Doing What Mom Says

I finally finished Month 3's homework from my year-long Square-in-a-Square class tonight. I'm actually on Month 4 but Month 3 gave me fits because I ran out of background fabric before completing all four blocks we were supposed to do, so it ended up languishing on my cutting table before I had the time and energy to deal with it.

Finally tonight, acting under my prime directive to Avoid Reverse Sewing At All Costs, I made the pieces for a fourth block using a different background fabric, and then scattered the pieces through all four blocks. So now I've got four blocks, all with mostly the same background fabric and two pieces with different background. Kind of nifty, as long as I ignore my "must be orderly and make sense" side.

But that wasn't What Mom Said. You see, Month 2's homework blocks turned out very pretty from a fabric point of view, and I like the block itself, but due to plentiful bias edges, the blocks were whonked. Bowing, uneven edges abounded. I believe these were the blocks that were the subject of a previous post, named something like "When you can see it coming". I've debated for some time whether to pull the outside strips back off and redo them, but see my prime directive above.

Finally, tonight, after I finished the other blocks and was putting everything up on my design wall to check my progress to date, I heard my mother's voice in my head. "Block them," she was saying. "Pin them down and steam the h*ll out of them." Well, Mom doesn't typically use the h-e-double-hockey-sticks word, although I'm sure if I'd paid more attention while she was in her sewing room while I was growing up I probably would've heard them. I think every quilter has her potty-mouth side when dealing with bias edges. In any case, Mom has taught me every trick in the book to cover some mistakes and make other ones look intentional. This time, her words about the usefulness of a good, hot shot of steam to bring blocks into line were ringing in my head.

So I did. I pinned every one of those blocks down on my marked pressing pad until it began to look like a medieval torture device for heretic fabric, doused them with coats of spray starch, and then went after them with as much steam as my iron (handily named "SteamXpress") could punch out.

My dog went into hiding. She's not keen on my iron (it's fallen on her head a few times so she's understandably concerned), and she's even less keen when it's a fire-breathing dragon iron. But now the iron has been put to rest and I've stacked every heavy book I could find on my shelves on top of the tortured blocks in hopes that they'll straighten up and fly right by tomorrow morning, returned to orthodoxy. Medieval practices over, my dog has slunk back to her bed next to my computer desk, still eyeing the iron warily in case it should lunge at her from its perch in another unwarranted attack.

Let's see if Mom was right. I certainly hope so, since throughout my efforts tonight I was using this as an object lesson to my almost-18-year-old son who was sitting in the same room playing a computer game. "See? Even at 43 I'm following my mother's advice. Always do what your Mom says, son, and you'll never go wrong." If the blocks don't turn out nicely square tomorrow morning, guess what? I won't be telling him!

Allowing for Randomness

In my continued "cleaning house mode", I guess it must be, I decided to tackle my scrap bins today. Not entirely sure why the mood struck, but hey, I'll ride it as long as it lasts.

I believe I've mentioned before my desire to keep my stash under control...at least until my kids move out of the house and I have access to a couple of new closets! But even so, I'm not much of a collector; I tend to be pretty good about sorting and getting rid of stuff in general. I hate useless accumulation--it slows me down and annoys me. So although my stash is definitely growing, it's doing so quite slowly and it still fits onto the two shelves I have designated for it (even if I have to occasionally use a little judicious stuffing here and there). I am actually pretty proud of myself for not letting my stash get out of hand.

Since the beginning of my quilting days a few years ago, I could hear generations of quilters' voices in my head sighing, shaking their heads in disbelief, or gasping in astonishment at my wastrel ways every time I started to toss out scraps from my projects. Yes, I know: to be a true quilter, shouldn't I save even the tiniest corner of fabric in case it should come in useful? How dare I toss out that 3" square! Someday that might be exactly the 3" square I need!

Problem is, I do extremely little applique and I'm not a big fan of true scrappy quilts. (Nicely color-coordinated scraps are one thing. But true scrappy is just too much mayhem for my orderly little mind.) So scraps were accumulating and not being used. I relegated my smallest scraps to my "tails" bin--the scraps you use to start a chain-stitching row. But I replace them almost as fast as I get through them so there's not a tremendous sense of accomplishment--no piles getting noticeably smaller, no sense of making headway. Just a constancy of fabric presence in the bin on the side of my sewing table.

I have recently gotten into the whole "jelly roll" thing, though--2 1/2" strips. I've gained new appreciation for scrappy using jelly rolls, but the jelly rolls are usually pretty coordinated so my orderly self can still be happy. Today, I thought, "Why don't I just start slicing up some strips out of the scraps? At least they'll be in some shape to use more quickly that way."

So I pulled a book by one of my fave designers off the shelf (M'Liss Rae Hawley) to see what size she based most of her scrap quilts on, and started going to town. 2 1/2" strips, 1 1/2" strips, 7" long with varying width strips for a particular pattern in her scrap quilt book that I decided I liked, all starting to accumulate in newly neatly labeled bins.

OK, so I only got through about 6 or so folds of fabric in the time I had--some of them were much larger than I thought they were. But it's a start. Not sure what to do with the fabrics I no longer love--so I'm cutting them into strips and hoping that they'll be "ooh--just the perfect touch!" when I get into some future project. But perhaps now that they're cut into standard sizes I could also pass them onto other quilters at silent auctions or guild give-aways more quickly. A small handful have been set aside untouched because they're in colors that might work for an applique Christmas project I have on my to-do list. But the rest? Hopefully within a couple of weeks, if I stay diligent, my current scraps will all be chopped neatly into easy-to-use sizes and ready for projects in the future.

Somehow scrappy seems less intimidating when it's neat and tidy and ready to go. I can allow for randomness in my life...as long as it's organized.