Scraps and Stash

(these aren't my pictures, they came from the internet)

Celia, of Quilting by Celia, asked me a very interesting question recently. What do I consider to be scraps and what do I consider to be stash?

Well, for me, stash is anything that can be sensibly folded and put on the shelf, probably nothing smaller than a fat eighth or a four inch WOF strip. Anything else is scraps, and gets cut into sizes to go into my scrap boxes. I have one and a half inch; two inch; two and a half inch; three inch; three and a half inch; and four inch boxes. Anything smaller than one and a half inches goes into the waste paper basket.


How about you?

Comments

Today I'm going to make a real effort to reply to comments and other emails. I usually try to reply within a day or so, but recently I've just not been motivated and let them pile up; which is not very courteous to those of you who've been kind enough to comment on my blog posts. So apologies to everyone who has commented and not received a reply.

I'm always just a little envious of those people who are natural writers, witty and interesting, and who write such perfect replies to my comments. And, whilst I feel that I ought to reply to people who take the time to write comments on my blog, I never feel aggrieved with those people who don't reply to my comments; I just assume that they're far too busy doing interesting things to write about.

How do you deal with comments? And do you feel annoyed if someone doesn't reply to you?

Feet

Yesterday I went for the second of my free lessons that came with my new Bernina. I asked for some help on using the different feet and embellishing fabric. The tutor gave me some great ideas which I'm looking forward to trying. One of the things we explored was different ways of using pintucks to embellish fabric.

All I need is time, energy and enthusiasm. I've been feeling very weary lately, which has done for both time and energy as I've been resting a lot; and as a result I've been feeling a bit down, which has not done a lot for enthusiasm, so not much sewing going on here over the last couple of weeks. What we need is a bit of warmth and sunshine, and a bit less biting cold and grey and gloomy days.

Wheeeee!

We went to visit Number Two Son over the weekend, staying in our camper van in a campsite near Brighton Marina for two nights, and spending Friday evening with him and most of Saturday too. We had a great time; he cooked for us on Friday evening and then on Saturday we went out for lunch. But on both days we played on his Wii. It was the first time we'd had the chance to have a go and I must say it was great fun. He had Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and we went on several of the games. Truth be told I was pretty hopeless at most of them, but did manage to win one of the golf games. I was hopeless using the board and doing some balancing game, absolutely hopeless, and then of course we were laughing so much I didn't stand a chance of improving.

How was I? Well, sadly, not quite this ...

But then again, not quite this either ....

Now we're trying to find a reason to justify buying one for ourselves.

Finished with the blue scraps

I've just about used up all of my blue scraps; just a few 4"+ strips left in case I need them. I used every last bit of the smaller strips up to make a file cover.

The only problem is that I now have two new tops to add to the finishing off pile, and I know I'll want to get them completely finished off before I start on next month's challenge. The pile of unfinished quilts is growing, and I really don't like it. I like to get things finished before I move on to something new.

I rushed to get these photographs done because the sun came out! I hate wishing my life away, but I do look forward to the summer when I can take some half way decent photographs again.

Singing the blues

I've just finished my second top using up blue scraps for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Having just enough left to make a rather small centre I decided to have a go at making some letters to go around the border, using Tonya Ricucci's new book. I enjoyed making the letters, they were more straightforward than I'd expected, but I'm not overly happy with some of my fabric choices. Some of the contrasts are too low so you can't see the letters all that well. And I've just noticed that I've put one of the borders on the wrong way round. Bother and Drat!

Australian Floods

The girls at Among the Gum Trees are trying to put together sewing kits for the women who will have lost so much in the floods. If you would like to help out please follow this link.