Yes, I Have Been Stripping Again!

Yesterday I said I was going to start on another strip quilt, and that is exactly what I did.  This time I grabbed a box of 3 7/8" strips.  I like to make "surprise" quilts, I have no clue what I am going to make when I start sewing pieces together.  I just start sewing and see where it goes.  So I decided to sew these together randomly on the short ends at a 45 degree angle, alternating the direction of the angle.  I then sewed a second line about a half an inch away from the first in order to save the two triangles off the ends and turn those into squares for later.  I cut those triangles off, and then cut each of the strips in half and sewed them back together randomly again at a 45 degree angle.  Now there are well over 100 strips in the box so I am pretty sure I will have more than enough for a quilt top, maybe even two.  The last box I picked was narrower strips and I sewed them together along the longest sides first, and the cut them into strips and sewed them back together, I am thinking that I may put the two back to back as a reversible quilt, but we will have to see what I end up with when I get further along.

That is the real joy of quilting for me, the ability to not have to plan ahead.when I don't want to.  Now there are plenty of patterns out there that require precise measurements and exact piecing, I don't like those so much.  They can be fun, in their own way, a challenge can be a good thing from time to time.  But I really just like to make it up as I go along sometimes.  There are few other other forms that allow such wild abandon, abstract painting I guess, but I am not much into that.  Dyeing fabrics is kinda that way too I guess, Most of my favorite hobbies tend to lend themselves to pleasing the slacker in me, that's probably why I enjoy them so much. 

I really am a craft-aholic.  My studio really is a crafter's dream, except for the fact that you can't turn around in there for all the stuff!  Every time I develop a new hobby I have to have all of the possible tool and accessories known to mankind for it.  I have always been that way.  When I was a kid I had to have the biggest boxes of crayons and the biggest packages of markers or colored pencils, and I still do!  I have hundreds of stencils, hundreds of rolls of ribbons and lace and all kinds of trims, thousands of sheets of paper, thousands of yards of fabric, hundreds of bottles of paints and inks of all types.  I have every color they make of DMC embroidery thread, and hundreds of spools of cotton, polyester, and rayon threads in a rainbow of colors,  and thousands upon thousands of sewing, quilting, and embroidery patterns (both machine and hand embroidery) as well as dozens of rulers and templates.  I have three sergers, two embroidery machines, and 7 sewing machines, plus a knitting machine (which I still have never used!)  I have the biggest Cricut cutting machine on the market, dozens of scissors, rotary cutters, and other specialty cutting tools, my own power tools and hand tools, a complete screen printing system, and three computers with most of the crafting software in existence.  I have hundreds of thousands of beads in all shapes and sizes, dozens of books on every craft subject I have ever had the slightest interest in, and hundreds of magazines. And that doesn't even begin to cover all the kids craft stuff!  I think I have mentioned before that I am a little bit obsessive.

Yes I am spoiled freaking rotten, I admit that. My wonderful husband has given me more than I ever dreamed I would have access to, and more than that, he has given me the ability to provide myself with more than I ever dreamed I would be able achieve.  But much of my "stash" is the result of 30 years of obsessive collecting.  I am an expert at Goodwill hunting and hand-me-down accepting, I have never turned down anyone's scraps or unwanted articles.  I recycle, up-cycle, and re-use whenever possible, and I never buy anything that is not on sale.  When I want to start a project, I want to start it NOW! And I want to have every possible tool or other accoutrement I could conceivably desire, right there where I can use it.  I can't wait for a trip to the store, that would involve actually planning a project ahead of time and that is not something I tend to do very often.