Design Wall Monday 6/24/2013

Do you recognize these fabrics?  These are blocks I made for a love quilt using the rectanbgles I showed previously.  I made two from Mom's stash and signed her name to them.  They are all on their way to be included in the top.

Next up is my Feedsack Patches top,  I made the inner border and have pinned the first one on to be sewn.  I broke the needle threader on my Janoime so wasted time with threading the machine.  Grr!!

I spent more time tweaking things in the sewing room.  Putting things away mainly.  At this rate I shoiuld be done by NEVER!  Ah well.  Progress is progress,  Trying to squelch the startitis and feed the finishitis!!

See more design walls at Judy's.

Quilty hugs.

Tweaking My Sewing Space

Power was out again for about an hour last night while the boyfriend continued with some wiring projects.  I made good use of the time.  I grabbed my son and had him help me put things away in the sewing room or remove items that I did not want in there.  I have freed up some good floor space and now need to figure out what is next.  Trust me there is plenty of "opportunity" in there.

Regardless of the state the sewing room is in after tonight, I will take pics to show you tomorrow.  Pillowcases are done and delivered.  Onto quilty things!

Quilty hugs.

Altering Pillowcases

WHAT?!?!???

Yes.  You read correctly.  I am altering pillowcases.  You see, I have this nice neighbor that likes to help.  She came down and helped me fold all that stash that you saw in my cabinets a few posts back.  She asked me if I would shorten her king cases to standard.  I said go get those cases and bring one the size that you want. 

POOF!!  She was gone and back with 4 cases.  3 to alter and one to use as my pattern.  I thought having a sample eliminated any communication issues.  Well boyfriend decided he needed to turn some of the power off to the house but he turned off most of the power to the house in the middle of our sewing session.  Note: dinner was on the stove as well.  Power stayed on for the stove but not the sewing machine.  He planned that didn't he?

Power back on.  Dinner eaten.  Three cases sewn for the first seam to shorten.  One sewn to French seam it.  One case delivered so the neighbor could test drive it on her pillow.  All is good.  Two more French seams to go.

Anyone see the irony in all this?  Let's add that I am ironing these cases to make sure the seam is nice and neat.  Hey, I sewed didn't I?  And no one wanted to see pictures of store bought  pillowcases did they?

Quilty hugs!

Scouts Honor

See what happens when you open one too many boxes?  I was a girl scout a "few" years ago.  I even have the belt that goes with this.  I promised no more decluttering posts until I posted a sewy post.  Here it is!  Keep reading.

I vowed to sew last night.  After running one little errand willingly and another one unwillingly I got busy cutting.  I had lots of interruptions but persevered and accomplished the following.  I realized this a.m. that I had miscut some of the background pieces not shown here.  Luckily they are too big so can be cut down.  Maybne tonight I will actually use the machine!  Come back to see what I am making.

This activity last night was a good test run for me.  I need to put more things away and probably remove a few things to a better home.  It's feeling a little crowded in there.  Taking a break from decluttering was a good thing since it shows me what I need to work on.

Boxes and boxes and life lessons

I continued to open boxes and sort and put away and toss all weekend.  My version of taking a break was to work in my bedroom and go through my clothing to get rid of things I no longer wear or is damaged in some way, etc.  Not exactly the break I needed but it was different from opening boxes.  My boyfriend took me out for a ride on the motorcycle for a little while yesterday.  Of course all I could think about while we rode were those cursed boxes! 

I have decided to move everything into my garage that is probably going into the attic or out the door or needs a bigger sort once combined with it's like content boxes that are already in the garage.  There are two columns of boxes at least 5 feet tall waiting for my son to put out there.

Here is a bit of a history,,,,,

When I lost my husband I wasn't really forced to deal with all the stuff.  I pushed myself and donated a lot of things.  No where near enough but a good amount.  When the fire happened everything was taken out of the house and cleaned by someone else.  When it came time to bring it all back I was really forced to deal with things.  I did NOT want to cram it all back into the house.  I had a garage full and two storage units full that I could work in and bring back into the house only what I truly wanted.  I set a one month goal to get the smaller storage unit cleaned out.  I met that goal but also moved some of the items to the garage or the big storage unit.

