- Do you have fabrics in your stash that don't inspire you?
Well, for me, it's my batiks.
And back in January,
I famously claimed that I was decluttering them.
I know I have more batiks than I will ever need,
so I will be clearing these ones out.
My trick is to make sure that these ones go too.
You might be you wondering if I followed through, well...
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Karen Brown of Just Get it Done Quilts.
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If have been quilting for five years or more,
chances are your tastes have changed.
With every project you discover what colours you prefer,
what techniques you enjoy and the style of quilts
that you like to make.
So, when we declutter our fabrics,
we need to take a look at those original fabrics
that we purchased and ask ourselves,
why do we still have them?
I had to ask that question with this pile of batiks,
that I purchased over eight years ago.
They were for my 4th of July quilt.
And if you watched my video,
telling the story of that quilt,
then you know that I accumulated
three times the amount of fabric that I actually needed.
Now, there's an nothing wrong with them.
They're in perfect condition and the colours are stunning
but I felt zero inspiration
to make another quilt out of them.
So for me, I was happy to remove them from my inventory
and use that valuable space for fabrics that do inspire me.
(upbeat music)
Unfortunately, as soon as I did that,
they began to talk to me, daring me to use them.
And anyone that knows me, knows I love a challenge.
Every time I walked by that donation pile,
I caught a glance of their colours until finally,
I pulled them back out
because suddenly I had a purpose for them.
Every year, my friends make baby quilts are local hospital's
New Parent Programme.
And I thought I'd just do something simple
with all the bright colours.
I would take my ugly quilt block technique
To make some wonky four patches.
And just turn the fabric into crib size quilts.
To make a wonky four patch, stack four squares.
Make a random vertical cut,
then take the top fabric from the right
and place it on the bottom of the stack.
I was using fat quarters,
so my squares were eight and a half inches.
And I have four squares per fat quarter.
I chose to cut on a different angle for each stack.
Then I paired them up and sewed them together.
And then using a really good ironing technique,
I pressed.
Then we do it all again.
We stack our four squares,
make a 90 degree turn and then make another random cut.
Take the top two pieces from the right
and then put them on the bottom, sew the fabric together
and then press.
This makes 16 squares and when you sew them together,
that should make a 32" by 32" top.
I made two quilt tops
but as I was adding in 4" borders, I was miserable.
So, I had to stop and question what I was doing.
I had made a promise to myself at the beginning of the year
to make more quilts that challenged and pushed me.
But with these kits, I have fallen back into my habit
of making fast and easy.
I now felt very confident that my original decision
to declutter the batiks was the right decision.
I gave the quilt tops a good press and then put them aside.
Grabbed all the fabric and put it back in the donation bin.
Now, another part of the declutter challenge
was dealing with scraps.
I gathered up a lot of my batik scraps.
Much of this came from my 4th of July quilt.
I had a couple of other projects too, that I cleaned up
but I'm not going to be sewing with batiks anytime soon,
so I'm going to give this off to someone else.
Truly, it was one of the most easy decisions I made
in the whole challenge.
My remaining scraps were all consolidated into one drawer
and that was overflowing,
so it needed immediate attention.
And as I was sorting them and processing them,
I found this huge piece of batik.
This was trimmed off the wide back
that I used for my 4th of July quilt.
And as I dug deeper into the drawer, I found more pieces
and I was about to add it to the donation pile,
when I remembered that I had a stack of batik blocks
in my UFO pile.
And this is block number six from my video,
"6 Fast and Easy Jelly Roll Blocks."
And I had amassed this stack,
30 minutes at a time, over the past year.
My Toronto Modern Quilt Guild
had just started a new community initiative
that I needed a quilt for.
And these blocks would be perfect for it
which meant that I needed a backing.
So, I pulled out as many batik strips of that wide back
that I could find
and then I pulled out some simple batik strips
and made an after-quilt.
(gentle music)
I chose to quilt it with yellow thread on the front
and blue thread on the back
and I used this dynamic panto to quilt with.
(gentle music)
And I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
And I had enough blocks left over
to make another baby quilt,
feeling pretty proud that I had taken care of that
before I donated all that fabric.
I added all the new scraps into the scrap bag
and put it back in the donation box
because now, I was truly done with these fabrics.
Now I was free to sit down
and plan what quilts I would be making in 2022.
Another part of the declutter challenge
was to make lists of your UFOs,
your orphan blocks, your kits
and any other squirrely ideas that came up
while you were decluttering.
And part of my planning process
for this year was to review them
and incorporate which ones I wanted.
And what do I see on one of the lists
but batik strips, totally forgot about them.
Way back in 2020, when we were in our first lockdown,
I was trying to use what I had.
These were the strips that I referred to
in my 4th of July video that I cut up
trying to make an after-quilt
but it was just not working for me.
And as soon as I could, I abandoned them
and purchased a wide back batik to finish the project.
And these strips went into a Ziploc bag
and have sat there ever since.
They looked so colourful
and I thought of our baby quilt project
and they were already cut into five inch strips
and it wouldn't be that difficult to make them into quilts.
So, I sewed them into sets
and I cut those sets into five inch strips
and made simple grid.
I had enough strips to make two complete tops
but I had so much leftover
that I pulled out the batik fabric again
and cut a few more strips to make two more tops.
So, if you're counting,
I now have seven baby quilts to quilt.
And of course, they all needed backing,
so I pulled out of the larger pieces
and sewed them together in one long strip
to make one long continuous backing.
I loaded it on my Longarm and over the course of a week,
I got them all quilted and I took the opportunity
to practise my free motion quilting skills.
Some I did loopy some, I did meandering some.
I did swore curls, some I did curls.
And before I donated all this fabric,
I realised that I still needed binding.
I double and tripled checked my strips
to be sure I had exactly what I needed
to avoid any last minute surprises.
My scrap bag is overflowing
but I dug through that scrap drawer
just to be sure I didn't have any more scraps
because I'm not doing this again.
I am so done with this batik fabric
that I get it out of the house and take it to my studio.
And I'm feeling pretty proud of myself.
I have wrestled the decluttering demons.
I have two empty containers.
I have eight new quilts to be donated
to 2 different projects
and I feel a huge weight off my shoulders.
And I can't wait to get started on my next project.
I have decided on my short list of three
and I am lining them up, ready to go.
When, what do I find tucked in between two old UFOs,
one more orphaned batik project.
I don't even remember when I made this or even why
but at least I have an idea
of what I intended to do with them.
I made the strips a little bit longer
by adding to the top of them.
And I arranged them to make this meandering,
or jelloish pattern, then trimmed it up to make it square.
And I do the same with the other set.
I hate to say it but I do need to retrieve my scrap bag
and my fabric from the studio to complete the tops,
to find more backing and more binding.
And I made two more baby quilts.
Final count, 10 quilts.
And just to be sure that there is no going back,
I take all the new scraps and all the remaining fabric
and I seal it in a box to go off to a new deserving home
because I am done with my batiks.
If you'd like to see the story
of me making the 4th of July quilt, I'll leave a link here.
And if you're a member of Karen's Quilt Crew,
go to my channel page and click on the Community tab
for upcoming events and behind the scenes photos.
Take care and I'll see you next time.
(water droplet sound)