WMUTeach

Most high schools do teach sewing to some level. It may be call "life skills". Another potential location is a community career and technical education schools. They teach an amazing amount of skills that are focused on careers, We have one in almost every county in lower Michigan. They teach every thing from child care to restaurant service to welding to computer repair to cosmetology including sewing.

One more idea just popped into my head. Do you have a local community theatre? They are always looking for fabric for costumes, decor for stage productions and on and on. Check with churches too. They often have unpublished groups that make quilts for Project Linus. Time to stop. I could drive you batty with all of my suggestions. Have fun giving away your excess. it will be a blessing to someone.

Gemm

And here are a few pictures. This quilt started with the very odd (to my way of thinking) fabric you see on the chair - these random striped squares were appealing because of the colour but it just seemed a strange way to design a fabric. Anyway, chop it up (you'll notice it was not a regular shape - someone had used it for something, anyway) and I had just enough complete squares to make this little lap/baby quilt. Everything from stash, including the pieced backing. That was a bit scary - I ended up having less than an inch (1/4 inch on one side) of leeway on that backing when I trimmed!

The other Community Quilt heading out the door is the finished blue/brown squares from post #206.

WMUTeach

Gemm, I love how you put those stripes together as star centers. Superb idea and lovely finish. Keep up the good work using what is on hand.

Lena1952

That fabric took on a whole new look! Great job and a sweet quilt for the finish.

Iceblossom

I have not been very productive yet this year... Here's a first look at what I am calling the Grass Quilt. Design came from a picture on Craig's List selling a bedroom furniture set . Fabric is all 100% stash.

Originally I was thinking of using bright white on whites, with bright and primary greens, and maybe turn the grass into some corn with some bright yellow. When I was pulling fabric the daisy fabric popped up and said it wanted to be used as the background and the brights didn't work as well.

I have enough background for 4 chevron columns with spacers between them. That's 1 foot per column so a bit narrow for a twin, and so I pulled the green stripe that can be used as borders and chose the greens from the more subdued palette.

I've pretty much decided against the yellow/corn. Still like the concept but not quite right for this project. Needed to get to this point to either finish cutting the greens, or adding in the yellow.

Iceblossom

I've gotten an off-the-board comment to keep the corn! And asking for a few more particulars. I wasn't able to save the Craig's List photo I got the inspiration from, but I did print out a hard copy for me One of the things I liked about that project was they did a color shift in that one. I still really like the color, think maybe 4-5 bars might be the right number and you can make it into any spiky flower you want by changing the colors. I think you could use a different green for each "stalk" to further differentiate the flowers.

But for this project, I find the all green grass restful and since it will be a donation, am keeping with that and not inserting my idea of fun into it I do like the alternating pieces instead of the steady Vs with most chevron designs. Ii will be going more random and not trying to stack the colors dark to light or anything like that...

I'm cutting the pieces from horizontal strips, rough cut 3.5" for finished width of 3". Is just a 45 degree angle. I made a template which I only use to place the ruler against, then take off -- it is about 13" point to point so I could use it to check the size of my scraps. Each side of the chevron measures 6.5" (raw), 6" finished.

For now, I've sewn most of the backgrounds into "2-fers" with greens. I have enough background for 10 2-fers for each side. I will just be trimming the tops and bottoms off... I think... I do have a bit left of the background but it will be easier to trim later rather than piece i. Not much, but maybe some.

The only thing to watch for is that the pieces must be mirror images, there are right and left sides!!! The is NOT an option where all you have to do is turn it around to work. The greens mostly came from my small sized pieces, that is 6.5" wide strips. Most of them were big enough that I could fold in half and get 2 from a piece, that makes your mirror images right there, the right sides together.

Gemm

I really like that quilt, Iceblossom! I think it's going to be stunning, with or without the corn. :-)

I have a bit of a confession to make. At our guild meeting I did send on the two quilts I recently spoke about to fulfill their intended purpose, but there was a trunk sale going on. I tried to be responsible but during the business part of the meeting I was sitting right next to one of the tables and could see these rolls of fabric in a clear box and several of them were exactly the colours of the quilt I'm currently working on and don't have a backing for. I ended up buying 8 half-metres of these colours and felt quite virtuous "knowing" that they would be used up quickly, except...

I really like them and would like them to have their own life as a quilt top now that I've brought them home and see how nice they are! Many of my quilts have pieced backs and so I know that they could still work and make a double-sided quilt, but... I think they're going to end up in stash and I am still going to be looking for a backing. Oops! At $6/m, it still counts as a sort of win for me, though. The thrift stores around here charge more than that. :-P

WMUTeach

Gemm, so you fell off the wagon when you saw the perfect colors at a bargain price haven't we all?. Well, dust your off your knees and jump back on and put your new stash fabric to work.

I went to Shipshewanna with my daughter this past week and did not buy anything quilt related. Shocking but true. I even gave a pass to the the 20 % off at one of the shops that I adore. On the other hand, y'all may recall that I did go the the shop that was closing in a near by town and did plenty of bargain shopping early this month. I call it a wash! Tee-Hee-Hee.

QUILT ON my friends but start shopping from your stash first.

73+quilts

{QUILT ON my friends but start shopping from your stash first. }

HA!
I just got back from riding the bus with a newbie friend and SHE pushed the buzzer to get stopped at HOBBY LOBBY I fell off again. Bought almost enough for about 7 quilt backs--SUPER King size beds (but I have decided to make only lap/baby and twin size) so WHY did I need ALL that fabric--much of it was on sale and much is find me quilt fabric so I can make couple of baby cloth books. Didn't have any alphabet fabric that would have been nice for the books.

I promise I will get back to my stash especially now that it has NEW FUN "junk". but at least I have someone that has about the same number of stash tubs as I do. She also just moved in and we are close--right next door to each other.

Gemm

WMU, I'm right back on the wagon and already dreaming of a couple more "from stash" quilts. I'm currently trying to finish up the top I mentioned in my last post. I'm trying to tweak it and maybe incorporate some of those new fabrics from the trunk sale to make the top big enough to donate to Quilts for Survivors (I tend to make baby/crib/lap/throw-sized projects because I can finish them myself). I've wanted to make a quilt for QFS for some time now. It's nice to have a destination in mind - helps with motivation!

Sounds like you've got plenty to get working with, MaryKa. Have you considered "kitting up" quilts, either for your own use or to donate as a ready-to-go project for the community/senior's centre? Sometimes when you have a really big collection, it's hard to see the forest for the trees. (I'll be honest, that happens even when you don't have a really big collection but still more than might be reasonable).

And thanks for the pictures and construction tips, Iceblossom. I've made a herringbone quilt but did it the "cheater/easy" way with HSTs.

Looking forward to seeing more pictures of everyone's projects and hearing more stories of stash out! Hoping to post my own again, soon. :-)