Organization

I've been organizing my sewing room.  We rearranged some rooms last year, and truthfully,  everything was dumped in there because we were cleaning for some event or other and it now looks like a bigger version of the former junk room. We don't need a junk room.

This is not acceptable, so I have been cleaning and organizing and creating a better space for the quilt studio.  When my sister and I went to Michaels before Christmas, I came across some plastic boxes that were approximately the size of shoe boxes.  I asked her to get those for me, not really knowing how I would use them.  I love them, and they fit the shelves perfectly.  I wound up filling all of them up.  I went out today and bought some more.

The picture is a small set of drawers made out of cardboard. I bought it a long time ago - 15 years? - probably from a Current catalog. Each drawer holds about a ream of paper.  I thought it would work great for a project I was working on, but it didn't work for that.  I have tried to repurpose this box a couple of other times.  It just looks so useful.  You can see the words where I tried to come up with a system to organize paper. That didn't work either.

But I think I may have found a real use for it.  I have been looking at Bonnie Hunter's scrap saver system. She says to cut up your scraps into usable pieces instead of keeping them in random sizes. Cutting them ahead of time keeps them from getting all wrinkled, and makes you much farther ahead when making quilts. Cutting scraps is a tedious process, and if you can make it a part of the cleanup of the first quilt, it will make it easier.  So anyway, I am using these little drawers to hold my cut up scraps. 

The liberated part of me doesn't like sticking to these limited number of sizes (if I can get 1 3/4" out of a scrap why should I cut it 1 1/2?), but overall it looks like it is going to work just fine. The box can hold a lot of pieces, but the relatively small size of the overall box means that I need to use the scraps up and keep the fabric moving.

Tuxedo Diamonds Quilt Reveal

Ta da. My latest finish.  I continued another row of echo quilting, which made the quilting pattern take on a rough diamond shape. I was going to call it diamond in the rough or mention the jagged teeth, but realized my rough diamonds were already wearing bow ties and therefore decided to call it Tuxedo Diamonds.  You have to dress for the higher level you wish to achieve.

The back is a piece of fabric my mother gave me.  It is a printed jeans patchwork. It is a nice surprise for the stark red and white on the front, and shows how rough the diamonds are underneath the surface.   When I was in high school, I made a wrap around skirt with this fabric.

The label was supposed to repeat the block on the front.  I was initially going to write my information on the light corners.  I had run out of the white fabric so have a tan fabric.  The center was too big to not use, so I decided to write the label on the red.  I was afraid the red wouldn't show the letters, but going over it with the pen a couple of times is just fine.

Here it is on the wall to show the relative size. It is about 12 1/2" x 17 1/2". It shares fabric with the Optical Illusion and Snowbird.

Photography Project 365

Every year, I write a little newsletter that explains the status of the family and the big events that happened during the year.  It is just the highlights, since everything has to fit on one side of a sheet of paper.  I don't mail it with the Christmas cards, and I even do it when I don't mail any Christmas cards, but it helps me document the current events for the family for genealogy posterity.



Sometimes, at the end of the year, I wonder what I even accomplished that year.  In 2013 for example, I didn't finish many quilts, didn't write many blog posts, didn't write many hubs on HubPages.  Yes, I know I spent time working on the other house, but I know there were large chunks of time that are not represented.  Did I spend all that time playing Bejeweled and Killer Sudoku.  I certainly hope not!



Ever since I found out about Project 365, I have been wanting to join. It is where you commit to taking a photograph every day for the whole year.   I actually did join one year and did it for a few months.



I have decided that for 2014, I will try again to take a photo every day, or as often as possible and post it here.  I would prefer to keep it here instead of starting yet another forum. I hope you don't mind.  I'm sure many of the posts will be quilt related!



So here are my rules, intended to keep things as flexible as possible.  I will try to take a photograph every day and post it every day.  If I took a photo and didn't get a chance to post it, I will back date it to the date it was taken. (Yes, this means there is likely going to be some backdated posts already!)  If I missed a day, a week, a month, I will just post the next photo that does manage to get taken.  The goal is to show the regular, every day things.  I'm not required to post a description or explanation for the photo, but I probably will!



Today's post shows the snow on the grass, the icy street that never gets plowed or salted, and the path I shoveled on the driveway. It is raining today, and hopefully we will not get much snow tonight since we it will be really cold starting tomorrow.  Hardly anyone ever uses this driveway, especially when the street is icy, so I don't bother shoveling the whole thing when it snows. The neighbor across the street is much more diligent and shoveled his twice on the same day.

January 4

Beautiful blue sky, wisps of clouds, bare trees with birds nest, sliver of moon above it.  There was a golden hue below, but it doesn't show in the cropped photo.

Snow on Red Bench

Photo taken during my daily walk.  I walk my dog every day.  This amazes my neighbor from Cuba especially when the weather isn't what she considers to be walking weather.  She is a veterinarian.

2013 Show and Tell

Happy New Year!  Another year finished, and it is time for the annual "what did you make this year?" show and tell.

