I decided this month to focus on this box.

I wanted to completely remove it from my dining room where it has been taking space for quite a while now - I bought it last October! I wanted to leave the strips bigger if I possibly could and if not, then I would just strip them up and throw them in with the wonderful bags of strips I already have. But I had thought/hoped I might be able to get squares out of at least some of them.

If I did this entire box, that was going to be enough for me to tackle in April because I had basically caught up from my other strips cutting - that is until I began finishing up charity quilts. Then, production begins again in earnest. I guess it is a never ending cycle, isn’t it?

Anyway…back to the box. One thing at a time. When I don’t focus…I tend to go in circles and get nothing done!

I first pulled out the largest pieces so I could cut them into squares - 5” and 6.5” if at all possible - and then strip the rest. Because these pieces had been sitting so long,

I had to take groups of very long strips and press them before I could trim them. But in general, most of the fabric in this box didn’t need to be pressed first before trimming. And that was nice.

1.5” strips - 1.21 lbs.

2” strips - 2.9 lbs.

2.5” strips - 9.92 lbs. I really tried to cut much of the box into 2.5” strips because the designs on most of the fabric were large.

All three containers - from the left - 1.5”, 2” and 2.5” strips

Here are my totals for the year so far. You can see that so far this year, by comparison, I have done very little! That’s really a good thing, though, as I’ve been trying to keep up with what I have. Now I’ve gotten a bit behind again due to some of the sewing I’ve been doing…but I’m doing my best to never get back to my other years’ totals.

And compare how this year looks to those other years I’ve been doing it. It feels like a “baby year”.

I still do have more to do especially since I’ve already started doing charity quilts and in doing those, I have cut-offs which must be dealt with.

This month, because I wanted to use up all the fabric in the box I showed above, I had some larger pieces which I cut squares from in order to make charity quilts. Here is what I did.

Shown are 5” squares and 6.5” squares.

And just to remind you why I do this.

Those almost 10 lbs. of 2.5” strips shown that I just cut up are equivalent in weight to this many “Jelly Rolls”!

The bin just above is equivalent in weight to the strips rolls on the right. Just think how useful that much fabric could be! Because the bin of strips is more scrappy, it takes a lot of work to figure out what to do with it, but it’s still fabric!

That’s why I do it!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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

Here’s one of the beauties we have!