My snow day extravaganza continues! You'd think by now I was getting stir crazy and you wouldn't really be wrong. Being trapped in an apartment for two days straight (minus a quick romp in the snow) was getting to me. Especially because the hubby went in to work on Friday whereas my work had been postponed again. Alone with the cat I decided to knock out the one project I still had looming and finally had time to work on. Since I finished piecing all of my hexagons and couldn't move forward I turned to organization.
I have this three drawer bin I keep all of my scraps in. I use them A LOT for small projects, like potholders, bag holders, lots of holders, apparently. Like any good quilter you just don't throw away fabric, of any size. Ok, I do toss selvedges that don't have any verbiage on them (I'm saving for a selvedge quilt). I also toss scraps so tiny you couldn't possibly do anything with them. What if I want to make a ticker tape quilt?! I'd be out of luck without those small pieces. Anyway, see the mess of fabric above? A few episodes of 30 Rock later, whallah, all folded and color coded. Reds and pinks, yellows and oranges, whites, multicolored, blacks and browns, blues, greens.
And then they tucked away ever so nicely in the now organized storage bin. I do realize I am running out of space, but I'm trying not to think about it yet.
Any scraps that were too small to fold like a fat quarter (ticker tape sized) I placed in recycled containers of salsa or parmesean cheese. It's working for now but barely. You see the ricotta cheese container with blues? It's about to explode!
Now organized by color I had an idea! The old Christmas tree skirt got pulled out of the box this year and set aside to make room for the new skirt I made this year. Neti immediately fell in love. It's this big shaggy white fabric that looks like a polar bear was sacrificed and skinned. She LOVES it. So I cut out a big hunk of it and it's been sitting around. Neti monopolizes it during craft time.
With leftover stuffing from the elephants project and a ton of fabric scraps I just leafed through I decided to make a plush "little" cat bed for it using only scraps. Genius! I have a lot of colors that don't really look smashing together, so instead of doubling up on favorite fabric I went with planning by value. You can see below that first layout I made. By taking the picture in black and white you can get a better gist of the value of the fabric. Is it dark? Medium? Light? You can see in this first shot the value looks pretty well dispersed except for that one column, second from the right on the bottom. It just doesn't work. The fabric has the same value.
So I switched a few around and settled on this mix. I think it works.
So does the cat. Once I got it all sewn together she was mad at me for taking the fluffy white fabric to cut so she cuddled up in here.
Once sewn together and stuffed it is great! A big mix of all of my past projects being put to use. We don't spoil our cat (much). I kept all of my favorite fabrics for the edges since I knew those were the ones we'd be seeing all the time.
At first she was tentative. She recognized the white fluff as hers but was a bit unsure about its new form.
She was pretty easy to coaks on top.
And once on top of it, realizing it was hers, she spent the entire evening there!!
Waking up the next morning I found her still on her bed! Such a happy cat!
With three snow days under my belt and 95% of the snow melted by rain and 40 degree weather I ventured out of my cave to the fabric shop! The hubby tagged along and was super helpful in finding the fabric below for the hexagons.
I immediately went to cutting and basting the quilt. I can't wait to get started!
I had a handful of hexagons left over from the front and found a way to piece them together for a strip across the backing. I am totally in to pieced backings. You usually have to cut down the fabric anyway to get enough to fit so why not embellish? I love the look. I"m also crazy about the hot pink and polka dots.
For now it's just going to be some major time spent quilting. More pictures later! I have a feeling quilting is going to take awhile. I feel like I used my snow days well. My Bernina needs a breather!
Happy Crafting!
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