This year, I didn't do a lot of quilting.  I was busy working on remodeling a "handyman special" property, which was quite a challenge since it required me to learn how to be a handyman.

I did manage to make a few small quilts though.

The snowbird quilt was the most recent finish.

The red and white one was made at the same time as the snowbird.

In September, I finished some simple curtains for my bedroom and the guest room.  The photo shows the guest room curtains.  I've read about the trick of having big curtains to make the windows look bigger, but my walls are really small, and big windows like that would dwarf the room and make it look smaller.   I got new curtain rods after this photo was taken.  The willow is a stencil on the walls that were made by the person who lived here before me.

Tulip Pillow made at Viking Sewing Event

I made this pillow cover at a class at Joann's in the summer.

I finished Blushing Bride in January. I am still debating whether to add some more embroidery to it.

There are a couple of quilts that I have been working on recently. The end of the year trunk show really serves as a motivator.  I didn't finish these in 2013, but they are well on the way.

This is another red and white quilt so I can have a collection. It doesn't have a name yet. When this is finished, I will have two red and white quilts!   It started out as a copy of a quilt I found on Pinterest, but I lost the pin amongst my millions I have on the board, and decided to wing it on my own. So many choices! Should I add sashing? Border? Red or white? They all changed the look of the quilt, and were all perfectly acceptable choices. In the end, I decided to not to add a sashing or a border and leave it as is.

I think that the main difference between my quilt and the one I found was that the original quilt is bigger, and my white triangles are proportionately bigger. They are small, and I was afraid they would all get lost in the seam allowance.  This makes it look completely different from the original, but it looks okay and I decided to keep going with it.  I could always make another one that looks closer to the original. I am going to add at least one more row of echo quilting before binding it.  I decided that I'd rather not skip the extra row of quilting just to have another finish in 2013.

This is the Daisy quilt I am making from a kit. It is all put together and sandwiched.  It needs quilting.  I was going to free motion quilt the red and white one so I could test out that feature on my new machine, but I wound up doing straight line quilting on it to keep it simple.

I hope you have enjoyed my 2013 Show and Tell.  I hope you have a wonderful New Year, full of happy memories, good health, peace and relaxation, a large circle of loved ones, lots of money and even more time to do the things you want to do!

My Quilt Calendar

I take a lot of pictures for this blog and for HubPages, and of course family pictures. I get the family pictures printed from an online store such as Snapfish or Shutterfly.  Once I get on the mailing lists, they will often send me offers to try out products or get something free.  Now, I have figured out that free isn't really free, since I do have to pay for shipping and handling, but it does bring the overall price down to a point where I, the thrifty shopper, will be willing to try it.

  Recently, I got an offer for a free calendar from Shutterfly.  I thought about what types pictures to use, and after much internal debate, I decided to do one for my quilts.  It is free, and there was a deadline.  I  probably wouldn't do one for my quilts if I had to pay a lot of money for it.  I thought about doing one with old  family pictures but I needed more time to get just right order, layout, etc.  Quilts would be much easier, since they could go on any page, and if I did something wrong in my haste, I was the only one who would have the right to complain to myself.  I thought about doing a UFO calendar, and work on the quilt on the month it is featured, and hopefully finish it then, but I thought that would be too much pressure.  I just want to enjoy my quilts, even the ones that aren't done.




 Ordering was easy, but it does take some time to choose the photos, decide what page they go on, etc.
There are several options for backgrounds - you choose a theme, and the whole calendar carries the same theme.  I chose one with quotes.  You can choose different layouts for each page depending on the number of photos, and can choose the font if you want to write something.    I tried to put the quilt photo that would look good on the background color.

It even lets you add birthdays and other important dates to really personalize the calendar. If you want, you can add photos on the birthdays, but I decided to leave the space free so I could really use the calendar.

unfinished quilts

Spool of thread on the floor

 I had some trouble loading the photos. The system told me it couldn't load some - maybe they were too big?, so I found more photos and added them one at a time, but then I went back and retried one I had already tried, and it worked fine.   I could have spent more time making sure they were tightly cropped, perfectly color matched, etc., but in the end I just found some random quilt photos and went with it.  I forgot some of the quilt names, and instead of looking them up, I made some up.  I was really at a loss for a quilt that I gave to a neighbor.  Really, Four Patch Star Mini? I'm sure it had a much better name than that.



I got it in the mail today and am so incredibly happy with it.  I have finished quilts, and lots of progress shots.  This type of calendar would be great for people who want to finish their UFOs.  Work on the quilt that is featured that month. There are a couple that have some clutter in the background, reminding me to clean as well!

These photos of the calendar were taken at an angle and it is dark outside, so the calendar doesn't look as good in these photos as it does in real life.

gifted quilt

The calendar is very professionally done - it was printed and sent quickly (I just ordered it last week), the paper is a great quality and the photos look great.  It makes me look like a real professional quilter instead of a hobbyist! And now that they have the important dates, they will be able to transfer them over to my next calendar without me having to retype them.