All stash, No cash

I made a deal with myself a while back, that in between projects made with newly purchased fabric, I would have to make at least one or two things from my stash only.  Or at least 80% stash fabric.  Sometimes it's more like 50%.  I'm so bad about deals with myself.  After all who's gonna know?  Just me, and I win either way!  Anyway, this weekend I threw all my other projects under the bus to make this table runner with nothing but stash.

There were two new things I wanted to try, and this was just the right project.  First I used a new product (well new to me anyway) called Fusiboo.  It's fusible bamboo batting.  That's right, no pinning or basting!  Just make your quilt sandwich and then press with an iron.  The resin in the batting gets activated by the heat of the iron and sticks to your fabric.  This worked ok I guess, but I had to keep going over it with the iron as I went along.  The instructions are for small craft projects, wall hangings etc. , and I can see why.  A bigger quilt may not hold together.  I had a few places on the back that folded and I had to pick out, something I don't usually get when I pin.  By the way, the resin washes out when you launder your quilt.  Check out this pretty blue quilt, made with fusible batting.

The other thing I tried this time around was machine binding.   I first read about it here, and then I found a great tutorial over at Red Pepper Quilts.  Usually you machine sew the binding to the quilt top, then fold to the back and finish by hand.  Love that part.  Right up there with weaving in 1 million ends on a crochet blanket.  But ladies this worked!  

This was a HUGE time saver.  I am glad to have tried it out on a small table runner, because I did miss here and there, but as with anything else, it just takes some practice.

De-stashing.  Kind of like hair removal.  Has to be done once in a while : )