W.I.T.H.W.I.T.

What In The Heck Was I Thinking?

WITHWIT is normally used when a quilter finds some fabric in her stash that is remarkably ugly and she can't remember why she bought it.
In my case, I just didn't think far enough down the chain when I bought my fabric from the US. You see, I believe in washing and ironing quilt fabric before using it, except when I really want the crinkly look in my quilts.
So no fabric enters my stash until it's been washed and ironed. That means my entire haul from Keepsake, and from the two quilt shops in the Netherlands that I visited on my way back from Essen on Wednesday, all needed to be washed and ironed.
So on Saturday I washed. And ironed. And washed. And ironed. Here is the result.

Hard to imagine that stack contains

• 100 FQ from the Keepsake Winter Scrap Bag
• 24 FQ from two other collections
• 20 10" squares
• Half a dozen long quarters
• Various other small bits, each a FQ or less

Almost 35 yards in all. The first stack of FQ I carried to the laundry room, which is an unheated, tile-lined room in the basement. By the time I got all of the FQ unfolded and put in the washer, my fingers were numb. The next load I unfolded upstairs in the warm living room.
What I learned while preparing so much fabric:

• My machine has a wool/handwash setting which washes the fabric without unraveling it too much
• Just spinning is far better than even a short time in the dryer
• Letting the fabric sit for a while in the drum lets some of the moisture escape, making ironing easier
• Sometimes it's worth taking the ironing board upstairs to a heated room
• It took 2 1/2 cans of sizing/starch and 4 1/2 DVDs to iron it all
• The best movie out of the ones I watched? Mord ist Mein Geschäft, Liebling. Love that film!