Nothing on the Design Wall

I spent a lot of time in the sewing room over the weekend, but don't seem to have much to show for it.  Here's the last round of chain piecing sitting by the machine.

The purple and yellow pieces are the last two pieced borders for Rhododendron.  The maroon strips are to bind Melodic Mystery.  The pile of light blue, red and dark blue are the most recent subunits for Indigo Way.  Only 4 more HSTs and clue 1 will be finished.  I'm about half way done with clue 2 and just barely got started on clue 3.  The teal and white block is for Malted Mystery.  I spent more time cutting fabric to proceed with next steps than anything else.  Projects are moving along, there's just nothing really photo worthy. 

My weekend morning sewing time I've dedicated to scraps and fabric organization.  Here's all the scraps that were processed yesterday. 

The oldest scrap is that 5" strip of orange/yellow batik at the end of the middle row.  That's left over from the first quilt I made for our bed.  That fabric was purchased in 2008.  The pink polka dot fabric in the middle row was used in a quilt for a coworker's 5 year old  who had brain cancer. That daughter is 17 now.  The red and blue plaid on the bottom row is the backing for my current recliner quilt finished in 2017. The green and white floral scrap in the first row was a in scrap bag I won during a blog challenge. I'm surprised at how well I remember which scraps went in which quilt.   

So nothing exciting to link up with the Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  I'm going to need a very productive Monday afternoon to be able to check off a few items from my to do list.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 48 of 2023

Just 3 more weeks left in 2023!  That's really hard to take in.  Have you started crafting your goals for 2024?  I've given mine some thought here and there.  I've made a start on my quilt plan for next year, but that's about it in terms of written commitments.  The 15 minutes to Stitch/Stitching Stuff linky party will continue next year.  Some days I still need encouragement to get into the sewing room.  Though scrap and fabric management will be a bigger part of my Sunday linky party post in 2024. Fingers crossed I can keep that up next year.  

It was a good week on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days 
• 15 minute days/Dec = 9/9 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 291/343 days
• Success rate = 84.84%

The week of Christmas will probably be the hardest to keep up with my stitching plans.  But even if that week is a complete bust, I've done well on moving a number of projects along.  

My focus on scrap processing and yardage organization continued for another week.  I can tell there's been some progress on cleaning out scrap bag #1. 

You can definitely see more of the white insides of the bag after another round of scrap processing this last week.  Still a long ways to go, but it's nice to actually see there's been progress.  

There was also good progress the fabric pressing this week. 

Four - 4 yard cuts, one yard cut and a half yard cut are all now pressed and neatly folded in the fabric closet.  I'm getting to the bottom of the bin.  Looks like I'll be pressing a lot of red fabrics this next week.  There are more fabrics under those.  Maybe another 2 weeks before this is completely empty?  

How are you doing with your stitching time?  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA 4. Karen 5. DonnaleeQ

6. katie z. 7. Laurie at Laurie's Place 8. Shasta @ High Road Quilter 9. Frédérique 10. Andrée

11. Bonnie in Va 12. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 13. Jocelyn @CNN 14. Deb in Canada 15. Quilting Gail

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Stitching Stuff: Week 47 of 2023

 

I'm never ready for December.  I just never seem to get to all things I had planned to finish before the end of the year.  But to put a positive spin on that, it's also the month to start planning for 2024 and theoretically have the chance to make up for where you fell short this year (funny how it rarely works out that way).  One area that has worked out well for me this year is my stitching time, this week was another good one.  

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 24/30 days
• 15 minute days/Dec = 2/2 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 284/336 days
• Success rate = 84.52% 

Not a perfect year on the stitching front, but anything over 75% is stellar in my eyes. I've had years where my stitching time is over 90%, but it takes a lot of discipline to maintain that.  I may up my stitching time goal for 2024. We'll see, it worked out well this year.  We used to do stretch goals at work, Thankfully they aren't required at home! 

There was a bit of sewing room clean up this week. 

Scrap bag #1 is just a bit less stuffed. It's hard to tell because when I pull out some of those long strips, it fluffs up the rest of the scraps.  I didn't do much scrap processing this week because the fabric to be pressed bin had another 8 yard cut that needed to be pressed. 

The print on white in the top photo was the 8 yard piece and the floral on white below it was 5 yards. I'm glad to have both pressed and ready to use. But that took almost 2 hours to do both.  That's one reason the fabric bin as been so full for so long. It's hard to take time from stitching to do those chores. But I'm determined to spend my weekend morning sewing room time working on both scraps and getting my yardage organized.  The to be pressed bin is now just half full. I think what's left is all 3 and 4 yard cuts. Not bad progress considering I've missed some weekends due to traveling and the holiday.  

