Binding Quilt #2 this week

I finished binding my daughter's 30th. birthday quilt and am moving on to binding quilt #2 - the Selvage Spiderweb Quilt! I have to be in the right frame of mind to make binding. It's not that I dislike binding but I don't like working with long bias pieces of narrow fabric!

I measured the selvage spiderweb quilt top, made some calculations to find out how many inches of binding I'd need. I came up with 400 inches which turned out to be too much but I'd rather have too much than not enough. Extra binding I save to bind scrappy projects.
I find that if I wind it up and then rubber band it, I can control it better as I'm sewing the binding to each side of the quilt top.

Here it is machine sewn on and tomorrow I'll start hand tacking the binding down. I hope to finish it before the weekend, create labels for both quilts and then they'll be done!

Another picture of the beautiful machine quilting done by Jan!

Getting Serious about the Stash

Last week was not so good on the sewing front. I got a few more spiderweb selvage quilt block units finished and a few more started. I'm not sure what happened but I didn't have much ambition to sew.

Toward the end of the week, I received a package of selvages from Barb which helped get me back in the mood so many thanks to Barb!

I've redoubled my efforts to sew down my stash and have decided to cut 2 1/2 inch strips from my older fabrics in an effort to use them up or at least reduce the number of them. So far, I've only made it through the tub of green fabrics.

I recently saw a picture of this scrappy bargello quilt and I think I'll use the strips to make it. I especially like this Christmas version and this one too! Plans could change though. I've never really done much in the way of strip sewing.


I've admired the lovely clamshells the ladies in the Clamshell Club are making and I've finally given in! As I cut strips, I put the fabric on the stack to await marking and cutting clamshells. I have a few marked already and will use my evenings to cut out the pieces. It will probably take me quite some time to get anywhere on the strip quilt and the clamshell quilt but I'm working toward them.

Below is a photo of my older fabric "stash". Not so pretty to look at! The majority of this fabric is 10-20 years old. I'm sharing the photo with you because I want you to hold me accountable! Use it or lose it is my motto. If I haven't used it by late winter next year, I plan to donate it to the Kansas MCC sale's Quilter's Corner.

This may not seem like a lot of fabric to some of you but its taking up space that I could use for my newer fabrics and my sewing room is not large. Confession - There's also fabric in the closet but some of it is more suitable for clothing or curtain construction. I'll deal with them another time.

I'm expecting the bridesmaid dress fabric to arrive anytime so probably not much quilting time for me for a few weeks. I'll pop in every now and then to let you know how things are going!

Selvages, selvages everywhere!

Have you heard about the Process Pledge? Its a blogging idea that encourages bloggers to tell more about their creative process instead of just showing a picture of their final project. I just took the pledge and I thought I'd share a little about the process of making my selvage spiderweb blocks!


At this point in my creative process, my sewing room is a mess! There are several piles of selvages on the floor, on the ironing board and on my sewing machine cabinet. This pile is the largest. These are all the selvages I've used in the inner rings which still have more selvage to use.

I still have about half a tub of selvages to go before I start over on the pile. So far, I've only made 13 square blocks and if I'm really going to make this a bed size quilt, I have quite a few more blocks to make!

I've been following Tallgrass Prairie Studio's tutorial on how she adapted Quiltville's instructions to make a Selvage Spiderweb quilt. The slippery and shiny project I was working on has been put aside so I can concentrate on this quilt for a while. Looks like I'll soon be making a bridesmaid dress for my daughter so I want to get as far along as I can in the next week!