Idea Books

I love books, patterns, and magazines.  You can tell that very quickly when you walk into my house.  Sometimes my love for these things must be contained and controlled.  Grannie and I used to joke that we promised not to buy another magazine or pattern book until we had done at least one project from it.  Or if we went to quilt shows, we could not go to another show until we did one of the patterns that we had bought from it.

Then we decided that was just too hard a rule to live by!

However, because of limited space, I've had to start going through my bookshelves to make room for newer items.  Grannie started doing the same thing....so she sent her magazines to me!  That of course did not help my situation.  Over the Christmas holidays and snow days when I couldn't or didn't want to get out, I seriously started organizing my bookshelves (books and container) that held nothing but quilting magazines.  Then I did something that causes women all over the quilting world to cringe....

I torn out pages!

Here is a box of magazines that I went through...now ready to go somewhere else.  My aunt has a quilting guild, but she didn't want me to tear out pages.  I figured if I shelled out the money for the magazines....it was okay if I wanted to tear out pages!  There is still some good stuff in them...just not stuff that captured my attention.  (And just so you know....this makes my 3rd trip through these magazines before I finally said "enough!")

The ideas/patterns that caught my eye now have a special place....my idea book.

I cut the pages with all the instructions out and then the patterns.  These I do make copies of because most of the time the patterns are on tear-out sheets along with every other pattern mentioned in the magazine.  I then make a little folder to hold the patterns (taped to the back of insignificant pages, like ads) and then put the entire selection in a clear page protector and add it to a large notebook with all my other captured ideas.  Then when I want to do that project, I simply pull this page from the notebook and go to work.

I really thought this is my own idea (maybe suggested in one of those magazines!) until my daughter was working with me one day.  She started laughing because she told me she does the same thing (a little differently of course).  Then I asked Grannie about the pattern for her Royale Aster and she told me the pattern was in her idea book (which holds patterns of all the projects she had done in the past).

Now I find that my mother also had an idea book with torn out magazine pages.  She also noted on hers if she did the project and when...her book is more like a calendar really because she did something every month.

As I was going through Mother's patterns, this Floating Star pattern looked really familiar.  I grabbed my idea book and there it was....seems we had the same taste.  Only thing...I got my pattern from a magazine...we should have compared idea books before shopping!

Let's not leave Grannie Lewis out of this silliness...because that woman also kept her ideas...just in a different way.  Grannie Lewis did a lot of pattern exchanges.  I have envelopes of all kinds of patterns that she received through the mail (still in the envelopes!)...not a lot of instructions, but one day I intend to figure them out for myself.  I made a notebook with just her patterns and samples that she made.  This is a page where she was doing a sampler quilt and listed what each block would be and what color (I have the patterns for most of these from her too).

Then she had this block that I really loved and I made my own pattern for it and added it to her book (with the block)....another project I want to do one day.

So what do you do with all your ideas or "someday I'll do" projects?