An Orphan Block and Where and What

Well spring has not sprung but to help my soul I made a colourful crazy quilt block for a workshop I gave.  It was a fun block made with strips and with the trimming of the strips as they were sewn on,  the finished product looked a bit like a rose albeit a crazy coloured rose.

After the workshop I did not want to let the Orphan block drift into the block cemetery never to be seen again.  I had one day, floating through blogs and web sites, seen a tool case made out of a pot holder.  This image stayed with me but I had trouble imagining my tools fitting into something as small as a pot holder.  The idea was the What ?

The Where is one we all know.  Quilting tools sprout legs or at least mine do.  They hide under fabric, or move to another surface than the quilting table or beside the sewing machine.  And you hear yourself saying 'Where is it?.  I just put it down or I just used it.'  Sound familiar.  I would hate to add up the minutes of searching.

I love bags that organize things.  I have one for my small rotating cutting board and rotary cutter; one for my little iron and a couple for fabric and papers and coffee cup so that when I go to guild or a class I just check the contents and slip then over my wrist or in my hands and off we go.  They are all made of leftovers; quilting experiments and orphan fabrics which are leftover from quilts.

So the Orphan block met with the Where and the What and out came this clutch for tools.  I put a border and binding on the block and quilted it with fancy  stitches on my machine and some bright thread. then I folded it over in half and laid out the tools most prone to sprout their legs.  I took a picture of the tools; removed them and measured the elastic over each one to keep it secure and stitched it down; the elastic that is not the tool.   I added a button and buttonhole (after shaking it and making sure nothing fell out).  This is an important step.  Then I added two small sets of tacking stitches on each of the folder corners.  I thought about adding additional buttons and buttonholes but decided if the items really wanted to escape they would and it meant I had not secured them sufficiently.

These are some of the tools I most look for but if I need more then I know of another orphan block I found when doing some tidying.  

April is retreat month, class month, quilt show month, busy guild month.  It is invigorating and exhausting at the same time.  Now if spring will cooperate the exhausting will seem less with the energy that spring generates.  However tomorrow is supposed to bring another Nor'Easter.  Sigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!