Out of the Blue

My Mom likes to joke that when she is on a diet she can hear the cookies calling her name from the freezer. Sometimes my fabric stash behaves like that too. Last Sunday, Marion came over to sew with me in the Studio. Since my work life has been excessively difficult the past few months, culminating this past Tuesday in the launch of my project, I have been taking a brain break in the sewing department and trying to work on easy projects that don't require much thought. So I was happily working on some birthday blocks for Joannie and Valerie, the next two birthday girls in my quilting group as well as making some extras for my own birthday quilt, when I began to hear a rumbling from my Stash...

"Get me out of here!" cried the blue fabrics in the scrap drawer. "We've been in here a really long time, and we need to be a quilt!" The blue fabrics were adamant and they wouldn't quiet down. A few minutes later, I heard them say, "Well, don't you have a special friend with a big birthday coming up?" Well, yes I do, and I certainly hope she's not reading my blog this week...

So out of the scrap drawer came the blue fabrics. They decided that they wanted to be a Lemonade quilt like the purple one that I recently finished for my friend Lisa at work. The scrap drawer had a nice variety, including navy blue, teal, royal blue, medium blue, a couple of fabrics that Marion swears are purple, and some light blues. Most were kind of tonal but I threw in a couple of prints for variety. Every single fabric came out of the scrap drawer, and I honestly cannot remember where some of them came from. I recognized one or two from a quilt border or back, there is one ancient one that I bought to make my brother Gary a quilt when he graduated from college in 1990 (I never made it past block one of the Sampler class), Sue gave me the one with tiny variegated blue squares and there are two fabrics that were fairly recent purchases from my favorite discount fabric store, Sewphisticated Discount Fabrics.

The view from one side of the table.

Same fabrics, only the photo is taken from the other end of the table.

I cut for about two hours on Sunday and had more than enough fabric to make a plethora of 10 inch squares. I also cut some 5 inch squares from the leftovers and I'm going to make a Charm Party Tote, a pattern that's been languishing in the Pattern Stash for at least 10 years. I've made its big sister, the Chubby Charmer, at least a dozen times, so it's time to do something new.

Today, Carol and I ran out to Sewphisticated Discount Fabrics at lunch time and I reeled in a big haul. Although I was originally planning to piece a back for the blue quilt from more stash fabric, I found a beautiful 6 yard piece of blue fabric on the remnant table that will be perfect.

My lunch time haul!

Some other fabrics decided to come home with me as well. I found some graduation fabric to make Joannie's daughter Jill a pillowcase. She is graduating from college next month. I found two other small pieces of blue fabric that might make a good lining or handles for my Charm Party Tote, and a nice piece of red and white fabric for my red, white, and black fabric collection (eventually to be a quilt, a jacket, or both). Carol found the leopard fabric for me. Unbelievably, I had overlooked it. And they had reels of ric rac at the cutting counter for only $1.99 apiece so I decided I needed those as well. There is about 15 yards of fabric in the photo above and I only spent $52, so I was quite happy with my lunch time excursion.

Tonight I finally saw my Thursday Girl Quilting Friends. Because of my work project and other commitments, I don't think I've sewn with them more than once in the past three months. So it was great to finally get to sew with them and get caught up. Beth has a new puppy, Ginny's son got a new job, and Nancy's grandson has 14 teeth! Karen is leaving shortly for a dream ski vacation in Banff (Mike will be jealous), Toni was celebrating her birthday and Judi has been making chocolate dipped Peeps (must visit Judi's house for Easter). I made some good progress on the quilt, but you will have to wait until it is finished to see it again.

Totally unrelated to my blue quilt or quilting at all (although it does have a blue cover)... here is a book recommendation for you. Check out The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn. Sue gave me this book and I really enjoyed it.

So, in case you're wondering, the blue scrap drawer is not empty, but I did make a small dent.

Sweet dreams.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

P.S. I'm excited to finally be joining some Linky Parties again! Linking up on Friday to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Richard and Tanya Quilts. Also CrazyMom Quilts is blogging again, so I linked up there. Thanks for visiting! Please leave a comment!