Swimming in Reds and Pinks

I am working hard to keep projects from piling up, because I can’t focus when I have too many things going simultaneously. The scrap bags needed to be dealt with, so that’s what I did Thursday afternoon.

Scrap: A small piece or amount of something, especially one that is left over after the greater part has been used.

My scrap system isn’t complicated. Anything bigger than a fat quarter gets put back into the stash. Long pieces get cut into strips. I have several Accuquilt strip dies ranging from 1” to 3” wide, and they make easy work of those pieces. Other leftovers get cut into 5” squares or 2-1/2” squares. Odd shapes end up as tumblers or hexies. I try to use up as much as I possibly can.

The red/pink/orange scrap bag is now overflowing:

I needed some mindless sewing last night, so I started making another Candy Coated quilt from the Sunday Morning Quilts book. This one will come entirely from this scrap bag. I sorted out the longest strips, sewed them together in pairs, then cut them into 11-1/2” long strips. I sewed the 11-1/2” strips into pairs, then pairs again, and so on, until I had three sections measuring approximately 24” each. I pressed and trimmed those sections to 10-1/2 wide, sewed them together, and boom—the 10-1/2” row was done.

I’ll do the same thing with the successively shorter strips, making rows of different heights, until I have enough rows to sew together for a quilt.

If any of my local quilting peeps need strips or want to make a tumbler quilt, let me know. I’ll share.

I also basted the blue tumbler quilt with batting and backing:

I have spent way too much time at Joann Fabrics lately, simply trying to find backings and borders for my quilts. If the color is right, there isn’t enough fabric. If there is enough fabric, the color doesn’t work. I thought I had found a backing for this one—the color was right and there appeared to be enough on the bolt—but when I got to the cutting table and the employee unrolled it, we discovered a huge flaw right in the center of the fabric.

Arrrggghhhh.

I started over and found another potential backing candidate. (By the way, two folds on a bolt is roughly one yard, so if you’re trying to determine of there is enough fabric, count the folds. It’s not exact, but it’s close enough.) Lucky for me, not only was there enough fabric on that bolt—just enough—but it was actually a clearance fabric that had been put back with the regular fabrics. Yay.

I need to start quilting soon. All of my basting pins are in use.

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Adam Taggart has had some really great interviews this week on the Wealthion YouTube channel. And while I’ve been aware, for a while, of creeping inflation at the grocery store, it hit me in the face the other day. I don’t always pay attention to the individual prices of items, but I know when it’s totaled up at the register if I’m spending more than normal because I buy the same items every week. The husband mentioned he was out of pepper jack cheese. He likes to cut it in cubes and take it in his lunch. A one-pound block of Tillamook pepper jack usually runs about $9, sometimes less if the store puts it on sale. I went to grab a block of it the other day and just about fell over. The price had gone up to $11.87.

I have to go to Costco soon and I have no idea what I’m going to find there. Hang on—I suspect we’re in for a wild ride.