Yarn Zombie

So, I finally finished picking off all the tiny scraps of paper on the back of the quilt top. That was the hard part. The actual basting, quilting, and binding were a piece of cake.

I had actually sewed all of the squares together a long time ago, probably circa 2004. I think my original intent was to make some grandiosely huge quilt out of millions of 3″ squares, but, predictably, I was distracted by something shiny and all of the squares and fabric I was using got put aside in a box to sit. For YEARS! Anyway, it’s done now, finally. The quilt wound up being a 48″ square, which is a perfect size to thrown on top of the coffee table/chest thingy in our living room.

Anyway, the squares were taken care of, but I was still left with a bunch of strips of fabric from my fabric cutting insanity when I was paper piecing the squares. Yesterday I sorted all of the fabric strips by length, and then started sewing them all together into longer pieces of fabric.

I’m not measuring anything. I’m not trimming off selvages, or unevenly cut ends. I’m not being anal about making sure all of my sewn lines are straight. To hell with it. I have a bunch of fabric strips that have sat around being strips for 6 years, and it’s time for them to get to work.

It’s actually quite freeing. Once I get my longer pieces of fabric sewn together, I’ll look at what I have and try to fashion all of the pieces into a biggish rectangle (I’m thinking somewhere around twin sized to a couch sized quilt). If there are any gaps, I’ll just fill them in with other big fabric pieces. Because if there’s anything I happen to have, it’s about 17 tons of fabric that’s waiting to be used.

Once I get done (that is assuming I get done without being distracted by something for another 6 years) with this quilt, I’m going to make some really big, bold geometric quilts. I’ve got a bunch of fabric I hand dyed a while ago, and I’m finally in the mood to do something with it. I want to do big, chunky quilts with gigantic shapes and crazy quilting. Monochrome quilts that use only dozens of shades of blue. Stuff like that. I did a few years’ time with paper piecing and applique and fiddly little sewing, and none of that really grabs me anymore. So big, bold, and messy is the way to go.

In addition to the quilt, also made some delectable, ohmygodthisissobadformebutidon’tcare chocolate caramel matzo cookies.

Except I had to use saltines because there was a mysterious matzoh shortage at Krogers. Which is kind of random. Anyway, they still turned out awesome. Recipe from Zoe Bakes.

Still on the sock repair knitting brigade. Finished fixing a pair of Travis’ socks a few nights ago, and have started in on another one. I feel a bit like I’m in knitting purgatory.