Recycling

A few years ago, I belonged to several Thimbleberries Clubs (and finished ALL of the quilts); however, I had a LOT of scraps and a lot of pieced bits leftover from chain piecing. They have resided in a plastic bag ever since because I really haven't wanted to do anything Thimbleberries since then. So, after making two rather feminine looking lap quilts for our guild Hope Lodge project (thanks, Karen, for the correct name), I decided to use those Thimbleberries scraps for a masculine lap quilt. And this is what I came up with. Some of the blocks came from patterns in a 9" square block book that I have (I especially like the one one the 3rd row down, 3rd from the left--the star) and some I just made up from the partially pieced bits. Well, when I finished, there were still a lot of strips and I really wanted to use them up, so I also pieced the back. That pretty well took care of them and the rest I put into my regular scrap bin (which has the makings of at least 10 quilts in it if I would just take the time and do it). I have also finished the 2nd feminine-looking quilt for the project but I won't post it because it's almost identical to the one in my last blog installment.
I was going to do all this yesterday, but the weather was so crisp and the windows were open throughout the house and something just got into me that said, "Shampoo the carpet in your studio." Now, I guess I could have ignored the inner voice that kept nicking my pysche, but I happened to actually look down at the carpet and that was all it took. Off to Lowe's I went and brought home the shampooer and cleanser. It wasn't too bad (just a backache today!) and the carpet looks about 1000% better. I thought about hiring a company to do it, but I just didn't want to have to worry about my fabric and all the "stuff" in my studio that could have been "in the way" while the cleaning was going on. Do you think I worry too much about what may or may not happen? Probably, but if something can go wrong in this house, it usually does. At any rate, it is finished and I still had time to just enjoy the beautiful weather and plant another tomato plant and some sunflower seeds.