Category Archives: stash (busting)

The Blue Quilt – Part Two

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By the time I’d finished the Rainbow Cat Quilt top I had enough confidence to return to the Blue Quilt. With fresh eyes I could see that my approach to joining the blocks was overly complicated. I just needed to sew them into rows then sew the rows together.

But part of the overwhelm had been not knowing if I had enough strips to make enough blocks. So I decided to work that out. The way I designed it, each row or column of navy or dark floral striped-based blocks has the same sequence of strips. I was going to have a different sequence for each row and column, but decided to keep it simple and have just six varieties. After counting the already completed blocks, I clipped them together in batches of the same stripe sequence and hung them on some pinboards, with a note of how many more needed to be made.

I didn’t have enough strips of some fabrics to do a queen-sized quilt of 10 x 9 blocks, or 9 x 8 blocks. It had to come down to an 8 x 7 block quilt. By then I’d watched videos on adding sashing, so I knew I could do that to make a queen sized quilt.

So every day or two I chose some of the batches and sewed up the remaining blocks needed for each. They seemed to sew up really fast. I had them done by the end of that week, just in time for an impromptu sewing day at my place.

At the start of that day, Paul set up two folding tables next to each other and I laid out the blocks in order. I found that some needed tweaking and I’d completely missed one row of flowery blocks, but with an afternoon of sewing ahead it wouldn’t be long before I was ready to start joining blocks into rows. The guests arrived. We set up. We chatted and made a start. I got the extra blocks made.

And then the power went off.

Fortunately, trimming the blocks kept me busy for the next few hours. When the power came back on, just after my guest left, I started joining blocks and the next day all were sewn into rows.

I didn’t get back to it until the following weekend, when I looked at the rows of blocks and realised they were really wonky. Looking closer, I realised that I’d cut them half an inch narrower than I was supposed to, thanks to the confusing markings on the square ruler I had.

This was going to take some fixing.

The Rainbow Cat Quilt – Part One

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At last I got to the quilt that had inspired me to return to making quilts. As with the previous two, I started by ironing the strips then laying them on my cutting board to see if they were straight and the correct width. Unfortunately, the answer was pretty much ‘no’ to both. I think by the time I cut them, during lockdown back in 2020, I was well tired of making strips. Or maybe the cutting machine was getting blunt. Either way, they were very wonky.

So when I saw a video showing how to sew strips on a 45 degree angle onto squares of paper, I realised it was the perfect method for this quilt. With this technique it doesn’t matter if the strips are of different widths or are a bit crooked. You just sew each strip down and fold it flat, and the wonkiness gets hidden in the seams.

However, I essentially had only two fabrics. One was the stripe, cut in two directions, and the other was the cat faces. What I needed was another fabric so I could vary the order of the fabrics. Preferably purple since there wasn’t any of that colour in the stripe fabric (and you don’t have a full rainbow without purple!). Even better if it had cats on it. And if I was going to buy fabric I may as well make it the backing fabric, too.

So I went shopping. No luck getting purple cats. I could get plain purple at Spotlight, but there wasn’t enough left for backing. I found a nice purply-blue fabric with multicolour ovals on it at a patchwork shop, but there wasn’t enough of that either. Hunting on the internet when I got home, I found another Spotlight store had white fabric with multicoloured dots on it and decided to go get it the next day to use as the backing fabric – and if it wouldn’t work on the front I’d get a little bit of plain purple to use for that.

The next morning I remembered that box of leftover strips from projects I’d woven and sewn, so I decided to have a dig around to see if there were any purple strips in it. And what did I find?

Purple fabric with cats on it.

Seriously.

The Snakes & Ladders Quilt

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The second and larger batch of wiggly stripe fabric was a mix of red, blue, black and green, and had been cut both vertically and horizontally. I also had a good sized piece of uncut fabric to play with. I took inspiration from a video showing ways to use striped fabric in blocks to find a design that looked good. Though I tried a few plain colours mixed in with the fabric, in the end I decided I liked it all made from the same fabric.

I started as I had with the Cat Quilt, pairing up the already cut strips – one vertical, one horizontal. Then I considered what length to cut them to use most of the fabric. This time I had two lengths that worked, so I embraced that and made columns of alternating widths. The columns were separated with one long strip.

I like how the design I settled on looks like ladders. It was a pity, I thought, that I’d already used serpentine stitch for the top stitching of the last quilt. When I looked at the next stitch in the list, it was also very snake-like:

So that’s what inspired the name of the quilt.

