About a year or more ago, Helen and I made her a quilt. Our friend Judy of Rather Be Quilting helped us do it. It was a first for both Helen and me but we had lots of fun on Thursday evenings when Chris, Katie and Stephen were at piano.

This winter Helen is going to do one on her own! She will do all the ironing, cutting and sewing. I plan on buying her a new seam ripper! We are both looking forward to it.

We picked the fabric out yesterday (the teal pattern and the lime green) and she has chosen to do a very simple checkerboard pattern.

Judy has offered to loan her a portable sewing machine (mine is housed in a cabinet and it takes effort to haul it out of the bedroom (it JUST fits in between the wall and the bed) and through the living room and into the kitchen, where there is just enough to set it up. It gets pretty cozy in the kitchen when I’m sewing!

I’ve also decided to make a quilt using all the quilting scraps that came along with a big bag of fabric from a fellow freecycler. Tonight I sorted the scraps and this is what I have.

My friend Monica suggested a pattern called Square Dance Jelly Roll Quilt. Fortunately it uses all 2 1/2 inch strips which is pretty much what I’ve got. She suggested, because it was a scrap quilt, that I use dark colours in one place in the pattern and light in the others, since I simply don’t have enough of any one colour. That sounded like good advice but upon looking at my scraps, I don’t think I have much dark material! So I’m going to mull it over a bit and come up with a colour scheme that might work.

I have time to mull things over because when I pulled my quilting supplies out from under the bed, I realized that although I have a rotary cutter and a smallish cutting mat, I actually borrowed the special rulers from Judy last time…so I will have to upgrade my equipment on Tuesday. I have tried to acquire quilting supplies on freecycle but they are like gold…hard to find used, hard to find free! I’ve been kicking myself for some time; Gail asked me about 4 years ago if I wanted all my mom’s old quilting things but at the time I was definitely not into it so I told her to give it away. And she did, and I realize now how much of it I have to get for myself! Luckily she gave it to a quilting guild, which hopefully got good use out of it.

I really like the idea of a scrap quilt…so far (until my Tuesday trip into town, anyway) I have spent $0! We are at $40 for Helen, so far!