Sunday Stash

Happy Sunday?!  Okay, under our recent weather circumstances, I might be a bit sarcastic in my tone.  After all the snow and the ice, here in Eugene we are finally warming up and able to assess some of the damage.

The first big casualty landed perfectly between my fence and my house. The tree was so frozen, it just shattered when it hit the ground.

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning...










All night long, throughout the neighborhood, you could hear branches break and trees fall. I don't think many of us got a lot of sleep.

Thankfully I didn't loose power but there are many more messes to clear once the snow and ice melts.







As this is what is currently in my driveway, I don't think I will be going any place for a bit.

The trees right above are still full of ice and a bit treacherous to be working under.

My only damage came from a tree in my neighbors yard.  I feel quite fortunate as many of my neighbors woke up to trees falling on their homes.

I really hope we are nearing the end of our winter.  Can we please have our rain back!

So after a quick tour of the yard, I came back in, kicked off my snow boots and made myself feel better by petting some of my recent fabric buys!  So many new pretties!

Some lovely grays and turquoises to work into my Sew Kitschy wallhanging.

(And my new Fiesta pitcher that a friend bought me for my new kitchen....I love it!)

Here are some of the tangerine orange pieces I also picked up.

Okay, this stack makes me really happy!

And there were a few other little pieces that found their way home with me.

Okay, there were some really big pieces...



but I need these linens!  Petting them and thinking of all the possibilities helps me to forget the mess I have to deal with outside!

As I pet and put these fabrics away, I realize I have purchased about 15 yards of fabric for a 40" wall hanging!  Okay now I am smiling....Gee, I hope it is enough!

Linking up with Kate Quilts for Sunday Stash and Stitch by Stitch for Anything Goes Mondays.  Go ahead and grab a cuppa and see what everyone else is up to.

Shadowbox Quilt Finish – Q1 FAL

It is not very often that Western Oregon gets snow but Eugene was hit with its second snowy storm this winter. There is easily 15" on my deck.  While many places throughout the country get snowfall like this all the time, most cities here don't have the equipment to keep the streets safe.  And now, on top of all this snow, we are getting freezing rain.  So happy I don't have to go out in this!

Just days before the storm, I was able to get some outdoor photos of this quilt I recently finished.

This quilt top has been done for quite some time but as usual, I never found the time to quilt it.  In an effort to clean up these older projects, I included this one on my First Quarter Finish-A-Long list with Katie at The Littlest Thistle.

It was made using the Shadowbox pattern by Mountainpeek Creations.  Many of the fabrics are from an older Jane Sassaman line of fabrics called Sunshine and Shadows.

As I finish all these older quilt tops, I am finding it interesting how much fabric has changed in recent years.

Finishing this quilt brings the number of old quilt tops to be quilted down to 9.  Hopefully by the end of the year, I can work through them all!

Linking up with Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I get a Whoop Whoop Friday, TGIFF, Fabric Frenzy Friday at Forth Worth Fabric Studio, Link a Finish Friday at Richard and Tonya Quilts, The Littlest Thistle and Show it off Saturday at Sew Can She.

Storing Your Scraps

One of the challenges I think all quilters face is how to store their scraps. I wish I could provide the perfect way to store these pesky bits but the truth is, you will want to store your scraps the way that works best for you. But to give you some ideas, I thought I would take some time and share with you how I store mine. 

Keeping scraps organized I think starts at your cutting table. I have my cutting area set up so that organizing scraps is at my fingertips.












Right above my cutting table, I have these fabric buckets that allow me to instantly sort my scraps by color.








If you are not into buckets, Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts has made these colorful bins to store her scraps.  You can read more about them here.










And I saw these colorful vinyl pouches that I thought would be great to adapt for scrap storage.  Vera at Negligent Style even has a tutorial on how to make them.

I mean how cute are these?





Many fabrics are not easily defined into a single color, so under my cutting table I have a big laundry bin for the multicolored scraps.  I wish I had a better way to store these but to date, it eludes me.

I also have a second bin where I place all 2 1/2 inch strips. This prevents having to sort through all your scraps when you need a pre-cut size.




There is a third basket where I keep the scraps from previous projects or selected lines of fabrics.  Once I finish a project and I have a lot of leftover scraps, I will just put them all together in a storage bag to be worked into a scrap quilt at a later date.

I find I work through these scraps pretty quickly because all the color work is already finished.  I usually just need to add a few other fabrics to have enough for a project.

There are many scrappy quilters out there that like to store their scraps according to size.  I tried this for many years but I never seemed to have the right size scraps for the project I wanted to make.  Storing my scraps by color and keeping them as large as possible until I am ready to use them seems to work best for me.

Once my color coordinated fabric baskets overflow, the scraps go into larger plastic drawers once again sorted by color.

I love that I can pull out the drawers/colors I want and take them to my cutting table for sorting/cutting.






 

As I consider a quarter yard cut and smaller a scrap, I have four large drawers were I keep fabric that I can get folded and stand on end.

I try and keep these fabrics sorted by genre (prints, batiks, solids, novelty, holiday).





I also try and keep each genre of fabric sorted by color.  This makes pulling scraps so easy when you want to start a project.


And having the visibility of each fabric really helps when you are working on a project.







There is one precut size of scrap I do save, and that is 2 1/2" squares.  As I am cutting scraps for a project, I will sometimes go ahead and finish cutting up a fabric into these squares. 










I find these plastic kitchen drawer organizers work great to store these in.  

You can label the scraps with trimmed index cards or even colorful paint chips.  Each square fits perfectly standing on end.

While a  2 1/2 in square is the smallest scrap I usually keep, I do keep some "crumbs" (or tiny bits). However I only keep these crumbs in solids as I occasionally use them in improv pieces.

No fancy storage here - ziploc bags work just fine.

If you do want to consider storing your scraps by size, Bonnie Hunter (the queen of scrap quilting) has lots of information about doing so here.

Getting your scraps organized makes using them so much easier!  And speaking of using them, I hope you find some inspiration in my Scrap-A-Palooza  scrap series, where almost every month, a new scrap pattern is used to make a quilt.

Isn't it time to get those scraps sewn into a beautiful quilt!

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation and Really Random Thursday at Live A Colorful Life.