For the backing and binding I used the fabric I’d set aside for the Aqua Quilt leftovers. It turned out to have a small rip in it, but I was able to use it for this quilt instead.

The Snakes & Ladders quilt is a bit small for a couch blanket and too big for a cat quilt, but makes a generous lap rug. By the time I’d finished it, I had already done a test block for the next quilt – the Rainbow Cat Quilt. Now that one is going to be fun!

The Cat Lap Quilt

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With the Blue Quilt and Aqua Quilt leftovers packed away until I figured out what I wanted to do with them, I was free to go back to sewing clothing. So what did I do?

Given some time, I came to the conclusion that while I hadn’t liked the quilt making as much fun as I’d hoped, I did like the result. Having a mental picture of what the finished piece might be like could be the motivation I needed. Perhaps if I kept the projects small and manageable the process would be more pleasant, too.

I got to thinking about the other batches of flannelette strips, and started watching videos of sewers making things from fabric “crumbs and threads”. Some of these had potential, and there was one particular batch of strips cut from a rainbow fabric that might make something the daughter of a friend would like. I dragged out the box and laid out the strips according to fabric.

The rainbow fabric had been cut both lengthwise and widthwise. Another fabric of cat faces went well with it. This would make a bigger piece – maybe a couch blanket.

There were two batches of colourful wiggly stripes on a white background that didn’t go well with the rainbow – but I had uncut pieces of the same fabric to work with. If I added fabric to it, the smaller batch was about the right size for a small lap rug for protecting my clothing when the cat sits in my lap of an evening – what I call a “cat quilt”. The larger batch of wiggly stripes would be something bigger but I wasn’t sure what yet.

The rest of the strips went in the box of leftovers from other projects.

I decided to work on the cat quilt first, and to test some of the things I’d learned in the videos, and some methods I hadn’t yet worked out how to do on my machine, like using a walking foot and some decorative stitches I could select. For the additional fabric I chose to use up some of the backing fabric trimmings of the Aqua Quilt. Instead of sewing strips end to end, I matched them up by length and sewed them together lengthwise. Then I worked out what length to cut everything to use up the most fabric. I made three long columns of strips, then sewed those together.

The part where I learned the most was during the quilting. Firstly, I worked out how to select the serpentine stitch on my machine.

I noticed that the curves might start going in the same direction, but they ended differently. So to prevent one side always being the same, I turned the work around every four or five rows. What I should have done was sew every other row then turn it around and sew the rest, because the drag of the machine foot from different directions made the seam of the three columns distort into a wave. I used the normal foot, so I decided I’d try the walking foot next time.

Fortunately, I like the wavy seam. It kinda goes with the topstitching. I used the rest of the wiggly stripe fabric for the backing and bias binding. Once finished, I was still keen to keep making quilts, and got stuck into the one using the other striped fabric.

Aqua Quilt Leftovers

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Having realised I had as much fabric left over for the Aqua Quilt as what I started with, I decided to use up as much of that fabric as possible before sewing anything else. I had:

  1. A short bit from the end of the Aqua Quilt top, cut off because the batting was 254cm but the top was around 300.
  2. A 1.5ish metre length of the aqua flannelette I’d intended to make into bias binding.
  3. A bundle of remaining original strips.
  4. The remaining strips from Mum’s pyjamas
  5. Offcuts of the aqua flannelette backing.

I decided to make a lap blanket. The first thing I did was cut the offcut of the top in half. The new width was just right for a lap blanket… and once sewn together it would be a good length for one too. That wasn’t going to use up much leftover fabric, so I decided to make two lap blankets, using the same method as for the quilt.

I cut up most of the offcuts of plain aqua backing fabric to use as the alternating strip against the mixed, paler fabrics. Once they were all sewn together and added to the offcuts from the quilt top, I had this.

This would make a lot more than two lap blankets.

This presented a dilemma that I haven’t yet solved.

The Blue Quilt – Part One

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So the blue quilt needed to be more interesting than the aqua quilt. I had an idea how to achieve that: a design that echoed the log cabin structure in weaving. For that I needed the same amount of dark blue fabric as light blue, and while I had a piece of dark blue floral fabric I’d found in an op shop that would work, I didn’t have enough of it to make the queen sized quilt I had in mind. I also had a small piece of navy flannelette I’d bought to add variety to the mix, which I decided to buy more of.

