Tiny Spools for Tidy Drawers

The start of something new...

It doesn’t take much. A few finished quilts, some time spent tidying up. A small idea starts to form.

I was spending time with my Lavender & Twine quilt, well, with all my WIPs, really. Tidying up the tubs they’re stored in, taking note of what was next, cutting and basting some more shapes so it was easy to keep making progress, when I realised that my next step for my scrappy Lavender & Twine - the edge shapes - needed the same sized strips as a new quilt of tiny spools I’ve been wanting to start. I had not planned to start a new quilt this week, but I could feel it hook in my motivation.

Maybe I could bundle these two projects - the one I’d been putting off and the one I’ve been excited to start.

I brought out every low volume print in my stash, cut a strip from it, and then folded it neatly. If it was too small to fold, I added it to my scrap basket. Then I put them neatly back in my drawer. My drawer has been a total shamozzle for months and now it looks like this!

(Do you put you low volume fabrics in colour order? I thought about it and then decided I couldn’t be bothered.)

Once I had all my strips, I cut my half houses and triangles for Lavender & Twine. I even took a moment to baste my triangles! I put them in little zip lock bags of 100 so I could keep count. I had really not been feeling great about this part. My last 2 Lavender & Twine quilts had a single solid background, making it super easy to cut and prepare the shapes. I knew I wanted scrappy, but it seemed like a bit of a hassle. Cutting all the strips first, not worrying about how much fabric I had in front of me, made it so easy. It took me a day, with a true crime documentary going on in the background. I still have the houses to cut, but they feel easy now that this hurdle has been cleared!

Then from the rest of the strips, I cut half honeycombs. I don’t have the papers for them yet - need to grab Techy Tim in a spare moment and ask him to code them up for the laser cutter - but when I do, I have a bajillion fabric shapes ready to go!

And then, because I was so high on my one tidy drawer, I kept going! A strip from every print in my stash. Cut, fold, stack, cut, fold, stack. Until all of my drawers were TIDY! (Although, now my scrap baskets are overflowing, so it’s not all so easily sorted!)

And then I made a sweet little spool block as my reward! If you look closely, you can see that I’m experimenting with a form of quilt-as-you-go (QAYG), quilting my blocks to wadding scraps that I’ll machine sew together later. I think this size might be too small for this kind of QAYG. Next, I’m going to try a block of 4 spools and see if I like that better. I have SO MUCH scrap wadding (batting), I’m excited to make progress on this.

I’m going to take it slow, though. Work on it between other things, aim to have it in the shop for Black Friday. It feels like ages away, but I’m tuning in to the levels of chaos and order I thrive with, and I’m not quite ready to dive all in. I need to finish a few more things first, tidy up a bit more, clear out a bit more space. This was just a happy little beginning that helped along the way.

Do you have some big task you’re not sure how to start? Could you bundle it with something fun and motivating? My next experiment is to see if I can use that QAYG technique to finish this Lavender & Twine quilt above. I’m not that fussed about pressing blocks and finishing corner units, but I am SO KEEN to clear out the many cupboards of scrap wadding I have around the place. I’ll keep you posted with how it goes!

Wishing you fun ways to make progress this week,

Jodi. xx

PS. I have lots of great scrappy quilts for tidying up your stash! Check them out below!