A woolly Christmas story

If you love fabric like I do, 

you already know this story,

or one like it.

It starts like this: Someone gave me a box of fabric.

In my case, it was a friend of a friend of a friend's mother

who was moving to a smaller home

and didn't need years of stockpiled fabric.

I took some vintage cotton prints, each carefully folded and marked with the yardage,

as well as an Eaton's department store box marked

"Wool patches for blanket or quilt:"

Fast forward a year of not doing anything with it

until the time came earlier this month to open it.

I found a newspaper from 1962 on the top of the box,

and neatly stacked piles of wool patches

as well as off cuts from men's wool pants.

This woman was a saver, 

and she had carefully collected wool for several years.

The newspaper on the bottom of the box was from June 1957.

Even after 60 years in a box, none of the fabric

had moth holes in it.

My longtime blog readers know I can't resist someone else's scraps

and this box of possibilities held beautiful Harris tweeds and double faced wool 

and many checks and twills.

Meanwhile, I was also asked to provide the children's story at my church during Advent,

which in this case works out to three Sundays because one was taken by the children's pageant.

The script called for a woodworker to talk about the process of  building fine furniture,

but since the woodworkers of the church had declined,

someone decided maybe a quilter or sewer could modify the script.

Cue the box of possibilites!

So within a week of showing the children the carefully packaged box,

I had a quilt top!

I squared all the pieces to 8 inches wide,

and only cut up the dark navy and black pieces

to use as contrast between the mostly browns and camels and greys.

Here you can see a closeup of some of the lovely textures and weaves.

So on the second Sunday of Advent, I brought a mostly finished top

and asked the littles to help me sew the final seam.

They drove my 1956 Singer Featherweight 222K

while I steered.

They were so engrossed with the job that we kept sewing

during the choir song following the story.

This week my job is to baste and quilt it

in time for Sunday's story.

I decided not to include the double-faced wool samples,

since they were much thicker than the rest of the fashion fabrics,

and I rolled them through the die cutter

to make these double heart ornaments.

The red ones are made from felted boiled wool passed on by a friend.

Each of my little sewing friends got a heart ornament for their Christmas tree

and my quilt guild took the rest,

so this box of possibilities is already part of many homes right now.

I think there's lots of lessons in this box:

1. I remembered how much I like working with wool because of its texture and hand

2. Someone else's cast offs can become your treasures

3. Children are fascinated by sewing machines, and it is not hard to get them engaged,

especially if you let them touch the machinery

4. Lots of people can enjoy what's inside a long-hoarded box of wool patches

5. Improv piecing looks great with wool

6. and there's no time like now to get to that long planned project.

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network

and WIPs on Wednesday.