Time to talk quilting again!

Yes I am back in the quilting mode again.

This time it is a very special memory quilt made of the shirts of a friend who passed away a year ago. His family were struggling to part with the shirts so I offered to make the quilt with them.  There are some 100% cotton shirts and some part polyester and part cotton. I am using what I can and attempting to get at least one patch of each shirt in the quilt, but the non-cotton shirt fabric is slippery and difficult to cut accurately. I am persevering though because the family will have a lovely memento and this quilt is about the shirts and the memories, not the quilt itself. Here is a picture of a selection of the fabrics in the quilt, on my design wall.

I am also in the process of TIDYING UP the sewing room! 

I found some plastic trays in Kmart which looked the right size for my storage baskets, and were just $5 each, so I bought lots and have been sorting and refolding. My stash has lots of fat quarters because I love a scrappy look in a quilt with lots of fabrics and this is an easy way of collecting fabric.

From this pile of fabric stuffed in a basket (most of the drawers looked like this) 

to sorted baskets of fabric all where I can see them and get inspired by them. The bins fit two to a drawer and provide structure to the basket so I can keep things tidy. 

I am not finished yet -all in all I have got about half way through my 22 baskets and two bins of fabric storage. 

My baskets sit in the wardrobe recess, and are covered with an Ikea fabric panel which slides out of the way.

In doing this sorting I realized again just how much fabric I have here, and how many lovely quilts are ready to be made from them. I have. I have a lot of resources here to keep me happy in my lovely sewing room, doing what I love to do. I am a happy woman!

In other news, the sun came out again! I tidied up the patio and we recommissioned it for summer. We have been doing a spring prune and tidy up. 

 On International Humanitarian Day we attended public lecture at Curtin University by Dr Waleed Ali. As you would expect, he was thought provoking in his discussion of why it is that 'no-one cares about human rights anymore". How can successive governments in Australia get away with being criticized by the UN for their treatment of asylum seekers in offshore centres, for example?

Dr Ali suggested we find it difficult to get back to the 'enchanted ideas" which inspire and empower us to act in solidarity with one another, when we live in a in a public space which emphasizes efficiency, non-harm and non-discrimination (nice enough, but sort of empty words). We need to retell our stories and find meaning again.

This is quite a challenge and I look forward to having long conversations about it in the future. In the meantime today I have a fundraising event to help host for our local refugee agency. A wonderful young guitarist I met has offered to play her 19th century Italian guitar music in a private home as a fundraiser. It will be very special indeed.