Still Quilting..............Sorting Magazines too

Well, I am still quilting the center of the class quilt. Sadly, I had to rip out a whole section of quilting because I had a pleat on the back. What a pain in the derriere! Ripping out machine quilting is the stuff of nightmares. I repaired the section, but I don't think this quilt is going to be one of my best pieces, though. Sigh.....it happens to all of us at one time or another.

I haven't given up hope completely, though. I used a Fairfield batting that is 80 percent cotton and 20 percent poly. It's the first time that I've used this brand and I really like the feel of the batting and its thin-ness. I did not prewash the batting so it's possible that when I launder the quilt (after I apply the binding, of course) that it will pucker up nicely as the batting shrinks a little bit and will cover up my less than perfect quilting. We shall see.

In the meantime, I've also begun to downsize my collection of quilting magazines. I do this a few times a year. This a a good thing, too, because the magazines seem to multiply like rabbits -- I mean, did I actually buy all of these magazines? Oh, yeah, my quilt friends and I share magazines so some of them come from our magazine exchange, too. The bottom line, though, is that I have too many magazines.

How do you sort your magazines? I have a three part reduction plan:

1) I look through each magazine. If there are a lot of designs that I like and might want to make, I keep the magazine and write the date on the front that I decided to keep it. These magazines go in small clear plastic storage boxes. Small ones, so that I can actually move the boxes by myself and I don't feel like I've been hit with an avalanche of magazines when I'm looking in a box for a specific one. Someday, I'd like to add a list on the top of each box with its contents, but I haven't gotten there yet.

2) If I find one or two designs that I like, I rip them out and staple the pages together. The ripped designs then are put in a file box, organized by type of project (wall quilt, baby quilt, bed quilt, holiday, etc.). I then initial the cover of the magazine and this will go to our friends magazine share (I initial it so that I know that I've already looked at it). Once the magazine has made its way around to everyone, we recycle the remainder.

3) If I'm not interested in any of the designs, I put these intact magazines aside to use as giveaways for my quilt class or donations or yard sales, etc.

I still keep whole magazines, but not as many as I used to because I used to save them all. Perhaps my system will help you to create your own magazine reduction plan.