Thinking inside the box(es)

I have not posted in a while due to a busy schedule of home improvement projects, family get-togethers, travels to OBX, and spending time at our cabin fishing for the big bass and tasty trout.  However, I have been able to chisel out some time for some quilt related activities.  I have a few quilts nearing completion but most of what I could do needed to be mobile projects that did not require a sewing machine and could be done at our mountain cabin.  

Some of the things that I worked on included sorting and culling down my magazine collection, sorting my boxes and bags of scraps, cutting the aforementioned scraps into shapes and sizes for future projects and hand quilting the bindings onto sandwiched quilts.  I also managed to sort my quilting tips, tricks and patterns that I have printed and clipped over the last 25 years or so into plastic sleeves and file them by category into binders. 

One of my favorite sizes that I cut my scraps into is 2.5 inch squares.  I use my Accuquilt die to cut the larger scrap pieces and rotary cutter to cut the smaller scrap pieces as a way to make the best use of the fabric.  I can cut 54 squares in one pass on my Accuquilt cutter which makes the task go by very quickly.  I cut a variety of shapes from my scraps but I will leave that topic for a future post.  

Since I have accumulated a large number of 2.5" squares, I decided to make a lap quilt from them.  I have made this pattern once before when I was finishing UFO projects in 2016.  You can see that quilt in my May 2016 list of quilts.  

I didn't use a commercial pattern for the quilt but decided to just wing it with the squares I had on hand and fabrics from my stash for the sashing, cornerstones, backing and binding.  The quilting was done by me on my Bernina 350.  The one now in progress will follow the same process.  

This is a very versatile pattern since it can be made in a variety of sizes by changing the number of blocks and/or altering the number and width of borders. 

This leads into the reason for the title of this post.  

My quilt uses 12 blocks containing 36 squares each.  Doing the math, that equals 432 squares that need to be managed.  Each block measures 15" before sewing.  I lay out each block on my Big Board as the squares are selected. 

 I don't have the room for a design wall but I needed to find a way to store the squares for each block so they remained together and in some semblance of order.  I looked at baskets and trays and plastic bags but nothing met my needs.  I looked for boxes that had compartments but none of them had the right size for storing the squares.  Then I visited a Container Store near my home and found the perfect storage system.  It has stackable plastic boxes that have 3" compartments, perfect for 2.5" squares. I chose boxes with 6 compartments and purchased 4 of them along with a coordinating cover for the top of the stack.  They were also reasonably priced!  

Each compartment is the perfect size to hold the 36 squares for each block.  My quilt will need 12 compartments, or 2 boxes.  I use another box for the sashing cornerstones and extra squares just in case. The top box is covered which is allows me to take it when I travel to our cabin.  The 4th box is for future use.  

So, you may have heard of wine in a box, I now have a quilt in a box!  The cost was less than $35 dollars.  These boxes are available on line as well.

These are called "Pure Boxes" and come in a variety of sizes and number of compartments.  An answer to my prayers!

Do something happy today!