Quilting Day

I'm not finished with all of the things that had been pushed back, but I am thoroughly enjoying having the time to finally get to them.  There is a joy in having time to do the things you have to do, even if you didn't really enjoy doing them before. Even things like cleaning and yard work.

But now, I have finally given myself permission to get back to quilting.  I have been looking at blog posts and Pinterest and seeing so much inspiration for new projects, but I am holding myself to finishing my current projects.  They still hold my interest, as tempting as it is to start something new.

In case you don't remember from my very sporadic posts, I started three quilts this year.  Two of them were Quiltalongs. One is called Elephant Parade, which is a modern quilt with cute elephants, frogs, flowers, and turtle.  I have changed it up by using animal prints and by adding additional animals.  The other is called A Life of Plenty and it is more folk artsy with piecing, applique and embroidery.  Both of these use a lot of different fabrics, and my sewing area still has a jumble of fabrics I brought down so I could choose the perfect fabric for each.

I am not sure whether I mentioned the third quilt I was making.  I realized as I was making the quiltalong quilts, that I needed a Leaders and Enders quilt.  I tried as best as I could to just use the same quilt as a Leaders and Enders or alternate with the other quilt, but in the end, I realized I needed something mindless that I could simply run through the machine so I could get the piece I was working on out of the machine without having those long threads.

It was around Saint Patrick's Day at the time, and an Irish Chain quilt was something that has been on my to-do list practically since I began quilting.  I found some fabric on sale - it just have been right after the holiday - that would be perfect for it, so I went ahead and started using it up.  It is slow going, of course, since I only use it when I don't have something on my current projects to run through the machine, but now I am thinking that if I could get it done, I could then work on the triangle quilt for my bed.  The triangle (or thimble, depending on what I decide), will then be the Leaders and Enders I will use to keep the two main quilts moving along.

Even with these picture closeups, I think it is pretty obvious that my sewing room needs a serious cleaning.  I've got competing interests this week - "Finish something and use up what you have!" and "Clean and organize so you have space to work!"  I plan to do both this week.

While I was catching up on my blog reading, I read several posts about cleaning clutter and not buying things as a substitute of actually making things.  I recommend the following:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2015/07/stash-attack.html for quilt fabric
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2015/07/stop-hoarding-start-creating.html for craft supplies
http://www.leedrew.com/2015/07/genealogy-how-many-certificates-do-you.html for genealogy documents