Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A scrappy tale . . .

Several of you asked for the story of the 2" squares, so here you are. Once you read this you'll know how crazy I can be!

In 1992 I was teaching quilting for Daisy Kingdom in Portland Oregon. Nancy the class manager asked me if I'd like to go to Quilt Market and Festival in Houston. She'd made a bargain with the store owner. If I bought my plane ticket and agreed to work setting up and taking down the huge Daisy Kingdom booth I could share the hotel room with Nancy and they'd pay for my food and classes. Of course I jumped at the chance!

One of the classes I took was Making Scrap Quilts by Darra Duffy Williamson. I had her book on scrap quilts - one of the first books on scrap quilts that was published - and loved everything in it. The list of class supplies included "a good, varied selection of scraps in lights, mediums and darks of many colors". I had a terrible time picking what to take - as usual when faced with choosing fabric without knowing what the quilt was to look like. I finally decided I couldn't leave anything behind - that I'd cut an 8" square of every fabric I had. My stash wasn't nearly as extensive as it is now, but it was still very large. I must have been nuts - I proceeded to do exactly that. The squares filled a huge tote and weighed a LOT. Thank goodness the airlines were very lax with weight restrictions back then. The stack of squares must have been at least 6 feet tall if I'd stacked them one on the other.

The class was wonderful. I learned a lot. However, I made a sum total of 4, 6" churn dashes the entire day. I gave some fabric to my table mate who'd not brought any. I didn't touch at least 98% of the fabric I took. So I returned home with a huge stack of 8" squares that promptly went back on the shelf in the sewing room.

More later . . . .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this story-even the second telling of it is delightful Patti. what a wonderful retreat you had, and you even lost weight! way to go girl.

Anonymous said...

6' tall -- wow, that's a lot of cuttin' *s*q

Anonymous said...

Sounds familiar - only my piles are 5 inch squares & I traded to get variety.... (I still have fun sorting them every once in a while... & I still trim 5 inch square scraps when the mood strikes!)

Anonymous said...

What an interesting story of how fabric progressed from one thing to another. This proves what I always tell my friends - nothing is ever wasted. It shows up somewhere. =) Thanks for sharing this story!