Quilting spillage!

Happy Friday everyone. 

What I did all day yesterday.

I hope you all are recovering from food coma, dysfunctional family, and too much wine. It's all about the wine. Me? I had a quiet time at home, forgoing friends because I just wanted to be alone. I do love being at home and I'm not tired of it. All my stuff is here, all my sewing is here and I have projects to do, damnit.

Look! My cathedral window quilt is moving right along. Yesterday I readied 25 more squares and I'm going to lay out the inner squares today. Doing this on the bus as I commute to work is really making the project breeze by.

What I found fun was looking through all my fabric stash and gathering the colored fabric for the squares. I have a lot of pieces of fabric too small to make anything with but too large to throw away. We all have those pieces, but we don't know what to do with them. I decided to put forth an effort to use them.

 I took the medium weight cotton fabrics, made sure they were washed and cut them in 6x6", 6x12", and 6x18" rectangles. 

From there I made patch works 4 squares by 6 squares. Then from there I pieced them together so I ended up with roughly 3 yards of fabric nearly 36" wide. From this I present to you my final Make and Mend project.

Here is the result.

I think it looks like a yukata, perhaps because of the blue. I really like how this one turned out. I attached a belt to this one that I plan on just looping around and tying it like here on Onda.

 I even changed out the thread when I was hand stitching it so it matched better.

I added pockets on the side front seams and cut them on the bias for no other reason then I thought it would be cool.

I turned the inside under and hand stitched it and added cotton tape on the hem to give it a bit of weight. 

I really, really like how this quilting project turned out and I'd recommend an avid sewer/fabric hoarder do a project like this annually. I can't tell you all the memories that flooded in from past projects. Dresses, pants, curtains, you name it. I even had memories of where I bought some of the fabrics (That vintage American tattoo fabric I bought some 6 years ago in China town in SF when I lived there.). It shows such a progression of my sewing journey and it's a culmination of where I am now.

The nooks and crannies holding little visual memories of things is so delightful to me. It's a puzzle piece  of history, like any quilt. That's why I like it so much. 

I have about 1/2 yard of the quilted scrap fabric leftover. I think I'll make a sleeping cap to match. Why not? Have a great Friday!!