July 2020 Strips Report

Well it’s that time again.

I had one big bag to cut up. This time as I went through my sewing room, trying to get the floor cleaned up, I sorted again - things that were 2”, 2.5” and then “everything else”. The “everything else” could have been those sizes, but I wanted to take it to my big dining room table and set up something to listen to while I sorted.

Then I thought I should try something different once again and cut up some 3”x 5.5” bricks and 3.5”x6.5” and try the Mosaic pattern with the bigger bricks as well. This is what I got from that cutting. On the left are the larger ones and on the right the smaller ones. I need to stop now and take stock, figure up how many I need and then cut the white ones and squares that will be needed. I had a lot of already cut 3.5” strips in this particular batch, so I was able to just subcut them to 6.5” without additional trimming to get to 3.5” first.

So this is all I did in July. Right here at the end I realized I do have another plastic container of them, so I’ll try to get them done early in August. Obviously as I sew, I create more scraps. As I uncover things - or decide I will never use it as fabric like it is - it also may get cut up.

But as far as I can tell, at least until i have an influx of scraps, this year’s “biggest” cutting is about over.

My year’s totals look like this:

You can see that this month’s strips were almost negligible. That’s okay. In fact, that’s how I am trying to do it - push hard at the beginning of the year but then FINISH up this enormous project so that at the end of the year, each month all I should have to do is keep up with that month’s cutting. We’ll see how that goes!

It NEVER hurts to be an optimist, right? I’m not normally one - though. I normally consider myself a realist. (Because of that realistic outlook, I do realize that I probably will get behind when I start my charity quilting push when the weather turns cool—though it would be nice if I could push myself a bit harder to attempt to keep up with the cutting.)

1.5” - very little actually! - not even a single pound! 0.78 lb.

2” - 3.3 lbs.

2.5” - 3.3 lbs.

And so that along with the bricks I cut for my next two Mosaics - that’s what I did with this month with all those old scraps.

Obviously I didn’t spend a whole lot of time trimming this month. In fact, I just cut for about 4 days - though I did spend a few hours working each of those four days just to get this much done!

And there you go. This report is less than “amazing”. But some months/days are like that. It’s more about consistency and ability to just keep plodding that will help me get control of these ever present pieces.

I did fill up additional paper bags - one is for my friend, Ewa, -it’s not a big bag - the size of a medium “take home” paper bag from McD’s - I put my strings and other what I consider “usable” pieces in there - and then I filled up about 2/3 of a regular brown paper grocery shopping bag. for kindling to head to the fireplace area. This is filled with shavings and really small pieces that could theoretically be used for stuffing things - but I’m not doing that.

That’s it for today! Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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