Monday, May 17, 2021

Rekindling the fire

 After wrestling my last quilt through my domestic machine, binding it, and giving it away, I kinda lost my mojo. 

Bonnie Hunter's 2018 Leader & Ender "Jewel Box Stars" with sashing and cornerstones

The quilting is pretty minimal - just in the ditch around all the sashing and
 diagonally through the stars - but I couldn't handle anything more on my machine.

I haven't turned on my sewing machine in three weeks!  But then Facebook notified me about an event that might interest me (I find the algorithms and the tracking of my information unsettling, but this time it was helpful) - a Free Materials Swap sponsored by a fiber-lovers group in a nearby town.  

Free fiber???  And a chance to clean out some of the things I have that I probably will never use??  Yesterday I packed two large tote bags with novelty fabric and some flannels and some yarn that was languishing in my stash, took the top off my Jeep, and set off for parts unknown under a bright blue late spring sky.

What a lovely way to spend the afternoon!  I brought back one tote bag full of goodies with NO GUILT since I had given away twice that much AND I didn't spend a dime!

First, I got some fabric.  My goal was to seek out neutrals in particular, scraps that caught my eye in general (yes, my scrap bin is still full, but I feel like I've seen and used all of those fabrics recently).  Check out my haul!


Then, I snatched up some yarn: a sweater quantity of this rich purple bulky yarn (mystery fiber content, but definitely wool, possibly with some mohair mixed in):

700 grams!!

And a couple singletons that I just couldn't pass up:

Madeleine Tosh Lace!!

Not sure what this is, but it is so soft and orange is my favorite color.  If I had to guess, I'd say it is llama.

Can you tell that I'm an autumn?  These are my colors all wrapped up together!!

I'm proud of myself for my restraint because there was SO MUCH great stuff there.  One of the organizers kept saying, "Err on the side of GREED, we don't want leftovers!"😂

On top of that, going through my stash for things to get rid of also prompted me to add more destash fabric and yarn to my ETSY shop.

Something about reorganizing puts me in the mood to CREATE, so I plan to sew tonight once my meetings are over.

Oh, and the cherry on top - one of the organizers owns a studio nearby where they rent longarm time.  I've been looking for an opportunity to try quilting my own quilts on a longarm since I have SO MANY TOPS that need quilting and I much prefer hand quilting over my feeble efforts to machine quilt on my domestic machine.  I'm going to start with this 70" square Star Sampler quilt top that I made as a class sample years ago.  A friend is getting married this summer, and I am hoping to give this to her as a snuggle quilt.

Kinda looks dingy in this lighting, but the background is a soft gray Kona solid

I am linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.