It's a slow-go however, because I am doing quite a bit of stitch-in-the-ditch which can be tricky. I only sew for an hour or two in the morning each day, so that naturally means progress is slow without a big chunk of dedicated time. I'm not going anywhere, so I'm okay, if the quilting comes along in its own sweet time. No deadline for this one.
Notice that one of the blocks is the newest block from The FLOCK, the Baltimore Oriole!
I finally settled on a quilting solution for the big area of negative space in this cross stitched hummingbird project.
I had hoped to find some inspiration in Laura Wasilowski's book, Joyful Stitching and I did! These little seed stitches make a very nice fill to reduce the puff while adding a really nice texture to the linen areas. Like, the table topper above, it's slow going. I'm good with that and I'm thoroughly enjoying the journey watching this move forward, little by little.
Breaking point
Whoa!! I had a stop-me-in-my-tracks moment this week as I was digging around for some batting scraps in a remote area of my basement.
With all the quilting I do, I buy batting by the roll. I use a lot of wool batting around here. It's a bit more expensive, so I hoard the scraps because they can be used in lots of different projects - including the little bits.
My routine has been to cut a chunk of batting just the right size for the project, and trim off any extra, leaving me with big hunks, medium-sized pieces, and little bits, all having the potential for other projects.
Me being me, years ago, I found an empty table in one of the back spaces in my basement and started stacking up those pieces - all three classifications - chunks, pieces, and bits - in one big pile on the table.
Not so bad when there are one or two scraps, but over time, the pile was out of control. Everything in one stack . . .
And last week, I hit a breaking point.
I pulled the mess onto my work table and started separating:
Medium to Large Chunks - pieces that could be used for something long and skinny - like runners - or something small but chunky - for small quilts, toppers, pillows, etc.
Smaller pieces. Too small for most quilts, and almost in the bits category, but the possibility for a skinny runner or small wall hanging makes it worth keeping separate.
Maybe less than 12" wide or long.
Little Bits. These are generally the long skinny pieces that are trimmed from the quilt when the quilting is done and before the binding is applied.
These are perfect for pin-cushions and biscornu stuffing.
I stacked pieces from each category neatly:
- Large chunks in a tidy pile
- Medium to small pieces stacked, then rolled together, and squished into a wire storage bin
- Little bits jammed into a basket
Now they fit nicely on the table. They don't flop all over when I need to excavate a usable size. And I can easily go right to the size category to get what I need without wasting time in the search.
Took about 30 minutes. Seems like such a minor improvement, and it's okay if you're laughing at me for making such a big deal out of a silly detail, but every little bit of searching-for-the-right-piece-of-batting time takes away from quilting and sewing time!
Now, if I can just sort through that pile of old paperback books on the shelf behind the batting. However, that's sacred territory - for the most part, those are Dave's - he's a book hoarder. (Do you think he'll notice if I 'sort' them a little bit?)
Happy Stitching!
Joan
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