Inspired by Pinterest

I spend a lot of time (an hour or more most days) surfing Pinterest.  My Pinterest account grew so rapidly when I first started it, that it got to the stage I couldn't find what I was looking for, which defeats the whole purpose of having a Pinterest account!  So I set up categories for my various interest (cats, peacocks, mermaids, embroidery, patchwork, paper crafts, calligraphy, etc. etc.) and as time went on I subdivided those categories even further to narrow down the variations.
 The patchwork and quilting category has now been divided into Batiks, Panels, Mug Rugs, Table Runners and anything else relating to quilting.

One of the benefits to me of having hundreds of photos to look at, is that they give me ideas on what to do with my stash.  How often do you buy some fabric because you like it, but don't have any purpose in mind at the time?  It is how I acquire most of my fabric - just because I like it.  I rarely buy fabric for a specific pattern because I try to use what I have.  But I have got to the stage of being cross with myself for having so much fabric sitting there without a purpose, and I find that going through my saved photos on Pinterest provides ideas.  I see a finished product, and I can picture it made up with my own fabrics.  I don't consider this stealing patterns, as what I do is very simple stuff, based on the basic quilting concepts of rows, four square patches, etc. and there is no copyright to worry about.   It just gives me a starting point to use my fabrics.

For instance, I have had this scrap of Xmas fabric in my stash for a couple of years.  Can't even remember where I got it - maybe from the opshop, or the remnants bin at the Guild.  Anyway, it was too pretty to leave lying around, so I took it home.

Every Christmas I have dug it out with all the other themed fabrics, and thought What can I do with this?  One of the photos I recently saved on my Pinterest account was a table runner, with a border design fabric similar to this, running the full length of a runner, with another fabric along each side.  Ah ha!  Just the thing.  My piece of fabric was obviously left over from a border fabric of some kind, so I had to add a bit to each end to tidy it up.  Then I surrounded it with the green and gold fabric I had left over from something else, and backed it with another Xmas fabric which was exactly the right size.  Black binding to finish it off, and tra la - a nice little runner for this year's festive season!

I have had this particular piece of material for years,buried at the bottom of my stash.  Everytime I had a cleanout, I would think I should get rid of it, I'll never use it.

 But again on Pinterest, I saw a table cloth that someone had made using  a similar design of fabric, with a scene running along the edge and plain colours to divide the blocks.  Hard to describe, but as soon as I saw it I dragged out my fabric and after I'd taken this photo, I cut the scenes into four separate pieces,   That will be my next project after a Xmas swap item that I must do next :-)