Using up …

At C&B Towers and the Overseas Office the current working theme seems to be put all orphan blocks, sample blocks and bits, and UFOs to good use.

In the last few months Chris has resurrected and revived all manner of pieces that she had almost forgotten about and it has been very satisfying to make Something Unplanned out of them. The Photography Department has promised us that we will have pictures of these pieces to show in a future post.

Further south at the Overseas Office Barbara has been conjuring blocks for class samples out of scraps left over from other class samples and that has been a satisfying exercise too. For several years now the majority of class samples Barbara has made have had a similar colour palette, nearly always with a red print or prints included. The useful thing about this strategy is that, ultimately, all the samples should “go” together and can be arranged into some sort of sampler. This is not a new idea but it really does work very well and this year may be the start of arranging the contents of the sample bag. Here’s a quick glimpse of the current class sample plus one or two from 2022 –

This really is using up – the black print above featured in a quilt Chris made a LONG time ago and Barbara purloined the leftovers!

Back to sorting out pieces from the past!

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Long ago . . .

back in 2009 to be exact we ran a Chris and Barbara workshop called Stack and Switch where one of the ideas was to make what we called curvy pinwheels. Some of you may have dim recollections of it, some of you may even have made something after the workshop.

In sorting and tidying and general rummaging through cupboards and bags Chris came across the Blue Peters and complete blocks from that workshop. More rummaging produced some fabrics that ‘would do’ as sashing or borders. For some reason there were only three purple blocks but four multi-coloured blocks so finally two tops have been put together – a runner and a small square thingy –

Let’s hope it doesn’t take another thirteen years to quilt them!

Random progress

We’ve both made an effort this year to finish things up or at least progress them. Of the two of us Chris has probably had a higher success rating but during the year we have both turned scraps into blocks, random blocks into tops and some tops into quilts. Barbara has counted up an embarassingly large number of long-term projects still not completed and made some progress on moving several of them on to the next phase, whatever that may be.

Very little chance of being without “something to do” -!!

Almost autumn

There’s something about September – back to school, back to classes, shortening days and making plans. We are currently searching for a new UK HQ where we can meet up, drink coffee and swap ideas – our old HQ has been refurbished and is under new management and has lost it’s comfortable vibe. Hopefully we’ll find just the right spot before too long.

Meanwhile it’s review and sorting time (again) at the Overseas Office – Barbara has been reviewing the Overseas Stash which only occupies one basket and two small boxes.

Compared to what is sitting in the Rural Office this is a mere drop in the ocean and yet it seems to have been more than sufficient for the past couple of years. From this we deduce that 1) Barbara doesn’t make much or 2) Barbara still has so many projects to finish that quantities of fabric are not actually required.

On with reviewing and planning!

Stitching away

News is in from the Overseas Office that some stitching is actually happening, just not in the expected quantities. An orphan block has been rescued from oblivion** –

– and some simple outline quilting has been added since the above picture was taken. More quilting may yet be done.

** oblivion = one of several boxes of stash

One or two other projects are being similarly progressed with just the very essentials of outline quilting to begin with. The small unplanned wrinkles on the Sugar Loaf remake should quilt out and the Friendship Star/Nine Patch is going to feature easy straight lines.

The Project Inspection Department at C&B Towers expects to see considerable progress by the end of this month!

Scrappy Sunday

Does a part Jelly Roll count as scraps?  We’re not entirely sure but we think, in these weird times, that maybe it does.  After all it’s just 2 1/2inch strips, not yardage or fat quarters ….  So, if we can agree on that, Barbara is delighted to report that her scrap stash at the Overseas Office just expanded!  Tucked away in a project bag for a Dresden Plate class and now transferred and ready for use –

There’s one Begun scrappy project which will be a perfect fit for these –

or maybe they’ll come in handy for this Begun scrappy project –

Or maybe just wade in and start a completely new scrappy project?  We’ll let you know what happens!

 

Scrappy Sunday

We can’t believe it’s more than 12months since we started this series of Scrappy posts.  Barbara was looking through her photos from the past year and was quite surprised at the number of scrappy projects she has started, worked on and taught during that time.  We thought we’d share just a few of them – absolutely no prizes for guessing which ones remain at the “begun” stage!

Plenty of autumn and winter stitching in store!

Scrappy Sunday – scrap reduction?

