Use it up ... make it do ... feel triumphant!!

We moved from a large house in Nebraska - 4+ years ago - to a very small condo here on the Oregon coast.  I'm a quilter - and we have stuffed the condos to the max to get in my treasures!!!  Don't tell DH I admitted this!!

I was going thru quilt storage last month ... okay, I admit it - I was looking for a certain quilt and couldn't find it.  I had to unstack; sort thru and cuss a little [a lot] before I stumbled on the right pillowcase filled with summer wall quilts!  Yes, a pillow case STUFFED!  Too much!

So when I was putting them all away, trying to come up with a better storage system I made a pile of "I don't love you any mores."  What to do with them?  These are obviously not my favorites - and boy, are they in the way. 

My daughter always said she wanted all my quilts because 'I made her sit quietly during tv shows when I was working on them' LOL!!!  ... but seriously, with a 'thrifting hobby' in a house with little storage; a sweet husband, 2 adorable preschoolers and 2 rambunctious dogs ... I don't think she's interested in the ones I don't want ... we DO have the same tastes!!

The bulkiest were some old pillow shams I made to go with my sunflower quilt.  Here is the picture of this wonderful ensemble in our bedroom in Nebraska ...

I miss that bedroom.  But those shams were the project from Hades!!  Making ruffle; adding wide eyelet, coming up with my own pattern; with my attention span and retention!!!  Well, I admitted it was the 'Keystone Cops doing shams!!'  at the time. But lovely on the bed, nevertheless!!

We now have a lovely soft blue bed.  The yellows and olive greens do not look lovely on it.  I love the quilt - but it's the quilt under the bedspread now.  Those shams were never going to be used again!

And, man, were they weird-looking things off the bed!  They were king-sized and that double ruffle was awkward.  They looked like, well - coffin covers!  Enough to give you nightmares.  Nobody was going to want them - ever!

Maybe I could put them together to make a wall quilt?  I ruthlessly cut the ruffled edges off - whack - with a rotary cutter.  But then, laying on our green kitchen table, I noticed it was a nice size for a table runner!!

So back to the drawing board ... prepare seam ripper!!  I ripped all those strips of ruffle apart.  I saved the eyelet for Miss P's kindergarten quilt's matching pillow!  And I un-ruffled yards of the green; ironed it flat, trimmed it and used it for the binding.  TaDa!  Two table runners.  One's on the kitchen table and one's on the coffee table - for now!  I remember how much I love those sunflowers - and I feel soooo triumphant getting them out of the closet and usable again!!

On the coffee table - had to be - it's just the right size for it!!

On the kitchen table - you can see our weather is still foggy and grey out there today!
Now if I can just figure out what to do with the rest of them!!!  Anyone interested in a 'doni original'??

On a side note - is anyone watching "Boss" on Starz??  Just read about it in a magazine FIVE days before it gets wiped off "On Demand".  There's only 8 episodes in the first season - easy peasy without commercials - if you're retired!!  The second season is starting next month.  It was pretty good!  If you have the technology - watch it!!

Just saying!