Snow and Scraps

I think the National Weather Service has revised its guidelines for issuing warnings, but I am not sure those changes were for the better. We’ve lived here for almost 32 years. It seems to me that we only used to get winter storm warnings when something serious was going to happen. Now we get winter storm warnings for typical, average snowfall events. That’s like warning people that it’s going to be hot in July. 😑

I worked on class handouts yesterday morning. The first one I tackled was for a four-hour class on sweater drafting. I opened up my class template file and began writing down everything I could think of that I want to cover. That class is scheduled for the first day of Sew Expo, from 8 am to noon. I’ll have to be careful not to come in like a shining supernova and overwhelm people who haven’t finished drinking their coffee.

After lunch, I cut scraps. I keep my 5" scrap squares in a clear tote, and when it gets full, I take it to church and give it to my friend, Pat. She sews the squares into comforter tops that get tied and finished to donate to Mennonite Central Committee. It’s a very efficient system. She gave me the empty tote on Sunday and said she could use more scraps. I’ve been going through my bins and pulling out smaller remnants and cutting them into 5" squares. I have all this fabric and it’s not doing anyone any good sitting in bins.

That dark blue print, interestingly, is some old Joann Fabrics yardage. (It must have come in a shipment from my mother.) The fabric says “Richloom” on the selvedge, which is not something Joanns has carried for a long time. The quality is also nicer than what is being sold currently.

My Accuquilt Studio cutter can cut eighty 5" squares in one pass, so it didn’t take long to amass a pile of squares:

I also cut a bunch of tumbler units.

I have a bin of tumblers, too, and I’ve been using the brown ones as leaders and enders as I sew the Tim Holtz quilt top together. Some people begin sewing on a piece of scrap fabric, then follow it with the quilt block or unit without cutting the thread. It’s a way to save thread. If you make your leader (and ender) out of another quilt unit instead of a piece of scrap fabric, it’s possible to sew units for a second quilt simultaneously. When I can’t chain piece, for whatever reason, I try to use leaders and enders, and now I’ve got a nice stack of rows sewn together for a brown tumbler quilt.

The Tim Holtz Correspondence top is finished.

I need to get a backing for it. Our quilt store carries Tim Holtz yardage and I know they have something that will coordinate with this line.

More class handout work and some sewing is on the schedule for today. I’m in no hurry for spring to get here.