Stashbusting Sunday #2

In my last post I mentioned that my community started a quilting group this fall. It started every other week and is now every week. So, come Thursday morning - I have a quilty get together for a few hours with like-minded folks and even though we've only met a few times so far, I must say - I love it!!! This is the first time I've ever been able to go to any type of group for sewing in a loooong time.

This past week I didn't want to bring (i.e. LUG) my sewing machine so before Thursday I started pulling these fallish type fabrics from my stash and cutting 6" strips from each fabric... to make this Dresden Plate quilt with the icecream cone border! Here is a photo of the book too - I've mentioned this book before on my blog because I used the directions for my green ocean waves and also my red (in progress) ocean waves.

I've been wanting to make this Dresden quilt for a time now which is why I bought 5 yards of muslin at Marden's last trip - it was on the list!!! Most of my fabric that I cut for this top was just slightly over 6" in width, so this pretty much uses up that stack of fabrics - the remnants will get cut into 2" strips for the 2" strip bin - I still need to add a few more colors, but this got me off to a very good start! I used my quilt meeting time tracing the templates onto fabric. I was happy with my choice because it was easy to socialize as I traced. And as much as I love that dear son of mine, it sure is nice to have adult company once in awhile! This coming Thursday I will spend my time cutting the fabric out. I would ear mark this as my Thursday project, but Dec. 13th is our last meeting until after Christmas and chances are I will keep working on it at home once I get on a roll.

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A fun story about this fabric - some people in the group have absolutely NO stash. We are talking very limited budgets here and many of the quilters are TRUE scrap quilters - using blue jeans/cordoroy, old clothing and scraps from various things to make their quilts. Not everyone, mind you, but some people. I remember when I used to have NO fabric too. My sisters, Mom and Nana would give me their scraps and that is what I made some of my first quilts with. Some people just haven't quilted before so they don't have anything to start out with. One week I taught a lady how to thread her sewing machine and adjust the bobbin tension. Then, there are the quilters who have been in big groups, gone to lots of classes, have sizable stashes, etc. So, it is a fun mixture of skill levels and styles. But anyway, back to my story - one woman just loved, loved, loved my fabrics and asked if she could have any scraps if I had anything left over... you see... she wants to make a tea cup quilt and needs a 4"X6" piece of fabric for each teacup. JUST SO HAPPENS, that after tracing off the dresden blades, each 6" wide strip of fabric has about 5" left over - perfect, perfect, perfect for what she needs. So, when I go on Thursday I will give her those end pieces. So - that's about 30 different 6" strips of fabric, with a few more left to add- being put to use, by both myself and this other quilter.