How are you doing at getting in some stitching time and/or doing some end of the year sewing room clean up? 

 

1. Frédérique 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. Karen

5. Another Stitching Nana 6. DonnaleeQ 7. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 8. Jennifer in Indy

9. Bonnie in Va 10. Laurie - Laurie's Place 11. Quilting Gail

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Stitching Stuff: Week 46 of 2023

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is over and we are into the Christmas season already. With it being a holiday week, I tempered my expectations of getting in much stitching time. However, Grad Girl and I did manage a few sitting and stitching sessions over the holiday weekend. 

• 15 minute days/week = 4/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 20/25 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 278/329 days
• Success rate = 84.5%

At least I stitched more days than I didn't this week.  I'm still over my 75% stitching goal for the year, so I'm going to be happy with my efforts.  

In spite of the holiday, I did manage to get in just a bit of sewing room clean up, though not as much as I'd been doing. I actually made a little progress with the #1 scrap bag.  

The top photo is before, the bottom is after. Hard to tell there is much difference, but the fabrics at the top of the bag are different now.  

Some fabric also disappeared from the to be pressed bin.

After four weeks I'm about half way through the bin.  It's harder going now that I've taken care of all the fat quarters. The yardage that was pressed included one 3 yard, one 4 yard and one 8 yard length of fabric.  Dealing with anything longer than 4 yards is tough when it comes to pressing and then folding.  The 8 yard length took a good hour to finish.  I'd so much rather sew, but it will be nice the next time I go looking for a dark background to have that black fabric pressed and ready to use. 

Did you get any stitching time in over the holiday?  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA 4. Karen

5. Frédérique 6. DonnaleeQ 7. katie z. 8. Quilting Gail

9. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 10. Bonnie in Va 11. Deb in Canada

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Stitching Stuff: Week 45 of 2023

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this Thursday.  At this point I'm not ready. Lots to do between now and then.  Likely my stitching time will suffer a bit this week. It's a good thing this last week was really good. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 16/18 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 274/322 days
• Success reate = 85.09%

My goal for this year is to stitch 15 minutes at least 75% of the days.  Thankfully I'm well over that so have some room if stitching just doesn't work out during the upcoming week.  

One of my other goals for 2023 was to get my sewing room better organized, particularly my scraps and yardage.  I made good progress on that over the last week.  The working scrap bin was empty this week, so I was able to concentrate on scrap drawer #1.  

It was empty by the end of my clean up time on Saturday.  At the very bottom at the back there were scraps from a quilt started in 2003. So I'm glad to have those all cut to size and stored in my bins. Up next is scrap bag #1.

 

This bag is about 11" tall and is overstuffed with scraps.  Hopefully I can make some good progress here before the end of the year.  I have another, taller bag of scraps and a second, larger drawer of scraps left to work through.  I have my work cut out for me.  

The other goal is to get my fabric better organized.  First step to that is to press all the fabrics that have been pre-washed.  

It's hard to judge progress from the picture. What got pressed?  Two 4 yard pieces, one 6 yard piece, 4 half yard cuts plus 6 fat quarters.  I really hate pressing the large fabric cuts, which is why this bin got so full. It does feel really nice to have those all pressed and ready to use when I need them.  In case you are wondering, I've been spending my Saturday and Sunday mornings working on the scrap cutting and fabric pressing.  Sometimes it's just an hour, sometimes it's 3 hours.  I'm hoping to keep this up through the end of the year and just see how far I can get.  

How did you do at getting in some stitching or organization time this week?  

 

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA

4. Karen 5. Quilting Gail 6. katie z.

7. Bonnie in Va 8. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 9. Frédérique

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Stitching Stuff: Week 44 of 2023

 

Almost halfway through November?  I'm definitely not ready for that, but as I can't change anything about that, I'm just hoping to keep going with the flow.  That was pretty much what happened with my stitching time this week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 9/11 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 267/315 days
• Success rate = 84.76%

I missed one day last week. That was my travel day back from Texas. I got in so late and was just too tired to stitch on anything.  But otherwise it was a good week in the sewing room.  I did mange work in one morning of sewing room clean up.  The scrap bin accumulated a few odds and ends from some donation blocks and the trimming up of a quilt sandwich.  

