Tuesday, June 21, 2011

15 Minute Challenge - June 21st

It's Tuesday morning and a very nice one here in Oklahoma.  It was almost cool this morning when I headed out for my walk.  We had some pretty magnificent storms last night.  Just strong wind and lots of lightening.  No tornadoes like Nebraska was hit with yesterday.  So just maybe I'll make to my car this morning without melting. 

Since it is Tuesday, it's time to review last week's sewing opportunities, or lack there of as the case may be.  I did really well last week, managing to make it into the sewing for at least 15 minutes 7 out of the last 7 days.  

 
There were a couple of nights I only did the minimum15 minutes.  But it still counts.  I usually try to get in an hour of sewing every night, but sometimes that's just unrealistic. 

I'm lucky that I have a dedicated sewing space.  My projects can be left in whatever state, so I can walk in and pick them up where ever they were.   Though I did discover an area where an improvement would help me make better use of my sewing time.  The week before I spent a number of evenings working on binding the Castle quilt.  When I started back on the Buck-A-Block quilt this week, my memory of what dimensions to cut the sashing strips was gone.  I do keep a notebook where all those calculations are recorded, but with all calculations scrawled across the page and it wasn't clear to me what numbers I'd actually settled on.  I finally ended up redoing the calculations again and then clearly marked the final measurements.  So I need to do a better job of documenting my cutting instructions when I'm doing my own thing.  It wasn't a lot of time lost, but this was the second set of sashing strips.  I cut the first set wrong because my calculations were off.  So it would have been nice to be sure which set of calculations were the "right" ones and not risk doing the recalculations wrong. 

How did you do this week?   Do you have any sewing habits that you need to improve that would help you make better use of your sewing time?   Link up and tell all. 


6 comments:

Pat said...

About a month ago, I moved my sewing things from my kitchen table to the bedroom. For this last quilt, I moved most of it back to the kitchen, however not all at once (big mistake). It seemed like I was forever looking for this or that. I was not at all organized. Maybe next time. Congratulations on getting some sewing time each day this week.

thea said...

Good week! We are having a lovely morning .. low 60s and just really nice .. have a great week!

Marti said...

You had a good week. Sometimes I only get in 15 minutes, but more often when I have forced myself to put in just 15 minutes, it turns into an hour. I soooo need that push sometimes.

We had rain and a cool morning too. I love it! And you are right, I'll be able to walk to the car without melting. I should have gone to the store this morning. I could have bought ice cream without taking an ice chest with me.

Shay said...

Way to go on your sewing this week Kate. Looks like there was HUGE creativity going on at your place.Great effort.

I have a book I keep everything in so I know what Im doing -I never use patterns and this book has my ideas scrawled everywhere ! Somehow things usually manage to turn out OK.

Lynne said...

Alas, DD's little machine that I have been using has decided it needs a rest and has gone off for a service! So no sewing for me for at least a week! :-(

Keep Stitchin' said...

There are always things I need to improve! lol Right now, I feel pretty good about the improvements I have made to be more diligent about fixing twisted seams, matching up points and measuring more accurately! But I'm sure I can think of something else! lol