Found Items in My Craft Room & An Unfinished Quilt of 1949

 Happy Weekend everyone,
     
     I spent all day Friday working in my craft room-I just had to start-a small room packed to the ceiling with craft goodies.
    I started on the left side as I walk in-where there is an entire wall of shelves which holds books, quilt fabrics, quilt batting, and my silks, velvets, and more.
   I went through all the fabrics on the quilt fabric shelf-long. Organized all the men's xxxl shirt fabrics into color, and then organized the rest of my quilt fabrics into stacks of homespun plaids, civil war era fabrics, yellowstone fabrics for a couple quilts that I want to make this year and the rest of the yardage I had. I have made allot of quilts with the shirt fabrics-I get them at the resale shop for a dollar or two and only buy long sleeve 100% cotton and xxxl large for lots of fabric. 
    When I went through my quilting fabrics I forgot how much I had brought home from my late Mom's sewing room. I ended up eliminating a very large box full of fat quarters, and 4 huge bags of pre cut fabrics. Allot of hers and mine. I eliminated a project that was already cut into strips-tons of it-that I know I just won't make.
    I organized the quilt batting, and the bolts of fabrics for backings that I can also dye if I want to. 
  On the floor behind my desk I had piles stacked high of wicker baskets and metal baskets and a vintage egg basket full of--tons of scraps, and I found my hand dyed fabrics and my rust dyed fabrics, and even a few flower pounded pieces that are now brown but still cool looking-I think I may over dye those.
   So I put the word out to a couple of friends if they knew of any charities for the bags of quilt fabrics I was wanting to find a home for or if they knew any one that could use the fabrics. 
     Late yesterday afternoon we had a couple stop by for a visit on their way home back to Minnesota. We had not met them before but the husband was a long time client of my husband. His wife and I hit it off, that I wish we lived closer-she is an artist-painter, and a quilter, makes paper and more. Soooooo I loaded her up with quilt fabrics for her and her daughter-so I was so excited to find a home for these fabrics. I also sent home with her a couple patterns. They had to leave or I would have found more to give her.

   I also uncovered a rug hooking project, a couple small quilt projects of my Mom's that need to be quilted now, and I found a project that has been on my mind again and uncovered that. whew. and this was just one little corner ha ha

  I decided since I am pretty much the only one that uses our little living room-my small floor loom already takes up a corner-why not set up my hand quilt frame-well it just fits lol and I can still see the tv-I need to set up some lighting though.

   This quilt top was made for me as a baby by one of my great aunts back in 1949. Somehow it got all folded up, and ended up in my Grandma's sewing room-When my Grandma passed years ago it was found with my name on it and given to me-probably back in the 80s.  I learned how to hand quilt and started this just to protect it since it was all hand sewn along with the embroidery blocks when I first retired. There was even fabric for the binding. I have not gotten back to hand quilting for about 5 years now and just set up my vintage old Sears hand quilting frame, we bought poles to handle a queen size quilt.
     Now that I look at my stitches-oh my can I still do this?? Hope so.  

This is the area in my room I was working on-on top batting of different sorts, in the corner bolts of Kona cotton for backings and dyeing and I found these big bags too-I emptied a couple of them, and then filled them up with my hand dyes, rust dyes, assorted fabric scraps, and more
   Under the curtain is my shelves-the curtain keeps the sun off things

On top, rug hooking supplies, silks, linen, velvets, laces, more fabrics The silks, velvet, linen are all from repurposed clothing found at the resale shops, as are all my wools, laces too-although I did inherit a few laces and lots of rick rack and other goodies from my Mom's and her Mom's sewing rooms

I just finished watching a movie, and did some hand quilting, it took a bit-but I think I can do this-it is in my way right now-so hopefully I will be enticed to work on this-I do enjoy the hand quilting. I am very slow though as I do one stitch at a time, never did get the hang of multiple stitches.

I will share my found rust dyes and hand dyes on Tuesday