Cheese and a (WiP) Quilt

I was looking in our cheese drawer the other day for some tastiness to add to a savory crepe sandwich when lo, I beheld that we had quite a selection.  I was curious and soon discovered that we have 12, yes 12 varieties of cheeses in our fridge (14 if you include cottage and cream).  They are: spicy cheddar, pepper jack, asiago, smoked gouda, spiced gouda, gorgonzola(crumbled), another nameless blue cheese(solid), fontina, gruyere(we actually have 2 packages of this - we love it), parmesan&romano(combined so counted as one), feta and laughing cow.

I love cheese!

Anyways.  I decided to start a quilt.  We'll see if I end up liking it.  I got inspired by, and am using Quiltville's post as a guide.  I love it because it's an all scrappy quilt, no unifying sashing or anything.  But my possible problem is that my scraps aren't from other cute quilts like good scraps are.  Mine are random fabric I've acquired from old clothing, thrift stores, clothing/whatever swaps and things found on the streets.  I don't know what material is used for most of the fabric.

Here it is: so far a bunch of strips cut and placed in 6 strip blocks.  I placed them in a rail fence pattern to separate them visually but still pack them into my enclosed sewing area.  

I needed 5 more squares, and I'm cutting entirely new fabric for the most part so they'll get rearranged.  The hard part is not knowing how it'll look in the end.  I know it'll change once it's all cut and resewn and there are few layout options as well, but the suspense is intense!  

Below is the pile of strips for the above squares (6 strips/block x 19 blocks = 114 strips measuring almost 3 inches tall).  I've gone through some MacGyver, the Voice, The Fashion Star, Project Runway and Hell's Kitchen episodes to cut them.

I'm a little nervous about the end result, but strangely getting more excited as I write this.  I got a new iron today, too, since my old one just decided it didn't like being hot anymore.  So now I can unwrinkle the rest of the fabric I need to cut and maybe tomorrow (finger's crossed) I can start sewing blocks together.

One thing I am excited about (which I know may put me in a minority) is that once they're all sewn and recut into tubes (check Quiltville's page to understand the process), I'll have work to take with me for on the go, waiting in a line, got to class a few minutes early, waiting for the red light at the bottom of my street that sometimes takes 2 minutes to recognize I want to get across.  I love having something to do when I'm not in the house.  Yay!!

So I'm working on this one.

Excitedly.

See you soon!

(with a quilt top sewn?)

Project #5

Recycling

So I had been working on a paper garbage bin made from old paper (you get it, recycling for my recycling bin). But the pattern took forever. It looks really cool, it just takes forever to make, so I decided I needed to just finish it, so I did. So here is my wastepaper basket from folded and woven magazines. (I had literally just finished gluing when I took pictures, so the paperclips are keeping the ends in place. Not permanent, those paperclips).

As you can see the bottom is the best feature. But to get it you have to fold 4 pieces of magazines for one square. A lot of folding in thirds. I dislike thirds in folding. Very difficult to be precise and I'm sort of a perfectionist in that way.

So I finished it up with just a simple basket weave, folded down the ends and glued them in place. It was a 'I need to finish something' day.