"Bring Your Rotary Cutter"

That's what Judy told me when she invited me to her house last Saturday! I met Judy and another friend, Sue a few years ago, when they both attended my church for a while and I discovered quickly that they were both avid (and talented) quilters! To say that Judy has quite a stash of fabric is an understatement of vast proportions! Her husband built a "fabric wall" along the whole side of the 3rd bay of their garage when they retired a couple of years ago so she could get her fabric organized. Well - there are 7 shelves, floor to rafters, stretching front to back, and each shelf has 10 - 11 good sized see-through bins that are totally filled with fabric!! That adds up to more than 70 bins - each one nicely labled with what's inside!

Well, she "needed" to make room for new fabric - so she invited Sue, me and another friend, Chris, out to her home for the day. We spent some quality time "worshipping" at the "fabric wall altar" - then got to work! The 4 of us cut pieces of fabric into 5" squares or 2 1/2" strips and divided it up into 4 piles. We stopped for lunch, but we put a good 6 hours into the project. (We hardly made a dent in the "altar"!!) We got through about 1 1/2 bins, and each came home with a wonderful assortment of squares and strips - and Judy now has room for a few new purchases!! (We are going to a big 3-day quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky in April - sort of a "fabric orgy"!)

What a wonder fabric is! Our piles contained flowers, stripes, plain, dots - the variety was endless!! As I sorted through the stacks I found so many I just loved - some I didn't love as much, but in a scrap quilt they will all work together!! I can hardly wait to start working on it! This one will be special since 4 friends worked together to make it happen!

I love making quilts and as I put the pieces together the patterns emerge in lights and darks, brights and softs, to form something new and useful and inviting! Sort of the way God takes the scraps of my life and puts them all together to do something totally unexpected and useful in His plan!! Even when I think I know how a quilt will look and what its use will be, there is always anticipation when I see the newly finished quilt - there is always an "ahhh!". I hope God reacts like that to the way I use what He has pieced me together with!

We are in the process of moving to an "interim apartment" - and I have packed and stored most of my craft things in boxes that won't be unpacked for a couple of years. But then I will be retired and in my new big craft room in my new house and will finally have the time to see if I really want to do all the things that looked like fun when I didn't have time for them! I did not pack my quilting stuff for storage though! That goes with me and will be accessible!! We move in about a month - as soon as I get the apartment livable I can start sewing! I can hardly wait - the scrap quilt will be first!!