An almost momentous event this week at the Overseas Office – various bags of scraps were emptied onto the worktable with the aim of sorting and reducing the heaps and making them more manageable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resisting the urge to press everything   -!! – Barbara spent a happy hour or so straightening and sorting ALL this jumble into categories.

Category 1 – Far too small to be of any use to anyone.

Category 1a – Small weird shapes, 1inch or more

Category 2 – Very narrow strips, any length

Category 3 – Less narrow strips, any length

Category 4 – Slightly wider strips, any length

Category 5 – Wider strips and chunks

Category 1 is covered by scissors, Category 1a is to the right, Categories 2 – 5 middle and above.

Categories 1 and 1a have been combined and are off to a good home with another quilter who collects improbably tiny scraps.  The rest have fitted neatly into one medium ziplock bag –

Overall result of this sorting and organising is that it makes room for more fabric! It may be time for a little online retail therapy…..

Scrappy Sunday

Welcome to the first (probably) of various posts (probably on a Sunday) about scraps.Before we look at what we/you can or could do with all the accumulated scraps we thought it might be an idea to take a look at organising those scraps. We use the term ‘organising’ very loosely here!

We define scraps as those pieces that really aren’t all that big – less than an eighth (fat or thin) – usually, but its a bit of a loose definition. Less than a fat quarter sometimes gets classed as a ‘scrap’, a lone strip from a jelly roll is a scrap, trimmed off triangles are scraps, so are excess units (those ones that get made when you aren’t really concentrating and make twice as many HST units as were required) . . . and trimmings when squaring up a quilt before binding it – those are scraps.

Where do we put them all?

Chris chucks everything into a large plastic sack that hangs from a door, the floor is also a recipient of many of these pieces – her aim isn’t that great! Eventually the sack gets too full and heavy and its time for a sort out. Very small pieces and bits of wadding are either recycled into cushion stuffing, donated to the nursery school for ‘art’, or handed over to the recycling centre. Small cotton shreds are composted. Bigger, usable (possibly) pieces are sorted by colour and chucked into other plastic bags in the cupboard – out of sight, out of mind. Eventually some of these get used: a small piece of a particular colour may be required – there’s sure to be one in a scrap bag, which gets tipped out onto the floor to be rootled through in the (usually) vain hope that a big enough bit in exactly the right colour will magically appear.

Very occasionally the urge to make a truly scrappy quilt arises and all the bags are tipped out, fabric bits are sorted out into different sizes and shapes and usability and then, after a mammoth pressing session, they can be used – providing the urge to make a scrappy quilt has survived all the pre-preparation! If it all gets too out of hand the larger ‘scraps’ get donated (unsorted, unpressed, sorry) to a local Linus group.

As for storing larger bits of fabric – half-metres, fat quarters, and slightly smaller pieces are stored in baskets, largely by colour. Big chunks of fabric (backings etc) are in another cupboard.

Barbara is considerably more organised than Chris – as she does a lot of hand-piecing her scraps are sorted into bags ready to be turned into (or already turned into!) hexagons or diamonds or . . . While larger pieces are neatly folded into large crates under the cutting table, fat quarter sized pieces are, again neatly folded, stored on shelves along with pre-cuts.

Some exceedingly organised folk we know cut all all their scraps into sensible sizes – squares, triangles, strips and then store them in labelled boxes. Chris can only marvel! Yet others profess to just binning all left-over pieces. Eek!

So, join us as we try to impose order on the chaos that is Chris’s scrap collection and come up with ideas to use some of it up. (Note – ‘ideas’, not actually do it; never make a promise you can’t keep!)

Flaming June

– at least that’s what it feels like at the Overseas Office where at last the temperature has settled in to the traditional summer reading of 30 degrees C or higher.   At C&B Towers however the story is a little different and work on the park-like gardens has been interrupted by blustery wind and rain.  So, for different reasons, we are both busy with indoor sewing and planning – samples to finish for the next round of classes at The Corner Patch are high on the list.

We’ve refreshed the EQ doodle page again – another simple block this time but a straightforward and quick make if you felt so inclined.  Download a free colouring sheet here June doodle and try out your own variation without any fabric being involved.  As many of you already know, we are both keen advocates of EQ and can’t imagine our quilting and teaching life without it.

The main desk at the Overseas Office has been fairly productive and a number of projects have been “progressed”.  This is our new preferred description, it sounds a lot more positive than “still not finished”….. Here’s a quick glimpse of just four of the projects – 

C&B Towers – before the rain

and at the Overseas Office –

Happy stitching!