But then there was the bag of booties. Way back in the day (when I was an infant), babies were given knitted or crocheted booties, which they immediately kicked off. Now, babies wear onesies with feet in them; like so many old traditions, booties have become obsolete. But there were many pairs of them, along with a couple of kidskin booties that actually show some wear, and a pair of long, handknit, woolen baby stockings. My mother told me that these were pinned to the diaper (!) when worn in the Minnesota winter; this in the days before rubber or plastic pants were available, and long before disposable diapers. Imagine the state of the woolen stockings and the dirty diaper. Gack. And of course, they had to be washed by hand and carefully dried. These are essentially felted from multiple washings.
Anyway, I had to come up with a use for these artifacts, so I stuffed them all with Polyfil and replaced any rotted ribbons.
I've made the block in several sizes, using my naturally dyed stash fabrics. I'm not sure where this is going, but think the booties will be walking somewhere on the final product.
I also finished a donation for the SAQA silent auction held at its conference in San Jose in April. This is made from one of the crocheted squares I wrote about earlier. It has been dyed, paintsticked and stitched.