Scrap bag

Ah! It was a matter of waiting patiently -- I can be very impatient with technology. This is Riverside Park on Thanksgiving morning -- it was in the 70s. Beautiful! This was the only really beautiful golden autumn experience I had this year. So I took my time and enjoyed it VERY much.

Then it turned frigid and all the leaves fell in puddles overnight. Now it's winter -- early winter, yes, but definitely the season is here. So I cleaned and arranged and indulged myself in an impulse to use the new collection of tiny squares that were given to me at the last guild meeting. I've made 80 squares and decided I need another 16. This is the best part of quilting for me, when I am sewing the parts and have an idea in my head what it's going to look like, but can yet make more choices -- the stripping will be next, and colors are only an approximation at the moment. The back won't be decided for a while. I do know the quilting will be simple, it's a simple quilt and I don't need to jazz it up.

To make the squares I went to my scrap bag, which was bulging, and sorted for light and dark that was fairly plain, and, of course, pieces big enough to for the job. Just about everyone has a scrap bag. I don't know how much others use theirs, but I use my only for an occasional quilt. However I'm comforted having it -- a repository for those cuttings that I can't bear to throw away. And to me, really, quilt means "scraps" even though I know that's rarely true. Working with scraps, with a large variety of colors and patterns gives me satisfaction. I mull the usual -- about how our lives are full of the bits and pieces we can't bear to forget -- yet we do forget them for long periods. Still there they are and can be added to new bits and become either beautiful or useful or both. This quilt has a time to go before there's anything to photograph. But I am happy I was patient just now and found the photo was being loaded. We'll have photos now in the future. I think I am going to love this computer, once I've mastered some of the new tricks this old dog must learn.