Look at the treasures I found!

I bought the tote containing my Mum in law's quilting stuff over from the workshop and set about going through it all.  I had looked in it briefly before but had never dug down to the bottom. I found several plastic cutting rulers of different shapes, several quilting books and magazines and lots of fabric.  Some of it is cut into different shapes.  There are squares of differing sizes and patterns, likewise triangles and rectangles.

The absolute treasure though was 36 of 12" x 12" squares all sewn up ready.  These were at the bottom of the tote and I had missed them before. What a treasure find!

This is just a fraction of the 12" squares.  No two are the same.

The problem is I am not sure what her game plan was as there aren't any two the same.  They are beautiful though, made up of all shapes and patterns.  Some are even hand sewn.

I am thinking about how to utilize them.  They are too precious just to lie unused for any more time. Goodness knows how many years old they are.  They have been in our workshop for 10 years.  She had been ill for many years prior to that so she must have made them when she was in her sixties or before so they are at least 40 years old.

What was her thinking?  I have no idea.  She was a very precise woman.  I imagine that any quilt she would have made would have been very uniform and symetric in design so not sure what she had in mind when she made these.

I think I am going to just join them all into a random patchwork quilt.  We need a new quilt for our queen size bed we use in the spring and summer downstairs in the sunroom.

To my reckoning I have 36 sq feet when made up which is 6' x 6'.  That isn't big enough so I will have to add some squares.  Mine will pale in comparison to hers.  I will not attempt to make them like she did, she had many, many years of practice on me in the quilt making field.  I will probably use some of the squares and rectangles and sew them together to make 12" x 12" squares.  I will add a border too.

But that is down the road a bit.  First I want to make the baby quilt I talked of in my previous post.

I looked at different tutorials online but found this to be the best suited for my immediate needs:-

Fiskars tutorial to make a baby quilt for beginners

I have everything I need I think except the fabric cutter.  I am really surprised I didn't find one in my Mum in law's things as she always had  the best of everything.  I did look for them in our local Walmart store and they sell the Fiskar's ones so I will purchase one soon.  Don't really need it right now as I have so many shapes already cut out in my treasure haul.

Finding all this stuff has made me want to re-do my sewing/knitting room.  It is really our spare bedroom so still has a bed in it.  I want to take it out and put in a big work table for projects.  Trouble is, it is our spare bedroom and may need to use it at some point so I am still pondering on that.  I use the bed now anyway to lay out projects but a table would be sooooo much better.  I thought about a sleeper bed but not really the answer due to space restrictions.  Taking the bed out and putting in a sofa wouldn't leave enough room for a nice work table.  There is a solution I know, just have to keep pondering.

Oh just had a brainwave of sorts. Blogging does so help me think things through.  Maybe I could get a folding table and place it over the bottom of the bed.  Have to go measure now and research folding tables.  That might just work. (Clapping hands in glee)