Grey Cat Quilts

As predicted, it’s been a slow month for sewing. My mother-in-law is back home following her knee replacement, but she’s still not up to several hours of kid-sitting. Nor will she be for a while – she’s also prepping for a move to rent-controlled apartments for seniors. This is very good for her, as she’ll have discretionary income for the first time in ages.

Anyway, this week I’m on vacation, so I’ve stolen some quality time with my rotary cutter and sewing machine. The former far more than the latter right now, but that’s because I’ve been attacking my scraps again.

On Monday and Tuesday, I sat down and started going through my scraps. This is my second concentrated effort to control my scrap bins. Anything that can be cut into squares of three different sizes is cut down. I start with 5″ squares, then move to 3″ squares and finish up with 2.5″ squares.

Anything that can’t be cut into squares, as long as it’s at least 1″ X 5″, goes into my strip bin, so that I can piece string blocks later. I was just throwing these into a Ziploc bag, but quickly realized that I had to spend time ironing the strips flat before stitching them down onto their foundations. Thus, a mostly flat storage solution had to be found. Everything in the bin pictured, is just from my Monday and Tuesday.

When I’ve cut my squares and strips, I’m often left with incy wincy little scraps. These usually measure less than 2″ X 3″. I could throw them away at this point, but my miserly side just yells at me, loudly. So I sat down and started piecing:

I’ve got one 12.5″ square done, and another half done, with another couple bits started. I need to cut down more scraps before I can really move forward with this, but I’m all right with that. I don’t mind having a more relaxing bit of piecing that can be done whenever I’ve a hankering to just do, with no real plan in sight. I think these will end up being alternated with blocks of solid fabric, to make a very simple utility quilt.

It’s a little OCD, I know, but at least now I won’t feel guilty for wasting perfectly good fabric. And, with a little more perseverance, I’ll have squares of all sizes coming out my ears, so I can just make some really scrappy projects when I feel like it.