Those scraps were dealt with pretty quickly and sorted into the scrap boxes.  So I'm starting the week with an empty scrap bin.  We'll see how long it stays empty. 

The fabric to be ironed pile also went down a bit. 

It's hard to really judge how much progress there was. It amounted to 4 or 5 fat quarters, 2 half yard pieces, 1-1 yard piece and a wide backing fabric.  The wide backing fabric took awhile to press and fold. But now it's ready if the right quilt comes up.  I had purchased this wide backing for another project, but by the time the top was finished, I had misplaced it.  Now that it's pressed, I've made a special place for it in the fabric closet.  Hopefully that means I can find it when I need it next time.  

So how did you do at working in either stitching time or clean up time? Maybe you managed both?  

1. Frédérique 2. maggie f 3. Karen

4. Julie in GA 5. DonnaleeQ 6. Shasta @ High Road Quilter

7. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 8. katie z. 9. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

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Stitching Stuff: Week 43 of 2023

 

I'm sorry this post is just a little late.  I spent the day in Houston with Grad Girl and we didn't get back till late, so I slept in a bit today.  Thankfully with time change it's not up as late as it would have been.  

My stitching time has been a bit curtailed since I've been traveling, but I've had some hand stitching to work on in the evenings.  I did well at working that in up until yesterday. 

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Oct = 23/31 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 3/4 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 261/308 days
• Success rate = 84.74%

My goal was to stitch at least 75% of the days this year. I'm on track with a bit of buffer as stitching time will be harder to find during the holidays. 

One of my goals for this year was to clean up the sewing room, part of that means getting a handle on all my scraps and fabric yardage storage.  I did pretty well with this goal at the beginning of the year, but it's been put aside in favor of stitching most weeks. My plan is to make some progress on this before the end of the year.  I started with my scrap bin.

It's now empty. Well it was empty until I trimmed up the Macaron Mystery quilt so I could bind it. This is my "working scrap bin".  The plan is to empty it each week.  We'll see how that works.  I have a scrap drawer that was so full, I couldn't close it. I've worked on emptying it the last few years and after the last scrap trimming session, you could actually see the bottom at the front of it. 

I finally tackled my washed and to be ironed yardage tub. It's been at the overflow stage for most of the year.  

It's hard to tell I made any progress, but the overflow is at least not as likely to topple over if I bump it.  So still lots of work to do on both fronts. The plan is to chip away on both fronts for the rest of the year. 

So how did your week go on the stitching front?  

1. maggie f 2. Karen 3. Frédérique 4. Julie in GA

5. DonnaleeQ 6. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 7. Jennifer in Indy 8. Quilting Gail

9. Deb in Canada 10. Stitching Loving Nana 11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 12. Carol Andrews

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Stitching Stuff: Week 3 of 2023

It was sunny and 61 F on Tuesday, so I went for a long walk. It was raining and 40 F today, so I stayed in the sewing room most of the day.  I'm really ready for more of the 60 plus temps, but it sounds like we'll have to wait a few more weeks for that.  Till then, it should be easy to get my stitching time in each week. 

My routine seems to be developing again after all the interruptions due to the holiday and then getting sick.  It was another excellent week on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 19/21 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 19/21 days
• Success rate = 90.48%

So far so good on finding time to stitch.  

The sewing room needs a lot of attention. My plan when I retired last year was to spend Sunday mornings cleaning, decluttering and organizing my sewing space.  Last weekend was the first Sunday anything along those lines actually happened.  I started my clean up in the southeast corner.  The first order of business was to get a handle on all the scraps. 

 

I have one drawer, two bags and one small blue bin of scraps that need to be pressed, trimmed and sorted by color.  I got a late start last week, but still managed to empty the little blue bin in front of the two sacks. 

It doesn't look like much, but there's a lot of  2" and 2.5" strips those piles.  All the strips got sorted into the proper box by size and color.

 

That is a drop in the bucket, but at least the process is started. The plan is to tackle more scraps later this morning.  It may take a few weeks, but it will be nice to empty both sacks. Then I won't have to keep moving those around when I want to get to something else. 

How did your stitching week work out?  Did you stitch, organize, or do something else entirely?   

1. Gretchen 2. Ivani 3. Julie in GA 4. Karen 5. Michelle 6. Colletta's Kitchen Sink

7. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 8. Frederique 9. Susan in TN 10. DonnaleeQ 11. Quilting Gail 12. maggie f

13. Andre at Quilting and Learning 14. Lyndsey 15. Janice 16. Carol Andrews 17. Celine 18. Amanda

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Something Old, Something New: UFOs and Scrap Management

Somehow I completely missed the Something Old, Something New post for September.   

