May 292012
 

Actually, it happened in the clear light of day.

I responded to an ad on Craigslist for a bulk lot of fabric for $400, worth at least $1000. I had reservations whether it would indeed be worth spending $400 on, but went to look. OMG, there were so many bins and piles I didn’t think I’d fit it all in my car. I poked through it briefly, enough to see it wasn’t all brown country prints or calicoes.

Somehow we crammed it all in my Jeep Cherokee, loaded right to the ceiling. I kept my fingers crossed all the way home that I wouldn’t get pulled over for obscured vision (although I had kept enough space clear to see the passenger side rearview mirror). I didn’t, and the load and I arrived home safe.

 

 

Looking at the pile on the floor, now that I’ve sorted out the kits and batting from the fabric, and comparing it to my existing stash, I think I tripled it. And it all needs washing. Gulp. Actually, my plan is to sort through it (as I have time), and choose what I want to keep. That will need washing.

The rest I will sell or give away. It would be kinda nice to sell enough to get back what I paid – then the rest will be free! I like free, don’t you? Hey, maybe I’ll give some away on this blog. There are also kits and patterns. I’ll sell the kits and give the patterns away here. I think I’ll wait until winter though, and see if I can scare up a few more readers first. Sort of spread the wealth around a little.

And, in keeping with this blog’s theme – I found 4 or 5 UFOs in there too. I’m not sure yet what I will do with those.

You may be wondering why this huge pile of fabric was for sale so cheap? Well, the quilter was getting older and her sons were moving her into an apartment and out of her house. She had already taken her sewing supplies and as much fabric as she could cram in, and sold some, and her sons needed to get rid of the rest. They wanted it out right then, before the estate auction crew arrived that afternoon.

So that’s what happens to your stash when you get old or die. Your family sells it off for pennies on the dollar. I feel a little sorry for the quilter, but her sons were grateful I came along. I didn’t dicker over the price.

 

 

 May 29, 2012  Posted by at 8:17 am Uncategorized No Responses »
May 052012
 

I’ve just mailed on the latest round of the Improvi-robin. I was a bit late on it, but had warned the next person (my sister) that I would be late. She set up the rotation so I would send to her knowing I might be late once we got into garden season.

She also encouraged me to get wild with the project, which so far was sort of bland, despite the bright colors. No-one had done anything really improvisational. When I asked her if it was okay to chop things up this late in the series, she encouraged me to go wild. So I did.

I forgot to take a photo of the piece as received, so you’ll have to click over to flickr to see it. It’s nice and colorful, would make a fine pillow as is, but did not inspire me to add a border. I wanted to cut it up. My initial inspiration was circles – I would cut circles out of it and sew them onto a fresh background. And I ordered a circle cutter, but it didn’t arrive in time.

Once I settled in to work on it I decided circles weren’t going to work, and eventually settled on plan B – cut the piece in quarters, add set-in strips, rearrange. After selecting fabrics, I decided to do reciprical strips (cut both, swap pieces and sew). Here’s what I ended up with:

By then I was 4 days overdue on mailing the thing on, with my parents coming to visit in 2 days, so I decided to send the blocks on as is. My sister had suggested this earlier, that I do what I could and send on to her even if it was still in pieces.

When I went to sign the label, I read the card with it. It said something along the lines of “I love this block, but never did anything with it, I know you guys will help out.” Oops. Said block got chopped up. I hope she likes the end result better than the block that no longer exists.

Else it might be time to hitch a ride on one of my UFOs for an extended tour of the universe.

 May 5, 2012  Posted by at 7:13 am Improvi-Robin 1 Response »