Stash-Busting Strategies

Between work, medical appointments and tests and my health challenges at the moment, I don't have a lot of time for agressive stash busting. But I'm going to focus on a few things and make some baby steps anyway.

I know that I tend to collect fabrics for quilt design ideas that frequently never get made. My first stash-busting strategy is to make a couple of those quilts . . . or at least piece the tops and use up the stash that has accumulated.

A year ago, when I was choosing blocks for the Beginner Block Lotto on about.com, I also designed a beginner-friendly quilt made from the same blocks or elements of the blocks or techniques. I've been collecting 30s reproduction fabrics for it for a while.

I finally began real work on it this weekend–here are the blocks I've made so far.

In January we made blue and white double four-patch blocks. For my quilt, I made 26 scrappy four-patch blocks.



In February, we made mono-chromatic pinwheel blocks. There will be four in my quilt.



In March, we made many (many!) I-spy snowball blocks. There are also 4 of those in my quilt.



In April, we made 9-inch maple leaf blocks in fall colors on a blue sky background. For my quilt, I made eight smaller, 6-inch blocks.



In May we made big scrappy basket blocks. I made one for my quilt, too.



Stay tuned to see how the rest of the 2007 lotto blocks are represented and how they all fit together . . . and the smaller version Amy made last summer whens she tested the pattern in a very different colorway.