New Year's purging, repurposing and recycling

Happy 2017! Here's to a new year of good health, inspiration, productivity and meeting whatever goals or resolutions you set for yourself. Below are two 2016 year-end-review photo montages that I posted to Instagram. After scrolling through my photo library, I was surprised I accomplished as much as I did. Yay!

2016 accomplishments and finished projects: EPP Glorious Hexagon program,
kitty quilts, novelty zipper pouches, a fun sewing workshop with Diane Hall,
"Making Faces" workshop with Melissa Averinos.

I made lots of garments this year. Hmmm.... must be inspired by the wonderful new fabric companies I'm working with.

2016 accomplishments and finished projects: electronics on quilts,
Bedroom Dressings featured in "Dressed" exhibit, free-motion quilting
and rulerwork, ikat jacket and long vest with Diamond Textiles,
denim vest and cotton knit Tees with Art Gallery Fabrics.

Purging fabric swatches from discontinued
fabric sample cards.

I'm not much on New Year's "resolutions," but I do like to end an old year or begin a new one with a [somewhat] organized work space. In doing so, I sort through my fabric/yarn/UFO stash that I've amassed in my studio space and find new homes and other pairs of creative hands that will make good use of them.

Purging
This year I went through a couple boxes of old fabric sample cards and pulled off the usable bits. After taking a class with Lynn Carson Harris at the Chattanooga AQS QuiltWeek this summer, my eyes were opened to aaaaaallll kinds of possibilities for using up fabric scraps. No scrap is too small as you can see in this quilt that's in her book, "Every Last Piece." I also use these fabric bits for improv kitty quilts and for practicing free-motion quilting.

But alas, I will never... NEVER... have time to use up all these scraps on my own. So, as a quilter, maker and fabric aficionado, I need to find other creative hands to help.

Repurposing
After purging the old swatch cards, I had quite a pile of fabric swatches—all sizes, colors, prints and themes. These will be going to one of my quilt guilds for its community service project—making cuddle quilts for the Chambliss Center for Children, a child care center in Chattanooga.

I separated the novelty and kids prints from the others. The novelites would be great for I-Spy quilts. If anyone knows of a good pattern for 6" x 8" pieces, let me know in the Comments.

Novelty prints for my guild's Cuddle Quilt project.

The other bits filled a grocery bag... well over 9 inches by the time I was through.

A grocery bag full of colorful prints for making cuddle quilts.

Recycling
And this big pile of paper cards is going to the recycling facility.

For paper recycling.

Thanks for following my blog over the years and I hope you have a creative, prosperous and productive 2017! Let me know what you do to ring in a new year of quilting possibilities. I'm glad to find new purposes for these good fabric bits but also to make room for the new creative adventures that await me in my own studio space. Onward and upward...