The navy worked best with patterned fabrics, the dark blue floral with plain. Lots of sewing later, I had one set of four blocks sewn together…

… and about 22 more blocks. I did some math and drew a plan, and realised I needed 99 blocks.

It was at this point I put everything aside so I could finish the Aqua Quilt by the end of the year. With that time to think, I came to the realisation that I wasn’t enjoying the process of making the Blue Quilt. And maybe even making quilts at all. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t having fun.

Life’s too short for crafts you don’t enjoy.

This dissatisfaction was compounded by the fact that I hadn’t reduced my flannelette fabric stash at all when making the Aqua Quilt. The offcuts of the backing fabric were about equal to the strips I started with. Thinking about all the fabric I had bought fabric in order to make the Blue Quilt work, I felt a sinking feeling.

I don’t wanting to waste the fabric or the work I’ve already put in, so I’ve been considering my options. I haven’t cut all of the dark floral and navy flannelette into strips yet, and I have some small batches of untouched plain light blue. I could…

  1. Use the blocks I’ve already made to construct a small piece, like a lap rug
  2. Then make a pair of pyjamas with the uncut fabric, assuming there is enough
  3. Then make another strip quilt or a few small ones with the remaining strips
  4. Or try making fabric-wrapped rope baskets
  5. Or save the strips to use as stuffing
  6. Or send all the strips to fabric recycling

Whatever I do, I need to stick to my new rule of only making things I want, not just to use up stash. Trouble is, I don’t need more pyjamas, or a fabric-wrapped rope basket. But I could do with more cat quilts (small blankets for protecting my clothes and legs from claws).

The Aqua Quilt

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Yes. Quilting. I know. Where is the real Creative Fidget and who is this imposter?

Well, I had to do something with all the flannelette strips I culled from the weaving yarn stash. I could have just tossed it all into the fabric recycling box, but I decided to give strip quilting a try. There are batches of aqua, light blue, red, purple, rainbow and a rather large accumulation of leftover strips from the spectrum rugs.

Fortunately, not many of the strips had edges turned in and ironed, so it wasn’t much work to iron them flat again. The red batch is the only one still to be cut into strips, so it may become a non-strip type of quilt. I chose the light blue batch to begin with, and soon hit at snag.

When weaving fabric into rugs not a lot of the pattern shows, just a general impression of colour. You can mix up prints of monkeys with prints of flowers and nobody would know. It also isn’t immediately apparent when the same fabric is sewn to itself. But when quilting, both of these things are obvious. A large proportion of the blue batch was the same pale, Japanese inspired print of fans along with a subtle gingham print, a few flower patterns and a single plain blue… with the occasional glaring length of cartoony characters or bold stripes. Once I cut out the latter, I had very little variation in fabric. That meant a trip to the fabric store to buy more flannelette and, well, we were having the sort of weather that didn’t make shopping trips appealing so I didn’t want to do that yet.

I did consider mixing the aqua batch in with the blue, but the combo didn’t excite me and I really wanted to have a aqua-only quilt because I had a pair of pjs of my Mum’s I wanted to include. Nope. Until I had more fabric, the blue quilt would have to be put aside.

So I switched to the aqua quilt. That batch of fabric didn’t have any unharmonious prints to remove and it was already sewn into three long strips alternating between two prints. Trouble was, even after I cut up and spliced in the fabric from Mum’s pjs, having only three different prints meant there was no way they could align without too much of the same print lying next to itself.

The simplest solution I could think of was to do every second strip in a single, new fabric. So gave in and I headed to the fabric store, where bought three meters of plain aqua fabric.

This worked beautifully.

It took me four days to sew the strips together, working a few hours each day in the hope my back wouldn’t seize up in protest. I didn’t love the endless sewing together of strips. I didn’t hate it either.

But I did decide that sewing the blue quilt needed to be a little bit more interesting.

One Cull Leads to Another

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During my fabric, pattern and habby cull, I got to thinking about how different my attitude to fabric stash is to yarn stash. With sewing, I have a limited time I can spend on the machine before my back complains, so I don’t waste it on making items I don’t want or aren’t fun to make.My fabric collection isn’t overly large. It fits in four plastic filing boxes and one tub.

With weaving, I often make things I don’t particularly want to keep in order to use up stash or learn something new. The weaving yarn stash is seven or eight times larger than the fabric stash. Which is sobering, but not unexpected. It’s been my main hobby for quite a few years now, and until recently I was on quite a learning drive.