I worked on the garage and got rid of a lot of big items.  I ultimately made enough room to empty the big storage unit onto my driveway.  That was another major sort that resulted in lots of items given away and a good amount put into the garage.  At that time a big stack of boxes were brought into the house for me to work on.  After this sort there was a months long break from working on this stuff.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  My boyfriend has moved in which resulted in me needing to make room for him.  He is squeezed in right now.  I asked him to just let me know if there is a certain area he wants me to work on and I will tackle it right away.  He's only asked for two areas and both were addressed.  He knew that I was going to grab boxes that I thought belonged in my sewing room and concentrate on those because it accounted for the majority of items that needed to be put away.  I made huge progress and even had the help of a neighbor to fold all the fabric.  I am being careful not to overstuff that room and know that I am reaching the end of the available space.

This whole process has been very frustrating and I ultimately agreed to put a large number of things from the garage into the attic so that I would have room to move around and I could continue to sort.  This resulted in over 2/3rds of the garage being emptied.  Now I find myself putting things back into the garage and feeling like this is a small step backwards.  I realize it isn't but can't help feel that way.

So there is a life lesson in here?  Are you ready? 

When my Mother passed away I took some clothing of hers, her jewelry and her sewing stash and patterns.  I was able to bring home the things I cared about the most in 2 13 gallon bags and a paper grocery sack.  There are two sewing machines that I will retrieve at a later date but that really isn't that much.  She has lots of nice, pretty things but when I was told by my father to get what I wanted because he was getting rid of everything that is what I took. 

This led me to talk to my kids about what is important to them in my belongings.  Apparently not much so my editing eye has really been opened and changed on what is important.  I let the kids know that just because it wasn't important to them didn't mean I was getting rid of it.  My daughter is ready to haul ALL of it away. 

Before Mom had passed I had already been through the contents  of many of my boxes and had chosen what was important to me.  Now I am going through these boxes again and some of the things I thought were important have lost their meaning to me.  I like many of these items but I just have so many.  I am really ready to let go of a lot more.  It has gotten easier to make these decisions.  I think that is the progress I should mark and be most proud of.

So this week I will still be sorting and culling and putting away but I am going to feel more relaxed about it.  I AM going to sew a little too.  Because that is important to me too.  No more talk of boxes unless I have quilty pics to share.  I promise!!

Quilty hugs!

Out of Balance

When I do something I usually focus on that one thing to the exclusion of everything else.  Right now I am sorting out my craft treasures, decluttering and organizing.  This is really a sub piece of the overall task of cleaning out the garage of all the boxes.  I eat, drink, sleep and dream opening boxes.  I have been at this task for going on 2 weeks now (on the most recent iteration) and quite frankly I am feeling burned out.  I am quite cranky too.

Last night I decided to take a little break and drove over to meet the group that sits and knits/crochets at the REC center.  When I got there they were not in their usual place.  I asked if they were still meeting and was told it was next week.  I left frustrated because this was to be some fun time for me.  I went back home and pouted for a minute, had a wine cooler on the patio, went to visit the neighbor for a short time and then returned home to cook and then work on organizing my bathroom and bedroom area.  While eating something came up that took up quite a bit of time and caused a lot of unhappiness.  By this time I was so frustrated I just went to bed and did nothing else.

I know part of my problem is that I get pretty inflexible when I set my mind to a task.  If I have something planned I want to follow that plan to it's completion.  I don't usually allow for anything else when I get in this mode.  I am sure a few of you that know me personally might be surprised but then again maybe not.  I don't show this side too often.

So what is the answer?  I think it is that I need to allow for interruptions because they always happen.  I need to schedule in some fun time through the process but not get upset if it doesn't happen.  Honestly when I get on a roll I am quite happy to stick with a not so fun task as long as I am accomplishing a lot.

You will probably find me hard at work on that garage this weekend with no real change to my original plan.  I will try to take my breaks sitting in my chair in my sewing room.  Maybe something will catch my interest enough to make me forget all these boxes and want to sew instead of declutter.  Who knows.  I just want to be done.  Should I post some before pictures to keep me motivated on the decluttering?  You know that will just make me more determined and set in finishing that task and not doing anything else.

Am I a strange duck or are you like this too?

State of my Stash

When you walk into my sewing room this is what you see.  Most of my stash has been folded and placed neatly on shelves.  I have containers here and there with FQs in them, a few odd pieces here and there and then my mother's stash.  I want to keep hers separate so have to decide how that will be accomplished.

