Threads that connect...

I often find myself saying out loud, "I love my quilting stuff". To which my family roll their eyes and respond with "yes's" and Stepford Wife nods, too scared to disagree or to fight a losing battle!
Even though I consider myself an emerging quilter having only been quilting for 4 or so years, I've managed to build an extensive assortment of 'stuff' quite apart from the fabric that is lovingly glanced at every time I pass the glass paneled cupboard.  Amongst other things, there's the various configurations of rulers, different sized cutting mats and roller cutters, special needles for hand and machine, pincushions (well they're almost at collector stage), machines for piecing and quilting, a hera marker, curved and straight pins, tape measures and then there's the threads....not only in a range of colours but some of which that are antique and purchased for the spools, not likely to ever be used!
It's these haberdashery items that connect quilters around the world. Symbols of what we love and use and items that we could all talk about for hours on end given the chance. 

It's fair to say that very little willpower was applied when I pressed the 'order' button for a pdf of the Spools pattern from Thimble Blossoms as a quilt just for me. A quilt design that celebrates the cornerstone of quilting...thread. Mind you, the construction phase took a quite a while as it was something that I picked up and put down! However, on a mission to finish what's been lying around for far too long, it became the second quilt this year to be pulled from the 'half-baked' pile.

I used a jelly roll of Snippets by Sandy Klop that I purchased on my very first interstate fabric buying spree with the Sew & Sews girls...way back in May 2009! It was high time this little treasure was used in something so personal. I love the traditional primary and secondary colours this line features which I think work perfectly with this design. The greys are Kona Coal and some Bonnie & Camille Ruby in various shades and pattern.

One thrilling note was the unearthing of a 30cm piece of Snippets featuring the pink 'outfits' lying on a remnant table at Ballarat Patchwork and purchased whilst the family was travelling to Melbourne last October. For such an old fabric line, this was surely a wonderful find and the piece was promptly incorporated into the back.
The binding is some Denyse Schmidt Picnics and Fairgrounds that combines beautifully with the traditional colours of Snippets.

And speaking of trips away, this time to Sydney visiting a gorgeous shop, Burnt Orange in Mosman, NSW just last week. Another item to add to my plethora of quilty treasures, a beautiful little bowl featuring a button print that is nothing short of delightful. Originally designed as a sugar bowl, meet my new thread bowl.

Stained glass spools.....

I've been slowly cutting and piecing this little quilt top over the past couple of weeks.
It features some now very old Moda fabric called Snippets by American Jane. In my book, Sandy Klop is the queen of red, blue, green, yellow, orange and pink combinations in traditional, 1930sh, feed-sacky (another of my made up words!) type prints. I have always loved this line, hence keeping it all these years. This was the first ever jelly roll I purchased way back in May 2009 when the girls and I whisked off to Melbourne for a weekend on our very first 'Sew and Sews' fabric buying excursion.
But I'm on a 'use it' mission these days, so after a bit of fondling I began the hunt for a jelly roll friendly pattern. I eventually settled on a Camille Roskelley, Thimble Blossoms pattern called Spools which I've already talked about here. The pattern is pretty simple with a tonne of cutting of little bits and thin strips. I was a bit apprehensive about all the skinny sashing strips but mine has come together pretty well. Needless to say, Camille's patterns are very easy to follow.
Now the debate with myself about how to back it!

From Swoon scrap....

...to active Spools component!
I can't stand throwing away fabric and when you work on some quilts you end up with little off-cuts that are just too precious to throw away.
We pay so much for fabric in Australia, regardless of the fact that the fabric might have been ordered online from overseas and with our current exchange rate. It might be cheaper by the metre or yard but there's still the postage to consider. So in my book, it still costs and anything that's cut off is just too, too hard to part with, particularly when a design calls for lots of trimming.
To ease my 'fabric guilt' I have zip-lock bags a-go-go, each full of bits of this and bits of that. I divide them into solids and prints and by size and they're born along the way, out of what I make.
Constructing Swoon, by Camille Roskelly was no exception. Each of those flying geese had lots of trimming and lots of discard. I have already used the coloured off-cuts in a little quilt and I popped the plain background triangles in a baggy...."for Ron". (A.K.A. 'later on'.)

Ironically (actually, tell me if it's not irony...), I'm working on another Thimble Blossoms pattern by Camille called Spools. It calls for these tiny little squares of 1 1/4" to be placed on the corners of the tops and bottoms of the 2" cotton spool strips. These squares are then trimmed to form tiny little triangles. Quite clever really.
As I was driving home the other day, I recalled that I had a bag of triangles in Kona Snow, the same fabric that I used for the background of  this quilt and the same that I'm using now. Surely I could re-use these triangles for the squares to make the triangle corners required for this pattern.

Now I realise that we're ultimately talking about 6" or so worth of width of fabric to cut down each of these 140 little squares. But width of fabric is precious. That fabric could be the make or break of a border strip. So I delved into the stash to find the zip lock with the Swoon triangle off-cuts in Snow, turned them out and cut them down to sort of 1 1/4" squares. As it happened, there was a little corner nicked off of each square. But seeing as one corner of the triangle gets cut off anyway, I didn't see this as a major problem.

It worked like a charm. I actually got my 140 x 1 1/4" squares out of 140 off-cut scrappy triangles and created my triangle corners for each of my strips.

I might have had to cut twice as many times to get my 'square' but as I said before, I've left yardage in good shape and the end result is just as grand! I didn't keep what I cut off....that would be just too thrifty....or perhaps I haven't yet devised a plan to use tiny teeny triangles....hummmm the mind boggles!

 

I can't wait to see this quilt. I'm using a jelly roll of Snippets by American Jane for Moda that I bought  oh so long ago (see my first post) ...and forgot that I owned. I'm loving the colours and I'm loving the thrift!