Another Weekly Recap

I went to the main library for Family History Day and this artwork was in their rotating collection in their gallery. It looks like it would make a great quilt.  I've often thought about a quilt like this, based on a painting I have at home or log cabins, but this piece makes me think of making it with fusible instead of piecing. It is made in layers.



All of the books pictured here are quilting books. It was hard for me to tear myself away to get back to the genealogy lecture. I did gather a stack to take home with me, as many as I could reasonably carry to my car without tripping.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 40

 I don't have anything picture worthy to show you, but I did press the charity quilts and add the borders.

As part of my cleaning process, most of my time has been spent cutting up some shirts that will be used for a quilt.  They take up too much space in their current state. I figured if I could at least cut them down and throw away all those extra bulky bits like collars, buttons, plackets, hems, seams, cuffs and yokes, they will be easier to store. I have a batch where the bulky things are cut out, but this week, I cut the remaining shirts into squares.  10" finished and the smaller pieces are cut into squares that can be combined to make into 10" finished squares.


15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 241 out of 279 sessions
Success Rate: 86%

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15 Minutes to Stitch

Weekly Recap

I spent this week combining quilting and cleaning.  I had a couple of containers of really small scraps of fabric that are good to make the collage quilts like I showed you, but they really are fabric trash. There is no point in me saving them for collage quilts because there's always more fabric trash that can be used. I cut out these little postage stamp pieces and threw away the rest. I could have used the rest in a pillow or whatever, but decided for cleaning purposes that the trash was the best place for it.

The bigger scraps will stay in their containers as they are for now, but I will be working on scrap quilts to reduce the size and number of containers that store scraps.

I am speeding things up a bit to finally put an end to the sewing room cleanup. It is motivating to see the progress I have already made and I want to check this room off my list. Work is going to be gearing up soon and the days are getting shorter.

I decided to not make a small quilt this month so I can get the cleaning finished. I did sew the rows together on the charity quilt. Just need to do a press and add the borders to both the charity quilts.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 39

 
15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 234 out of 272 sessions
Success Rate: 86%

This was one of the scrap containers that got emptied. I got the idea a long time ago to put scraps in a glass jar as a decoration. It does add nice color to the room, but it is another way to collect dust and there is plenty of color with finished quilts, WIPs and supplies. I did throw away scraps once this container got full, but then recently started storing scraps again once I was making quilts that used small scraps. There were two shoe boxes of those. Now I have three empty containers and that makes me happy.

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15 Minutes to Stitch

Flip Flop Quilt

It's been a flip flop kind of a week for me, so I thought it was appropriate that I make these flip flop blocks for Stitching Sisters. It is another one of the kits I picked up when I went last time. I had originally thought I should give them a finished top and return the other kits and tell them that I got carried away, but I decided to try to make another quilt top since it is taking me so long to get one back to them.

I was expecting strips of fabric that I could strip piece and subcut them to the proper size, but they were all cut as separate pieces. The vertical strips are cut longer than required by the pattern, but instead of trimming them to fit the pattern, I will use them as they are, and just put borders on the sides and not on the top and bottom. Less work for  me. I don't think the quilts are required to be a certain size.

I had searing pain on my jaw and got a root canal. I was really happy that the dentist was able to see me the next day and take care of it right away, but when they took an x-ray at the end, it looks like he didn't go deep enough so I will have to go back in to get it redone.

Another thing that made it a flip flop kind of a week was that I called the sewing place to see if Opal was back from the spa. He said no, it wasn't there, and they just had a delivery and it wasn't in there and there weren't any Opals there. But after I asked him questions about where it was in the process and how long it would take he said that it was there and I could pick it up. When I went to pick it up, I asked him when they had gotten it, and he admitted they should have called me to let me know it was ready.

Also, I was supposed to have work for a little bit this week, so I treated myself to lunch at a restaurant after the root canal.  I know taxes and insurance would take all/most of the money but I felt I deserved lunch after that dentist visit.  I came back to find out there was no work. At least I could rest and recover.

So yeah, it has been a flip flop kind of a week, but it worked out okay and there were good things in there with the bad.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 37

I spent this week sewing the flip flop blocks and have put them in rows. I need to join the rows and add the borders on this and the previous quilt. It's been super hot and I didn't feel like pressing a quilt top.

On the cleaning front, I have removed all non craft stuff out of the craft/sewing room.  Instead of tackling the craft supplies, I decided to process all the non craft stuff and take them to their final destination before working on the craft stuff.  I did most of it as I went along, but I saved the really time-consuming stuff to do downstairs. Zeus has arthritis and although he is doing better, he does not come up the stairs anymore, and I have a box of paperwork that I need to sort through and file/recycle that I can do downstairs.
 
15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 221 out of 258 sessions
Success Rate: 86%


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15 Minutes to Stitch
Moving it Forward

Online Quilter's Meet & Greet

I am going to be taking part of the Online Quilter's Meet and Greet on September 3. It is basically a blog hop with big prizes! I hope you will join us, and hopefully get lots of inspiration and maybe win a prize!

I am working on writing the blog post that makes me sound more interesting and spectacular than I really am. Please play along. What they don't know won't hurt them! They will find out soon enough if they take the time to read any other post on my blog.

In the meantime, I have stitched the blocks for the batik quilt for Stitching Sisters.  I still need to press the top and add the border.

I've also been working on a massive clean out of the sewing room, fifteen minutes a day, consolidating things and reducing the number of containers I am using. It is a long process, but I have found as I worked through the rest of the house that shorter bites of a big project work much better for me than a massive session all at once.