What an eye opening experience this has been.  There is a shelf on the far right at the bottom that is fully visible in this picture.  There is also some fabric sitting on my chair.  I am not sure if you can see it but this represents all my self made kits.  I know that I probavly would not make all that in a year.  Let's assume that I could though.  I have 7 more shelves full of fabric that is GREATER than my kit shelf plus all the FQs stacked in the center.  I'm going to not sweat it and just use what I use and give what I give.  I know that I have NO desire to acquire more.

I will be sorting through all my quilting paraphenalia and storing that in the coming days.  My hope is to know where everything is and sew like crazy.  There is plenty more from other hobbies that something has to be done about.  At this point I am going to store what I can in my sewing room without junking it up.  I will be creating a staging area where I can get easy access to the rest.  We'll see how that plan works out.

I hope to be sharing some of my work with you very soon.  Trying to get the rest of the house back into some semblence of order.  Organizaing and decluttering sure is messy work!

Quilty hugs.

Another Project

I received two "sleeves" last year as a gift.  There were instructions on what to do with them.  I immediately recognized them as "hot dog" pillowcases.  I've been grabbing things randomly and sewing them.  I need to stop starting and start finishing.

Here is the reveal after step 1.  Aren't they pretty?  After a good pressing I will French seam them.  A quick, fun project.

Quilty hugs.

Swooze

Stash Report and a Sewing Machine

I haven't added anything since I inherited my mothers stash.  I've sewn some this week so progress on using it up.  2 months or so ago I bought a 1/2 yd cut of a sale fabric just because.  I look at that piece of fabric and do not feel happiness over possessing it.  It will serve as a reminder to me to buy by need only because I have plenty that I already love.

The machine you see above was bought for me by my DD.  I didn't know her plan.  She bought it because it was pretty.  She spent $50 on it.  There is no bobbin, bobbin cover, spool pin or foot pedal.  I'm working with her to contact the seller to see if they have any if these pieces.  If DD doesn't care if I use it or not I will just shine it up and put it on display for now.

Quilty hugs.

Swooze

Feedsack Patches

This little quilt was gifted to me as a kit last year.  Darlene Zimmerman is the designer.  I have been trying to sew more so grabbed this to use as a leader ender.  I just need to add borders now.  Will post a better picture once the borders are added.

My Rainbow Orca Bay is in 4 sections now.  I will be pressing them tonight and assembling the sections.  Still trying to decide on borders for that one.  I have an eclectic border plan at this point.

Quilts hugs.

Swooze

Design Wall Monday

I have finished that last row since this picture was taken.  I now have four sections and will press them real good then sew them together.  I need to decide if I am going to make the original border from the Orca Bay pattern or if I will make simple HSTs.

To see what is on other people's design walls go to Patchworktimes.

Quilty hugs.

Swooze

Stash Report

This is my mother's stash.  The white 13 gallon trash bag was all her fabric and scraps.  There is a small plastic tote on top that has three jelly rolls in it.  I will be assimilating it into my own stash over time.  I already took a small scrap and used it in my rainbow Orca Bay.  I think I will try to do that with all my future quilts.

The brown paper sack (click on photo to see full picture) contains all her patterns and books.  If nothing else she kept it simple.  When I am ready I will be culling what I won't use but it is too soon right now.  She had only one planned project that she bought for when we were together.  I washed the fabric while I was at my parents house when she passed.  We left sooner than expected and I left that fabric up there.  Oh well, I plan to get it when I go back for a visit later this year.

See Patchworktimes for more stash reports.

Happy quilting.

Swooze

MOM

My world will never be the same.  I received a call last week from the doctor at the hospital telling me I needed to get home to NY and not wait.  Mom went into the hospital on Friday for fluid build up and low blood pressure.  The treatment gave her a heart attack from which she could not recover.  They placed her on a ventilator and heart pump.

My brother and I both left Sunday a.m.  He from Louisiana and I from Texas arriving within 10 minutes of one another on Monday.  While she showed slight improvement it was clear that she would not recover and we removed her from life support on Wednesday.

We buried her yesterday on a beautiful sunny afternoon.  She is just down the hill from her parents and on the same road from her two baby daughters.  I smile when I think that she now has the opportunity to finish raising my sisters.  I will miss her.

If you click here you will find some stories that I wrote about her on my blog.  She was a great quilting buddy.  I always told her I got the best Mother.

