"A very Merry Unbirthday to you, to you. A very Merry Unbirthday to you." from Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland"

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Effort to Organize and Radiant Star Plans

I'm hoping to make this year a "buy very little fabric" year.  So I needed to get a handle on what I have so I can make an efficient use of it.   I read some ideas for cleaning up stash and organizing it, and since my sewing area has fallen into the "path to walk through" condition, I am making a stab at putting things in order. 

I began by putting on Threadbare by Monica Ferris (a mystery audio book) and then digging through the scrap bag to find pieces to cut into 5" squares.
The colors and prints are very mixed. Sometimes loving fabric so much makes me hesitant to cut into it, but this size is easy to work with and I love how neat they look.  Just doing this one group used up about one quarter of one of the scrap bags. 
I also found bigger pieces that I will square up and put into a fat quarter category. 

For the bigger pieces I am wondering if the "comic book board" method of folding is a good idea.  Has anyone else tried this?  This is what I saw that I liked:  http://cuttopieces.blogspot.com/2011/02/fabric-folding-tutorial.html.  Here is another one: http://www.thatgirlthatquilt.com/2011/01/mini-fabric-bolts-tutorial.html.

Sue of Quilt Times http://quilttimes.blogspot.com/ sent out the invitation to join and support her in her project to make a Radiant Star Quilt.  The button on the left shows the version Sue is making.  I'm joining in for the challenge.  I found this design in one of my older quilt books:
However, I couldn't get a grasp of the directions, but I found a block by Eleanor Burns that enlightened me.  She designed a  12" Radiant Star block for the latest Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks issue.
Thank you, Eleanor, for making it clear to me. 
I have no idea of what fabric/colors I will use, but if I keep up with my organizing efforts, I may stumble upon the perfect collection. 

God Bless. 


3 comments:

  1. I love your fabric squares!

    I seem to have gathered so many bits and pieces of fabric over the last twelve months, and I should discipline myself to only keeping scraps over a certain size - but I am a hoarder by nature and can't help keeping bits that 'might come in useful'!

    My aim for this year is to use up as many of the smaller bits as possible for the 2012 Christmas QAL

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  2. I think the squares look great. There's a quilt waiting to come out of them!

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  3. Eleanor is super at making clear directions. Happy New Year!

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