Tuesday, May 29, 2007

My Piecing Buddy


My sorter for CQ Piecing
Originally uploaded by lasassone
Someone this morning asked me how I store the bits of fancy fabrics I use in my crazyquilt blocks. When I first began I just had all my scraps in my color boxes which quickly became too full for their lids to be put back on. And everytime I opened a box, I would make a big mess all over my ironing board or my work table.

As my fancy fabric stash grew I switched to the largest stackable individual drawers that I could find at Wal-mart. I like them because they are self contained. By that I mean, there's a back on them and each drawer is independent. Nothing can escape out the back! I set up one for each color. They are in storage now, so I can't show you, but I think I have 24 of them. 4 stacks of 6 I think. Anyway, they filled the closet in my studio/sewing room and not all are color drawers - some hold other things like projects, etc.

When switching from the boxes with lids to the wonderful drawers I kept finding I had a lot of little pieces and they would get lost in the bottom of the drawers when I went digging through. A friend told me how she was using a closet shoe holder to sort her small pieces of fancies, so I got one of the folding cardboard ones that you have to put together. As soon as I saw this unit in the Target ad though, I was in love! No Assembly Required! AND....since there's a backing on this whole unit, nothing creeps out the back!

Someone already has said it looks too neat, but that's because lately I haven't had much time to fondle my fancies. These are the only fancies in the house at the moment, so occasionally I empty a color cubby, press and stack them back in neatly. So Sue Me! I love to fondle the fancies!

The pieced block you see hanging there is one of many nekkid 8" blocks I'm piecing to donate to the Omaha Crazy Quilt Society Auction in July. All the pieces are coming from my teaching "share box". I and one other gal have done 6 or 7 blocks and the volume of scraps in that bag hasn't diminished much, let me tell you!

Contrary to popular opinion (?) one doesn't need much fabric on hand to do crazy quilt piecing!

Piece on!

3 comments:

Charlene ♥ NC said...

Looks like a good plan. Makes me wonder if my color per drawer plan is too confining.

Val said...

I like the way you sort your stuff. Looks very handy. I'm often running all over the place to find just that bit of fabric or just that embellishment. Might have to copy it!

Nancy Kirk, The Kirk Collection said...

Thanks for making blocks for the Crazy Quilt Society Scholarship Auction. Last year's auction raised enough for 14 scholarships this year. I expect the Auction at the July 2007 retreat to do even better.

Thanks for your support.

Nancy Kirk
The Crazy Quilt Society
www.crazyquilt.com