Thinking back that would have been posted sometime the weekend Drama Teen had ACL surgery and we had the roof damage that caused water to leak into the sewing room.  Now I know why there wasn't a post for September.  There probably wasn't much to report anyway, so I'll just proceed on to where things are now.  

In terms of something old, Jigsaw finally became a finished quilt.  

  
Drama Teen has slept with it every night since it's been finished. She obviously loves it.  

Since Jigsaw is all finished up, I pulled out the box holding my oldest UFO and started putting it together.  All the star blocks were finished I just had to cut the alternating blocks and decide on a layout.  It looked like this back in August.

As of tonight, it only needs two more borders added before it will be a finished flimsy.

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

This quilt is intended for my Mother's bed, so it needs to be queen sized.  Hopefully this one will be sent off to be quilted before the end of the month, but at the moment it's my something old for October.  

I had to really think about the something new for September.  I'm still wrestling with getting my stash organized, that includes my scraps.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler quilt has really helped me understand how to make good use of strips that are already cut, so I'm trying to get all the odds and ends into either squares or strips.  My sewing time has been pretty limited and it's not fun to just stand and cut up scraps, but I think I came up with a workable system to "cut as I go".  I've been using this blue bin to hold the color scraps I'm working with. 

  
At the back of the bin are some plastic bags that I've labeled with the various strip sizes.  

These bags serve two purposes.  At the beginning of the month, I go through my already cut strips and pull out the color I'm working with that month.  As I cut up any odd sized shapes, I sort the newly cut scraps back into these bags.  At the end of the month the strips go back into the the general strip storage, when I pull out the next month's scraps.  This keeps all the action at my cutting table and I'm not running back and forth to my scrap storage putting up or looking for scraps. Plus I know what sizes I have available.  I did a pretty good job of getting most of the orange scraps cut up and stored without it seeming like I spent a lot of extra time cutting and organizing.  

That's my update for last month.  You can see more old and new projects over at Never Too Hot to Stitch.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - From Orange to Brown, it's Definitely Fall

Everyone at my house was ready for a weekend.  I asked Drama Teen what she wanted to do this weekend, the response was "absolutely nothing".  Since this weekend is homecoming, the teachers took pity and didn't assign much homework.  After 4 weeks of playing catch up due to her surgery, this is the first weekend in a month that she won't be spending the better part of Sunday on homework.  

We are only three days into the month, but I've managed to get 15 minutes in the sewing room each day so far.  That's my goal for the quarter, to spend at least 15 minutes in the sewing room every day for the rest of the year.  

All of the last month's orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler are finished.  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm still working on all the half square triangles needed for September's Inverted Star block.

Inverted Star
by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

This one should be finished by the end of the weekend and the brown one for October started. 

All the brown fabrics have been gathered up; now to decide which ones go into this month's butterfly block.

I'm looking forward to a weekend of fun stitching.  Hope you are too.  For more scrappy fun check out all the links over at Soscrappy.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Progress of a Sort

Another weekend at home.  I'm going to be pretty spoiled by the end of the month.  It's nice not to be up at the crack of dawn, making sandwiches and filling coolers.  The weekday evenings are still busy.  Though Drama Teen is done with volleyball practice till June, we still needed to grocery shop one evening.  One evening we had to run back to school to get DT her physical so she can play school sports next year.  Though that was definitely worth the time.  She got a complete physical in 20 minutes for just twenty dollars.  Definitely faster, cheaper and less frustrating than trying to get it done in her doctor's office.  Last night DT and two of her friends from the volleyball team went out to dinner to celebrate having made the team and the end of school.  Everyone has plans for next weekend, so they wanted to do it last night.  

It was late by the time I got home from taking the girls to dinner.  They had a sleep over at another friend's house, so I came home to an empty house.  But there was still time to run up to the  sewing room and print out the patterns for this month's green Rainbow Sampler blocks.  After that was done, I scoured the scrap drawers for any green pieces. It appears that green isn't one of my go to colors, I don't have a lot of green scraps.  

Nor do I have a lot of fat quarters in that color.  Looks like another gap in the stash.  I'll just have to work with what I have this weekend.  But I've added a mental note to look for a few green fat quarters the next quilt shop trip that I make.  

I'm still finishing up the purple blocks from last month, but hopefully a few green blocks will make it to the finished pile in time for next week's update.  Till then check out the posts of greens over at Soscrappy.