Use your stash again this year

I spent a long time making a new button for my own little challenge for 2011. Blogger and Picnik both work in curious ways, and so my pile of farbics is upside down and the picture is rotated to the right to make it look like this:



Edit: if you want to copy and paste this button, please use the smaller one on my right sidebar!

I'm pretty pleased with my self with the new motto: Use your stash to make space for new fabrics in 2011 sounds so positive! You are welcome to copy the button to your own blog, if you share the stash problem with me and want to try to make something about it. There are no rules, just try, like I'm doing, to use more fabric than you buy. Use the ones you have first. Check what you have before you buy a new fabric for a need. Nobody can avoid sudden urges if they see a lovely fabric they must have. Then you just need to use more of the old ones! I have a couple of good suggestions: Join Anne Marie's Nine-Patch Challenge (button also on my right sidebar) to make yourself a lovely new quilt, join Jackie's call for pillowcases (tutorial here) for the Hole in the Wall Gang, or use your strips to make some 10.5" blocks for Oz Comfort Quilts (tutorial here) . This is my lot photographed on the floor before I packed them tightly in a light shopping bag I had made earlier, and sent for Jan to Australia. I took care to keep it just within the weight limit, sending the maximum amount with the minimum cost. Jan will join these with other donated blocks or ones she made herself to make a quilt 5 x 7 blocks, and later they will be brought to the Queensland flood survivors. The bags will be used to pack each quilt in, and the people will get a nice bag instead of plastic ones for their things.

From small scraps and orphan blocks you could make boobs for Mrs. Moen's therapeutic art project for breast cancer patients (instructions here), or you can send her treasured boobs, or even adorned ones. One her blog you will also find the shipping instructions, and she hopes to get them before the end of March. The Make a Boob blog homepage is here. You will find answers to all your questions there.

This week I finished my sixth block of the Raggedy & Friends BOM quilt by Kaaren at The Painted Quilt. Next week she will give us three new blocks, smaller than this and each with only one stitchery. All the previous blocks' instructions are still available for free, so you can start your own Raggedy Ann and Andy quilt now if you like.

My Raggedy Ann has posed for many pictures like in the stitchery drawn by Kaaren, but we both found this one a little too tricky for her. She doesn't have wings, and the position was too demanding for her. Let's hope there will be easier ones coming, as we both enjoy our little photo shoots so much.

The days are visibly longer here already, but the sun keeps still very low, hardly over the treetops, and most days have been cloudy, so there are no nice new photos. It is best to keep indoors and cut fabric, drink hot tea and keep warm.