Thursday, May 16, 2013

Pat's Scraps

This table runner just landed in the DONE pile.  :o)  

You know, every quilt has a story and this one is no exception.

Once upon a time... a quilter was looking for a way to be entertained by getting out of the house AND hanging out with other quilters.  So she signed up to participate in a monthly gathering of quilters called Scraps R Us.  This gathering always happened at a local quilt shop called, 3 Dudes Quilting.  The quilter thought this was a perfect group to join because they would show her ways to use up some of her stash allowing her to then go SHOPPING for NEW fabric.  Makes sense, right?  She went to her first gathering with these quilters and was given a quilt block pattern and told to make 80 six inch blocks using the pattern and her scraps.  She was supposed to sew the 80 blocks together into a quilt top and bring the top to the next months gathering for Show N' Tell.  Now, this six inch block used 10 pieces of fabric all cut 2x3.5"  As quilter started to work on her assignment she soon realized that was a lot of cutting and sewing but really didn't use much fabric from her stash, thus slowing down her ability to go SHOPPING!  So she devised a plan to use MORE fabric in less time by making the pieces BIGGER.  But she really didn’t trust her math skills so needed to test her theory by making a test block. That nice Scraps R Us teacher was in the process of moving into a smaller home and had given the quilter a bucket of scraps she no longer wanted and those scraps would be perfect for a test block!  As quilter rummaged through that bucket for a few good pieces of fabric she also ran across a couple of courthouse steps block… hmmm.  Then quilter noticed, 'there’s more fabric in the tub those blocks were made from… hmmm.  They would go with the test block I’m gunna make… hmmm.  I’ll just sew them together with my test block in the middle and make a small table topper… hmmm.  This is kinda small with only 3 blocks but if I made two more test blocks and sewed them on the ends it would be long enough for the dining room table… hmmm.  This looks pretty long and skinny maybe it would look better on the table if it had a border… hmmm.  There is a bunch of little strips of this fabric in that bucket teacher gave me I could just make a piano keys border with those… hmmm. This border doesn’t fit the center strip of blocks and there isn’t enough fabric left to make it bigger. Darn…  All this work and I can’t finish it…hmmm.  Unless…  I go SHOPPING!  I would only need to buy one fat quarter.' 

Quilter didn't use up ANY of her fabric but still found a way to go SHOPPING for fabric.  AND she now has a red, white and blue tablerunner that will work perfectly for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.


 

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