Weekly report on the Big Grey Tote

 I've been digging deeper into that Big Grey Tote that surfaced when I moved a table in my sewing room at the end of February.  Since then I've been dealing with some of the things hiding in that tote.  A few things have been thrown away, some have been given away.  Probably a lot of things will end up being repurposed, like this . . .

The surprising find this week was this book and the 7 random blocks I had made from the book.  Last year I used the first of these Farmer's Wife books and made a huge queen sized quilt with a friend.  We challenged ourselves to make 2 blocks a week until all 111 of the 6.5" blocks were done.  Both of us have completed quilts that wouldn't have happened without the accountability of doing them together.  My finished Farmer's Wife quilt is currently on my bed.  

I had totally forgotten that the 1930s version of the book was somewhere in my sewing room since it wasn't on a shelf with my other books.  Instead it was buried in that tote - with 7 random blocks from 30s reproduction prints.  If memory serves me correctly, I made these blocks when we lived in our previous house.  That makes these at least 18 years old.  I'm sure I didn't like them together, so that's probably why they ended up abandoned in the bottom of that tote when we moved.  My plan is to make mug rugs from those orphan blocks, and the book is back on the shelf.  

The green pepper hot pad pieces (also buried in that tote) are seeing daylight.  I actually have one of them totally done, quilted and bound.  A second one has been quilted, but not bound yet. So, 2 of them will be hot pads with Insulbrite inside.  I'm not sure if I'll do the Insulbrite in all of them, so some might become mug rugs with just batting inside.