Organization and sewing

I have finished organizing in my sewing room and have even gone through all the drawers in my desk. I am disappointed that after almost a month of working at it I have not reclaimed enough space to get rid of one of the shelf units  in my sewing closet. However I do have a bit more shelf space and things are much easier to find.

I tackled the hall closet and that still  needs more work but I did go through all of the stuff in these drawers. I bought these drawer units a long time ago and they were never quite what I wanted but they were the best I could come up with at the time. They work pretty well but waste some space which is at a premium here in our apartment. Nothing was where it belonged  and there was a lot of junk that is now in the trash. Yesterday, I had the contents of these 3 units spread out all over 2 tables and my desk when my daughter called and asked if I was up to having 2 of the great grandsons visit for a while. I put the drawer units back in the closet and everything that was scattered all over for sorting went into a clothes basket in my linen closet. Jack was amazed at how clean the room was in such a short time. The boys played in there with Play-doh for almost 2 hours. Too bad they we were having so much fun I forgot to take pictures.
Today I tackled the drawers again and the clothes basket is empty and the drawers are  labeled with the correct contents.

This week I also worked on our blocks for the BOM for our group at church. I needed to make the 12 inch and 6 inch blocks step by step before I handed out the cutting instructions. As you can see the larger block needs a bit of revision, which will be the second time I had to redo it; the first time I had one of triangle  units going in the wrong direction. The blocks spin in opposite directions on purpose as an illustration  of how it matters where you draw the stitching lines when making 3 piece triangle units.

 

Done with one

I am finished with the BOM sampler quilt, well, almost finished. I have the binding on and I have a little  bit of hand quilting left to do in a few  blocks. They need a little bit of quilting in areas I think are too large to leave unquilted so  I am dong some big stitch with embroidery floss. 

 I got the stitching done in the center of the Bridal Wreath block and I have  3 more leaves to do in the corners. I am going to do something in the center of the other lock but I haven't decided yet what it will be.

Maybe if the picture is enlarged the straight line quilting will show up in the sashing.

I decided on the border fabric for the Spiral Log Cabin quilt. The blue is  a little more aqua and the red is a little more rose in real life. I am not sure if I will use an inner border since the outer strips on every set of four blocks kind of forms a frame. I will think about it as I still  have some other things to do before I get to this one.

I decided that I will use those Picket Fence borders from my baskets for this all scrappy Disappearing Nine patch quilt. I am going to add  the borders after the body of the quilt and the borders are quilted which will  make it easier to wrestle through the machine. I think I will do the same with the Spiral Log cabin.

 I think that these few  things will keep me busy for a while. I don't anticipate finishing any other large things this year. I do have some smaller things to finish and maybe I will get to them. I have some more Zentangle ideas that I want to work on and I  will probably get some of those done started. Maybe one day I will get to  the Triple 4 patch blocks and the Quails Nest blocks and the 6 placemats I promised my granddaughter. Thinking about it all make me tired and I think I am ready for a nice nap.

Catching Up

I started out the day catching up on some block of the month projects. I had these blocks partially finished so I could  use them for demos. I had decided that I would not  make a quilt from the BOM blocks as I am still not finished with the last one. I had 2 of these blocks one was finished and the other was in 4 sections I added the narrow Kona off white strips and the larger floral strips  and it is just laying on the plaid  fabric I plan to use for the binding. The back will be the larger floral print. I  have one more 6 inch Bowtie section and I think I will  put it in my odd blocks box .

This was another BOM block project. This time I had one finished block  and 2 that were in various stages in order to demo the steps. I had  planned to make 2 that were mostly the green print but I realised that if I did that I would not have enough of the green print for the border. I  frequently decide to use fabric to make  demo blocks that I am  not really enchanted with When I  decide I like it after  all I have to decide  how I am going to make the project work with the fabric I have. I have enough to put a 3 inch border all around and I will  worry about the binding when I get there. Both of these projects are going to be family gifties. I like the term "gifties".  It sounds spontaneous and not so important as a serious gift.

The reason I started working on these today is because I wanted something to occupy my mind and  my hands while I was  impatiently waiting for fabric to arrive. I wanted something  that would not require making a big mess that  I would  have to clean up to make room to work on my next project. I am eager to start my zen doodle piece. I am going to make a smaller piece first to see how it goes. This  drawing on the right is on 11 x 14 paper and that is the size it will be . While I was thinking about starting dinner my fabric package arrived. I washed it in preparation for fusing it and I put it in the dryer for about 4 minutes and right now it is folded up in a nice neat little bundle in a plastic bag in my freezer. Freezing it makes it  perfect for ironing out the  wrinkles. I am to going iron it and apply the Wonder Under and then it will be PLAYTIME.