I’d like to weave with the same attitude as sewing, so having a weaving yarn stash as practical as the sewing stash appeals. However, to get to that point I’d have to cull quite a bit of yarn. The thought was rather intimidating, but on a free day recently, I girded my loins and got stuck in. What I found surprised me.

Since it was a large task, I broke it into smaller ones. My cones of yarn are stored separately to the skein, ball and hanks, and I left them for another time.

Out: a few cones I knew I’d never weave.

The balls, skeins and hanks of yarn made up about half the yarn. I was surprised to find they were mostly knitting and crochet yarn. Not that I don’t weave knitting yarn, just not as often these day. Some is intended for machine knitting projects, so it turns out this is also a machine knitting stash. And possibly hand knitting and crocheting, but I’ll get to that later.

Out: a bag of yarn I wasn’t keen on.

Below the knitting yarns were eight tubs of fabric for rag rugs. Am I going to weave more rag rugs? Probably not. While I like rag rugs, the oldest ones I have I made 13 years ago, and I plan to replace them with the flannelette ones I have in storage.

Out: ALL of the fabric for weaving.

When I’d estimated the amount of weaving yarn I had, I was waaaay out, because I forgot the wool rug stash.

Yikes.

Out: about half of it.

Having decided that this was also a machine knitting stash, I moved the circular knitting machines in from the craft room. In order to do that I had to move the embroidery and macramé yarn stash. You know what happened next.

Out: er, nothing. I meant to get rid of most of it, but there’s now plenty of room on the yarn stash shelves and I have a few ideas I’d like to try. At least removing it from the same cupboard as the sewing supplies gives me a some room for all that ex-fabric-for-weaving, which may become quilts and chair covers.

I’ve come up with a couple of crochet projects for the knitting yarn, too. All things I want and will be fun to make. Next time I have the urge to downsize, the cone yarns will be in the firing line. Hopefully before the next Guild bazaar.

Lucy’s Honeycomb

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A little white ago a friend asked on FB if anyone wanted a ball of slubby, multicoloured yarn formerly a scarf that had unravelled. I put my hand up for it and offered to weave it into a new scarf. She accepted.

We had a couple of quick consultations, in which I showed her some examples of weaving using slubby yarn, she picked honeycomb weave with a green background as her favourite. I did a lot of math and worked out that I didn’t have enough of the green to make a shawl, but plenty for a wide scarf.

Weaving honeycomb was rather pleasant, and similar to the deflected doubleweave I’ve been weaving in that it pairs smooth wool with a textured yarn, and is fast and engaging to weave.

My calculations were way out, though, since I still had plenty of both the slubby and background yarns left when the scarf was done. I considered making another scarf. Then memories of this friend wearing a beret/tam had me digging out a device I made years ago for weaving tams, and I got to work. The body was woven from the old scarf yarn, then fulled a little. The brim was knit separately out of a natural coloured 8ply yarn then sewn on.

The pom pom was made from the thrums, making this a very frugal project. I still have a ball of the slubby yarn left, but I’m going to offer it to my friend to save in case of moth damage.

When I embarked on the band knitting, I looked up beret patterns to see how many stitches were cast on and realised that berets seem to be in fashion again. It has me eyeing the yarn stash.

The Pin Loom Blanket

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This project has taken me over half a decade. It started as a small weaving thing to do while travelling then, when I had accumulated enough squares to start thinking about what to make out of them, something bigger. Eventually I hit on the idea of a double-thickness blanket of stuffed squares. Since then, however, I decided not to stuff them because the weave isn’t dense enough for the filler not to show through.

After I did the pin loom workshop a few years ago I bought the double size square loom to get a little variety into the blanket and speed up the process, though it didn’t really speed up the process much. It didn’t help that, no matter what size square I wove, if I worked on it too much my back would complain. So progress was made in small bouts of enthusiasm and abandonment.

Early this year I decided it was time to finish it off. Using safety pins, I connected the squares together in an appealing sequence and used a board to carry it all from room to room when I needed the kitchen table for something else. Slowly I wove the remaining squares. Gradually I crocheted around the edges. Doggedly I sewed it all together, then crocheted a border. When I think about the hours I must have spent on it, I’m sure it has to have taken hundreds. I wonder if it was all worth it. If the journey is more important than the destination, then yes, it being an epic trek that I was totally over by the time it was done definitely overshadows the relief of having it done.

Not all wanderers are lost? Yeah, I’d totally lost all will to live by the end of this one. But I survived.