Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Dealing With Leftover Binding

I try to be organized, really I do, but my best laid plans sometimes goes astray.  I keep a lot of "valuable" stuff that is related to my quilting construction.  Small pieces of tear away, fusibles, freezer paper etc.  I have designated a drawer in a cabinet for these items, along with other paper and pencil type items.  I keep the small items cut from other projects in a labeled expanding folder for ready access.  Well, sometimes some of those items will just be tossed in the drawer to be "filed" when I have the time.  Yesterday I went to find some freezer paper for applique and the drawer was  in disarray.  Bits and pieces of different products, along with a surprise. tangled among the papers was various left over pieces and spools of binding.  Becoming a little frustrated with trying to untangle my mess and muttering "why did I put binding in here and this is not what I want to be doing right now" I started pulling all the binding out, got my freezer paper and rearranged the other items into their respective homes and closed the drawer.
Now I have a pile of binding out, I've been trying to rid my studio of clutter not add to it!  Ok, what are my options, I go to the drawer that holds my binding.  AH HA that's why the binding was in the other drawer, I couldn't get another piece of binding in that drawer if my life depended on it. In fact some of the binding sprung out at me as if it wanted to run away. Since I almost always use a 2" strip for my binding I could press it open and put it in with my 2" strips for scrap quilts, but I had worked hard to press it double and my heart just wasn't in to undoing that process, since pressing binding is not one of those jobs I relish doing.
While browsing through the strips of binding, I notice that a lot of the pieces are in my strips drawers for cutting into scrap quilts, so my decision is to sewing them all together and make scrap binding for my next scrap quilt or more likely my next 10 scrap quilts.  I'm going to roll it like a ball of yarn and keep adding to it.  As time allows I will rescue the binding from the overflowing binding drawer and keep adding to my ball of binding that will reside in a basket next to my sewing machine for ready access.  Isn't there a  place that houses the largest ball of twine somewhere?  Maybe I will have the largest ball if binding someday.  Keep a smile on your face and enjoy your journey.

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