A Design Emerges

I decided to arrange my dark stars with the peach so that they would go edge to edge.  I then decided to arrange the colored stars along this row.  Of course now that I have started assembling the rows I thought of another idea for arranging the colors but I don't think I will be ripping back to do the "new idea".

There is a whole stack of 3" string blocks that act as the cornerstones in the sashing.  I think I was gifted all but one that I will need.  There were 4 pink ones.  Guess where those are destined.  Then the rest are almost evenly split between yellow/orange and blue.  I am placing the blues so that they run through the peach star rows.  The yellow/orange will be sprinkled throughout the rest of the quilt.

Can you see the plan?  Pics sure show lots of mistakes I will be fixing!

I am linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday here.

Orca Bay 2

I have a layout I am going with,  I showed pictures to a friend's grandson and he asked why I didn't put all the color in the center.  I told him I had thought about doing that.  I sewed my color blocks together so that it would be easier to move things around a little.  I have 6 separate "other" color blocks.  Yellow, purple, blue/peach, rust, maroon/batik and orange.  One epiphany I had was to layout the peach and black blocks on the diagonal and then I placed the colored stars on each side of that diagonal.  Can you see the peach going top right to bottom left through the center.

I've had fun playing with this and have sewn most of the star rows together.  I plan to continue sewing those rows together and then I can start working on the "sashing" rows.  The majority of the cornerstones are blue but I have lots of other colors too so that will be the next decision I will have to work on.

Design Wall Monday - 4/15/2013

I did not finish all the wing units but I had enough to play with the layout.  I have several sets of wings that are not red.  There are blue, purple, yellow, and rust.  I scattered the color in this layout only pooling the peach stars that I received.  I had tried putting yellow with peach but it overwhelmed the peach.  Not sure the blue is much better as it lies there quietly. 

I didn't feel like trying another layout at the time but am going to try pooling all the colors together.  I plan to start sewing pieces together that will allow me to have fewer parts to handle while trying different layouts.  Would love to hear your thoughts so far.  Pics below show two of the color spots close up.

For those with eagle eyes this is the alternate layout created ny Laura that is shown here.

Motivation?

Am I sewing because I am blogging or am I blogging because I am sewing?

85 Orca Bay Wing Units complete
23 OBWU half complete
20 OBWU strings awaiting wings

I really want to play with these on the design floor!

More Love

This is the fourth quilt I have assembled for the quiltvillehearts yahoogroup.  I was a recipient of one of their lovely quilts.  This one will be mailed off in the coming days to the quilter for the finishing touches and then sent off to the intended recipient.

I am not sure why but I LOVE red for the borders of these quilts.  One other that I assembled had a blue Hawaaiin shirt border.  Was going for the print but rest assured if I had found a 100% cotton red Hawaaiin shirt it would have been on that quilt.   One other just did not want red no matter how hard I tried.  It got a bright pink border.  I guess I really like red huh?

When I assemble these I normally work on a row at a time.  I decided to have a little fun and sewed 80 blocks into 40 pairs into 20 quads into 10 rows of 8.  At this point the rows were attached to one another at the mid point.  I laid it out on the bed and pinned it in a few places then sat down with it and finished pinning it working with halves of the quilt at a time.  It went together quickly.  I quickly added the borders the next day since I was on a sewing high.

Friday night I sewed with the girls at the church.  I was attaching wings to the string blocks.  These units are shown in a previous post.  60 are done with 68 to go.  I have wings attached to 48 of those.  I'm working on chunks at a time rather than assembly line sewing everything at once.  I find I learn little things on the way and do a better job on subsequent blocks.  I just want to get these units done so I can LAY THEM OUT!!

Hugs all.

Orca Bay and Lazy Sunday

This is the unit that is slowing my progress on Orca Bay.  I have sewn everything else possible, well almost, for this quilt trying to avoid this step.  My "wings" don't fit against my string block correctly.  My string units seem too large.  Many of the components were donated to me premade so I am not sure what the issue is.  I am a "close enough" sewer so I am just mushing them together the best I can. 

I just finished trimming the last of the string blocks so I plan to start sewing wings onto them.  I have 70 more to go and know that I end up ripping some here and there as I don't always get my point quite right.  I'd LOVE to finish these so that I can play with the layout this weekend.  We will see.  Do you see this is just a very fancy "flying geese" unit?  Bonnie called them crabs.  See the white eyes?

