Oh Sheet!

This past summer I enjoyed a free internet swap of vintage sheets.  I had been collecting old sheets for about a year and wanted to be able to share the vastness of the fabric with others, meanwhile expanding the ole sheet stash.  It was nice to take a large double size sheet and turn it into 7 different fat quarters from other vintage sheet enthusiasts.

So, fast forward to April 2017, in our Monthly Estitchers meeting, the demo was showing how to make a booklet out of fabric to keep your quilt blocks while finishing the quilt.  Helen called this a Quilt Portfolio and it is a magnificent idea.  She handed out instructions and I saw some places I could improve upon and decided to ditch the instructions and wing it.  If I make another one, it will be improved on again, the concept is marvelous no matter how you make it.

For those of us that do hand work in the quilting process, for me right now that is la passacaglia, you work on your project intermittently for a long time (this could also apply to hand applique).  I had stuck my unfinished medallion in a drawer and thought, cripes…it is either going to get dusty/dirty, or wrinkled.

So I decided to join the fun of making a quilt portfolio and started going through my stash to see what I could come up with.  Either I found something I liked that was already spoken for in my long list of to dos, or it was too small.  So I decided to look through my vintage sheets and it just so happened I had a piece that I could quilt front and back with the same material.  And this sheet as much as I had cut out from this, the rest would probably go unused for a long time.

I basically make a book cover (like those you made in high school for the text books) from quilted fabric.  Easy.

When Helen was doing her demonstration, her hand applique blocks were beautiful but I noticed as she turned the pages, the fabric would not stay put to the page.  Her pages were made from simple quilted muslin, which adds a nice cushion to some of the depth of her applique blocks.  I wanted mine to be made so the blocks would stick to the pages.  I started thinking of design walls.  A design wall can be made from batting or from flannel.  Just so happens I received a bunch of flannel free a few years back and had nothing planned for those pieces, and they matched the sheet I used.  Perfect.  Now the blocks will cling to the flannel and each page becomes a keeper/design wall.

The blocks shown above are the progress on my la passacaglia.  Next is a block I made to turn into our Estichers meeting which will go toward a raffle to support toys for tots.  The next blocks are ones I bought at an estate sale for a little bit of nothing, which I will be able to turn into something one day.

NOTE:  I rugged-ized the front and back part of the portfolio with a piece of foam core board bought at the dollar store.  Besides my time, I only have $1 plus tax in this project.  For those of you who decide to make this, if you use spray starch be very careful.  Starch is sugar and will attract silverfish and other bugs which can eat your cloth.  If you have bugs, I recommend plastic storage.  We probably have a roly poly and silverfish in our home from time to time in the wet months.  Now I will have to come up with a place all its own to store the Quilt Book Portfolio.

Sewing/quilting on a budget.  It can be done.

And on previous posts, it is a woe is me run of things breaking down.  I have added one more thing to this list.  The dang TV went on the fritz.  It is only 3 years old.  So we will be doing without that for a while.

I am still quilting on the jelly roll wrong quilt and am looking for a new name for it.  This will probably be completed within the next couple of weeks.  I am ready for this one to get washed (get the blood out) and move onto another fun project.  This quilt book portfolio was a nice break from quilting.  Sometimes it is nice to stop the long project for a bit and start and finish something else.  Finished is nice.

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