I Just HAD to clear out some

My sewing room was so full of things that I had started back before we left for the states that I just “had to” clear it out a bit before focusing on some new projects.

So, I went on a binge and worked on finishing up various charity tops I had taken to my sewing room in order to finish them.

I also had started working on some Spiderman panels I had brought over to Poland several years ago now - they are so old that you can’t buy them anywhere. Most of these have some slight misprint about them - I had paid $1/each for them. I wondered about not using them at all, but decided that that was the advantage of having people choose their own quilts. If it bothers them - that slighty discoloration - they will not choose it.

I had already put the yellow first border around most of them, but decided that no matter how long it took, I was going to just ‘finish them’, so I could go ahead and get them quilted for charity this year. At least I wanted to quilt at least 5 or 6 of them this year.

So, here is the pile of Spiderman tops ready to go. I made them all the same way but all (I think) have different colors in the borders. What I really mean is, they all use the same few fabrics, but hopefully no two are exactly identical.

 

I used black, red, blue - 3 different ones, aqua print, red polka dot, and black polka dots.

Here is one of the ones I made.

I’m not showing them all to you because I eventually will show them all individualy and I already have them so nicely stacked up and ready to take to the long arm room!

 
 

Of course Tuq, the cat wanted to check them out.

I wanted red to be used at least once in each of the tops, but I didn’t want red next to the yellow. Those were my only two requirements to myself. Almost everything else was negotiable.

This is the layout I use. The numbers are only the cutting width of each of the fabrics. Lengths vary slightly.

When finished, this layout ends up with about a 60”x8” quilt top when the center is about the size of a 36'“x42” center.

It did take me quite a bit of time this past week to make all these tops. I also had to cut some of the fabrics as well - well, I had to cut all the outer border fabrics, except for the yellow, all this week. So, while my machine, thankfully, does sew quickly, I did use my Janome, and not my Juki for this.

It is such a relief to have this all finished - these have been hanging over my head for years now! As far as I know, I don’t have any more of these panels - and that is fine.

Because I missed so much of this year for my charity quilting, I know I need to get right on it. Thankfully, I do have 120 tops already ready to go! That’s a huge blessing. I will incorporate these into that 120, and kind of “push out” some of the others I already had collected in my long arm room, however.

Here is the other pile I cleaned out of my sewing room this week. I had to do “something” to each of these tops. The biggest part of the tops were made by someone else, but sometimes they needed another border or two to get them to be the right size.

I also made up a couple of the strips tops ones with small strip pieces from Ewa and her mom. I always feel very accomplished when I make these as they are so full of leftover and the bigger strips are from my Big Fabric Haul from 2017 when we drove to southern Poland to buy leftovers from a business.

Becky Petersen3 Comments