Are you making Lazy Sunday?  This is currently running in Quiltmaker magazine as a mystery.  Step 2 brought us one of the blocks completed.  I was fortunate to have taken a class from Bonnie on Nrw Year's for this quilt.  We were sworn to secrecy though.  I am checking in with others working from the magazine to make sure that I don't overshare.  I am going to pick this up again and get all the units of the curernt magazine step made so that I can keep up with the others doing this mystery and then hope to be DONE for the big reveal in September.

Bonnie Washed

Bonnie Hunter that is.  I have two projects that she designed currently in progress.  First up is the second Orca Bay.  I finished piecing the string blocks and am trimming them to size.  Not sure how much of a fan I am of string blocks.  It isn't the string block making as much as it is how this unit is used in this quilt. More on that when I move back to that step.

Untrimmed....

Trimmed....

I was lucky enough to take a class with Bonnie on New Years for her mystery class which is currently running in QuiltMaker.  This is Lazy Sunday.  Here are the pictures of my step 1.  Step 2 was just published.  I am waiting for others to share their pics as I don't want to overshare.  I plan to get each step finished for this quilt between Orca Bay steps.  OB makes me frustrated as I seem to use my seam ripper a bit too much. 

Are you making Lazy Sunday?

Whole Lotta Love Sewing Going On

I am part of a group that makes love quilts for members of a yahoo group when a need arises.  The first one pictured here was topped yesterday and dropped in the mail to the quilter.  I was the recipient of one of these quilts and mine was in pinks and reds.  Not sure what prompted the rainbow color choice for this one but I LOVE it.

I deboned a Hawaiian shirt for the border a la Bonnie Hunter style.  It was a fun new experience for me.  I have to become more of a scapper before I venture into that process more.  I can see how it could be addictive though.

Sadly this second quilt was started because the one above got lost in the process for a really long time.  These blocks were made to replace the above quilt.  Since the first was recovered we now had the makings for another.  A recipient has been identified and is now in progress for that person.

If it were not for these love quilts I don't think I would be doing much quilting.  I have been pushing myself to work on a second Orca Bay but just can't seem to spark to it.  I think it is just too complex, at least in my mind, for me right now.  I am going to see if I can motivate myself to finish the string blocks on that one before I abandon it for now and move onto something else.

Hugs my friends!

Folding Stash

I have been looking for the "perfect" way to fold stash.  Finally accepting that doesn't exist I used Bonnie Hunter's method and have started folding.  I still have a long way to go but it will get done soon enough.  I have cubbies to the left of this cabinet and have been putting FQs there.  Third shelf down contains "kits" that I made myself. 

I decided to work on a second Orca Bay that was Bonnie Hunter's Mystery from 2011.  I was gifted all the parts and ended up with enough for two.  The first is a flimsy at the moment.

What Have I Been Up To?

Last year while I was out of my house I took a quilt from a co-worker and agreed to work on it.  She described it as having a few tears.  When I folded back a corner it did appear to have tears but just a little worse than she described.  I did not fully open the quilt and agreed to take on the job.

When I opened it fully this is what I found.  There were pieces completely missing.  At first I tried whip stitching some of the spots closed but soon realized what an enormous task this would be.  I decided to remove all the quilting and then fix the top.  I soon realized I would never finish the task.  I finally took the entire top apart down to the individual piece and squared everything up.  If you read back through my blog you will see where I built this quilt back up from square one.  Before I did all this work I made sure everything I did was ok with the owner.

Here is the final quilted object waiting for a good wash and "going over" before returning it to it's owner.

 

Glenna Said I had to blog....

So I did....

Wingspan Triangle 2

I started the second triangle of my Wingspan shawl.  This is a free pattern on ravelry.

Go checkout what everyone else has on their hooks and needles over at Patchworktimes.

Basting a King

I brought this king quilt with me to spread out on the hotel room floor and pin baste it.  I didn't have enough pins so I concentrated on the center portion for now and will get that quilted.  Then I will be moving pins to another section so I can concentrate on that.

This is the crochet version of the WingSpan shawl.  You can get the free pattern on ravelry.  I had a big section done but realized I was working the pattern incorrectly.  I was going to frog and redo it.  I forgot it at home and will do that later.  Luckily I had my second skein with me.  I went and bought a new hook and went to work.  It does seem to be going together a lot more quickly this time/