room, I kept finding more and more plastic containers. Strings here, selvages there, sizes I pre-cut for my scrap user system that never got put away. LOTS of extra  units from projects I either overcut for, or changed the layout on so I needed a different number of pieces. I found leftover fabric scraps from projects that I finished, leftover backing fabric, that piece of fabric I lost and rebought because I couldn't find it. 

And I found projects, SOOOOOO many projects! I found projects I thought I had finished, projects I had forgotten about, projects that have been weighing on my mind because I wanted to finish them. I will give myself this much credit, most of the projects were in containers with my notes and usually with the fabric I needed to complete the project. 

So what have I been doing this week? Putting the pre-cut scraps away, putting the strings and selvages with the other strings and selvages. Stacking up the project boxes so I can see them and work through them. As I empty plastic containers, I'm getting rid of them. If I don't have as many containers, I'll have to deal with things before it gets this bad. 

DH hadn't wanted me to get rid of any fabric during my declutter, but I talked to him about it, and I got rid of any flannel scraps too small to make burp rags from. I got rid of any fleece scraps that weren't large enough for me to want to piece it into a backing. I also got rid of any nursery prints, because I really don't use them when making baby quilts. I like to make baby quilts a kid will like at least through age 5, so right there it eliminates using nursery stuff. I also got rid of any sports team fabrics that no one in our family routes for. The sports team fabric was leftover from the days I was making scrub tops on commision. I'm donating what I can, and tossing what I know the donation centers would toss. Yes, I try to keep things out of landfills, but keeping it in my house when I know deep down it's trash just makes my house a landfill. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a landfill.

My fabric room went from this

to this

Am I finished, no, but it feels better now. I'm working in my sewing room as well. I've been assembling quilt tops from all the quilt blocks I've found, and I'm cutting borders, sashing, and even alternate blocks from the scraps I've uncovered. 

I'm still FMQ an hour per day, and exercising right after too! I finished quilt #3 for this year!

I turned Bonnie Hunter's Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt into two quilts, and changed the setting. This quilt is a large full sized, or a smaller queen. 

I need to start basting some more quilts, since I'm almost out of basted quilts. For February my main project is going to be making Frankenbatting from all my batting scraps. I'll really need my cutting table downstairs free for basting and sorting batting scraps, so I brought all my scrap fabrics that need to be cut down to usable sizes up to my living room, and I'll work on that in the evenings while watching TV. 

This stack of plastic containers I found in my sewing room, went straight to recycling. The plastic shoebox type of containers I'll be donating as I empty them. I'll always have some project boxes around, but having too many just enables me to have too many projects going at once. The more I declutter, the more I learn about myself. I can't change things that trip me up until I identify them, so it's a good thing! 

Second Finish of 2026

 

The Greek Murder Mystery quilt from 2024 is finally finished! I did murder mystery quilts in both 2023 and 2024, and now both of those are finished. I used the colors the designer used, but I felt like the quilt wasn't cohesive. I had the border print in stash, and it had a lot of colors in the main quilt, so I added another border. I think it brings the quilt together fairly well. 

I'm almost halfway done quilting another large quilt. It would be nice to have another finish to show you soon, but we'll see. My decluttering has turned into doing some rearranging in both my fabric room and my sewing room, so they are both a hot mess right now. 

The disaster that is my fabric room. It gets worse before it gets better, right? One part of my fabric room that does look better is the bookcase. I still haven't dealt with the leftover fabrics from Christmas sewing. I didn't take a photo of my sewing room today, but at one point you couldn't walk through it because of rearranging things, but now I can get to all the sewing machines without a problem. There are still things to be dealt with, but the fabric room is the bigger disaster. 

My goal was to get the magazines, and quilt books all on this narrow corner shelf. I was OK with the FMQ books staying in the sewing room, but you know what? I got rid of enough that all my books are on this shelf, along with all the larger quilt patterns that don't fit in the drawer I use for those, plus I still have space!!! I was really glad I went through all the quilting magazines and books in about a week. It really made me realize how many patterns are just re-done with different fabrics and republished. One book I bought for a specific pattern, I realized I had the same pattern in the same fabrics in TWO quilting books, plus in a magazine! I kept enough books that I have plenty of eye candy, but what really helped me to let things go was looking through my quilt closet. Most of the quilts hanging in there were not made from a pattern at all. They were either based on something I saw online, or I designed it from scratch. 

There is still so much to do, but I think in the end I'll be happier with the changes. I've also been busy sewing up all the stacks of quilt blocks I keep finding into quilt tops. I haven't taken many photos of the design wall, but here is one of the latest.

Lest you think I am all work and no play, I did catch a beautiful sunset.

First Finish of 2026!

 

I've got my first finish of the year! This quilt is 108x108, not a small one. I'm actually keeping this quilt which is notable since I give away 95% of what I make. I read an article on making autumn quilts a while back, and it said to always add a bit of purple to elevate the color scheme. I did in this quilt, and I do like the purple added. This quilt is all scraps, different cream on creams, and lots of different fabrics in reds, yellows, oranges, greens, browns, and of course purples. There is more brown and green than the other colors, but I think the warmer colors show up more. 

