In My Spare Time

January is a surprisingly busy month for us.  It’s all the more reason I should be making lists and checking them twice.  Instead, I have found myself drawn to mindless piecing.  Months ago I had cut a few 2” squares from some traditional scraps. I started making these into four patches over the weekend.  After spending most of my December sewing time on crafts and machine quilting, it was great to be back to piecing.  Pretty quickly, I ran out of precut squares and I decided to dig into the oversized shoebox that I use to store my traditional scraps.  I thought I could kill two birds with one stone since Linda asked for scrappy HSTs for this month’s Friendship assignment. 

 

I spent several hours digging through the box and cutting a few sizes that I will use in the future.  I cut bigger pieces to go into a Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt since I love that pattern and I’m sure I’ll make another one.  For anything that was a decent width, I cut 2” strips since most of the scrap patterns I am drawn to will use that size.  After many hours, things started to get tedious and I began to question why I shouldn’t just throw the whole box in the trash and move on.  As I’ve sorted and cut them, I’ve realized that the scraps in that box came from nearly every project I’ve made since I started sewing in 1992. There were pieces from my first (hand pieced and hand quilted) quilt, It’s OK exercises, wedding quilts, scraps from ESF Mississippi fabric bundles, Color from the Heart, quilts for people I’m no longer related to, Syd and Kathy classes, HFM, Mary Ellen Hopkins fabric swaps, that “awesome” bargello vest, scraps from my embarrassingly bad first-timers applique for the QSC round robin (sorry about that Jan!), NEORQC getaway projects, baby quilts for kids who have since grown into adulthood, the mariner’s compass and double wedding ring quilts were way beyond my skill level when I made them … the list goes on and on.  You can see some of the results and the debris here. 

I am not sure how many four patches I’ll need but, for now, I am thinking I will make this pattern from all of these scraps.  Someday, it will be my sewing memory quilt.