Saturday Thoughts - My quilty word

For 2014 the word I chose for the year was Renew. Not sure why I chose that. - wasn't writing my blog at the time so don't have a post on the subject  - so no longwinded self indulgent naval gazing post to go back to in order to check it out. Yeah I know it was only a little under 4 months ago... but still I got old lady brain going here.(You've seen the grey hair I got going now)

So far for me it has largely centred around using fabric that I have in my stash that has a previous use - fabric that wasn't designed to be part of a quilt. This has been the theme behind 3 of the quilts 2 have finished this year and 2 more that I have as works in progress.

In January I completed making a crazy patch tie quilt that I was making for my cousin Syd who turned 70 last month. I gave him the quilt at a family reunion in January (to see the blog post about it visit here) I got a real kick out of making the quilt. I have a pile of ties left - ones that didn't fit into the blue and red spectrum I chose for Syd's quilt. I'll make another one day

I have also been working on my SOMB quilts. Shirt Off My Back quilts that I am making using 2nd hand men's shirts for a challenge that I am involved with. To find out more about this challenge just search my blog for SOMB. Added to the challenge of using the fabric from the shirts we had swapped i added the challenge of only using recycled fabric in the whole of the quilt and with the 3rd quilt in the series completed  I have one more quilt in the series to complete. The top has been made completely using recycled fabric and I am still working on the backing. Its going to be a gift for a friend currently undergoing chemo. I have cut 6.5" squares out of light coloured fabrics- mostly old sheets but some calico whose origins I am not sure of. Friends and family have been signing these squares with messages of love and support. Still thinking about how I will incorporate these into the backing... depends how many I get back. I may just alternate them with coloured squares or then again... might make them into blocks. Will see.

I also want to renew my sewing area. I want to get it all sorted out and freshened up, go through my projects and fabric and decide what I am going to do. I have already started on this by going through my fabric and sorting out the little bits and cutting and sorting these according to size. Larger pieces of fabric have already been sorted by colour. It will be good to have it all tidied up and renewed. Apart from anything else it will bring to mind what things I have - what gadgets, fabric, patterns etc which in turn will help generate creativity and help me to work out what projects I want to work on next.

How are you going with your quilty word for 2014?