Prepifestivus!

Piles and Piles of Pattern Piece Pages

So... I was at my Dear Jane bee yesterday and what do I find sitting on the table tucked behind the lemonade, leaning against the wall all unobtrusivelike? A humble paper bag stuffed with a big old pile of paper, the word "Free" scrawled across it in black magic sharpie. I hesitantly peek inside and lo and behold?? Can we all join hands, rock back and forth and say... JACKPOT?? piles and packets and parcels of pre-printed Dear Jane pattern piece pages... ppppppppppppppp As if that wasn't great enough, many of them were printed on what appears to be Carol Doak foundation paper. : ) yeee haw! I double checked with the hostess and sure enough, she said they were cast-offs from a previous incarnation of a Dear Janer group and we were free to take and use. Once I culled through it, it turned out there were about 100 patterns - just about half of the 225 needed for this project... about $10 worth of specialty paper, about $10 in ink (I swear, that friggin ink!) and of course HOURS of labor. Boy, was I happy. It was like Christmas for a quilter! : )

the loot!

the pile included three complete sides of triangles for a total of 39 block patterns...
here I am referencing my triangle directory (sorted by side)

I highlighted the triangles I got printed patterns for in this windfall...
Since I had already printed some of the top row, it looks like
I just have about 5 or 6 to print and I'm done with triangles.

This is my view inserting each pattern into a page protector
(see the new, giant box of 200 back there?) After a year of working
on this quilt I am almost done with prep. Oh, ok - I still have to cut out
all of these friggin patterns... : )

...and the final prep stage - the cut pattern pieces ready to go...

Storage and Binderization:

It started with one binder. I was all cocky with my fancy one-touch binder and my page protectors and my tabbed divider pages and binder geek accessories. (binder geek right here). I heard people in.the.know saying you need 2 or 3 binders for this gig. Sure enough, now I'm up to three and contemplating a fourth. I have a generic, general one. And then I have two enclosed/zipper binders - one for triangles/corners and one for the regular blocks. Since the one for regular blocks is basically maxed out with just the pattern pieces, and only about 25 blocks, I am going to have to make another move. The other thing I wanted to do was have a work/portable case. One of the binders would be great for that since they zip up. The work case would have a couple blocks' worth of patterns & fabric, a small cutting board, sandpaper board, and misc. supplies. So yeah, I guess I probably need to buy TWO more binders for a total of 5. This is an undertaking, man, I tell you. But I'm loving every minute of it. The other thing I need to get on top of is keeping track of fabrics used. I have been setting them aside and cutting some swatches, but I have already goofed this up a few times and I need a system.