I just finished FMQ another quilt today, so hopefully I'll get the binding on that this weekend, and have a second finish for this year. 

I had originally planned to start my decluttering in other areas of the house, and finish in the quilting areas, but I switched that around. I had two big bundles of fabric sitting on the floor, and it was driving me crazy. I needed to get those off the floor for my peace of mind. I knew I didn't have space on the fabric shelves right now, but if I went through all my quilting magazines, I could make some shelf space and get the fabric off the floor. 

I love quilting magazines! I don't have as many subscriptions as I used to, due to rising costs, but I really enjoy seeing what's popular, new color combinations, and being exposed to quilts that may not have been my style, but still peak my interest. I've made enough quilts over the years, that I have a pretty good idea what I enjoy doing, and what became not fun soon into the project. That knowledge is powerful, when going through quilting books and magazines. For example, I know how to foundation paper piece. Do I enjoy it? No, I do not. Can I do hand applique? Yes. Do I enjoy it? No. I prefer traditional piecing techniques. If I'm going to do applique I'm going to use a fusible and raw edge. I'm comfortable with all types of traditional piecing. I love triangles of all shapes and sizes, but making log cabin quilts is probably my very favorite. Rare is the year where I don't make at least one log cabin in some variation.

The thing about quilting magazines, or any magazines really, is they can really add up quickly. I had one and a half shelves on a wide bookcase dedicated to magazines. My goal is to get my magazines and books all on the same narrow bookcase. To accomplish that, I not only have to cull my magazines mercilessly, but I also need to cull my quilt books. I'm tackling the magazines first. 

I've already gone through over 100 quilting magazines, and so far I've only found three that have a large enough percentage of patterns that I would make to warrant saving the whole magazine. What about the other patterns I really love? 

I'm ripping the patterns I love out of the magazine, putting them in page protectors and making a curated quilt book of only patterns I can actually see myself making. I'm limiting myself to one binder for these, so I am really trying to be practical. There are lots of patterns I could make, but how many patterns will I realistically make? My quilting area is over capacity, it's time to start purging what isn't making my quilting journey better, and is only weighing me down. I'm recycling the rest of the magazines, no I'm not donating them, I'm recycling them, and I am OK with that. I do have a couple like Quiltmaker's 100 block issues, that I will bring to a used book store along with any quilt books I decide to cull. Whatever the used book store doesn't want I will donate. 

I'm not finished going through the magazines, but I am past the halfway point. You know what else has happened? I got those two fabric bundles off the floor! The fabric isn't where I actually want it to be, but it's off the floor, easy to get to, and out of my way! I'm calling that a win. 

It's a pretty ambitious January for me. Quilting is a pretty sedentary hobby, and I know I need to move more. I'm not going to go to the gym, it's too hot most of the year for me to keep up with an outdoor walking program, and I am not one to enjoy exercise. One thing I have had some luck with but got out of the habit of doing is the Body Groove program. I have a couple of the DVD's I bought a while back, and I really like the founders attitude. If something hurts to do, you are free to modify it to something that works for you. Right now I'm dealing with a knee injury, but I can still do the program will some modifications. 

Since we've been traveling a lot, DVD's aren't something that's going to work for me, so I bought a year subscription to the app. With the app, I can watch any of the many exercise sessions on my TV, phone, or tablet. Starting a new habit is always hard, so I'm utilizing habit pairing. I already have the habit of FMQ an hour each day I sew. Normally, I do some housework after that initial hour. Now, I am exercising right after that hour of FMQ, and doing housework after that. The Body Groove sessions have a lot of stretching, which I'm finding really nice after an hour of FMQ. It's a good time to stretch out your back and shoulders after a session of FMQ. I'm really liking the app, and it has a huge variety of activities on it. One of the things I can really appreciate, is that you aren't watching a bunch of pretty, young, super fit people. There are old people, overweight people, middle aged people, and sure, some young and fit people. It's a lot easier to get into exercising when you aren't being presented with some ideal you feel you'll never achieve. I know this sounds like a commercial, but believe me, no one could pay me to exercise. I paid for the program, and they have no idea who I am. This is not a solicited endorsement. I just know I'm not the only one out there who isn't moving around enough, so I thought I'd let you know what is working for me. I'm overweight, but I'm not doing it with a weight loss goal, I'm not doing it to drop sizes, I'm just trying to MOVE MORE. 

I don't FMQ every day, but I do FMQ more days per week than I don't. I'm hoping to get the habit established enough, so that by the time we take our first trip of the year, I'll still be able to get some exercise in even in a hotel. Stretching out and moving after long travel days would be a smart move. 

I've got a lot of goals for 2026, but I'm trying to keep them fairly simple. Move more, Finish More, and Simplify things.