What I’m Working On

I had a busy week and thought I wasn’t going to get much done in the sewing department but happily the weekend came along and all was good.

We had weather here this week…a late start one day and no school on Friday.  I thought Friday I would have a house full of kids but it turns out that several parents didn’t go in to work so I had an easy day with early pick ups so by 4pm, I was done with childcare and the house was already picked up!  YAHOO.  That day I had older kids who don’t fight and very busy all on their own so I was able to get the childcare laundry done during the day and able to get a my paperwork done during childcare.  That was golden to me.  Also during naptime I was able to get a blog post written so seriously, the last family walked out at 4pm and I fired up the sewing machine!!

I am working on two projects and both are on the front burner right now…the mystery quilt and Kayla’s baby quilt.  You might remember that Kayla opted for this quilt.

…and the mystery quilt.

I really wanted to work on the mystery AND the baby quilt so I compromised by piecing on the mystery blocks and as leader and ender, I worked on the baby quilt.  Then I told myself that on Saturday, I would reverse and work on the baby quilt and the mystery would be my leader and ender.  I thought it was a good plan.

It was a great plan until I started putting the first block together of the baby quilt.  Oh my word.  I was so upset.  The block wasn’t coming together at all.  I got frustrated and decided that I would just set it aside and work on the mystery.  I wanted to enjoy the gifted sewing time I had and not spoil it by doing something hard…

So with the mystery on the front burner, I sewed like crazy.

By 5:52pm I messaged Connie and told her I had three blocks done.

I ended going to bed on Friday night with half of the blocks done…

Saturday morning I woke up raring to sew.  I was hoping that I would have better luck with the baby quilt.  I really didn’t.  So I focused mostly on the mystery and tried a little with the baby quilt blocks.  I was getting more and more frustrated with the baby quilt so it was making it harder and harder to work on it.  I had so much frustration with it that I decided I’m going to make a seperate blog post which will publish tonight.  For now, I’ll just tell you about the mystery.

By noonish I had all of the mystery blocks finished.   Here they are….

Then I started in on the setting triangles.

In between I would work on a baby quilt block or two but was always going back to the mystery quilt over frustration with that baby quilt.

The setting triangles went fairly well.  I twisted a unit a time or two but that was nothing compared to the problems I was having with the baby quilt.

Before too long, I had the setting triangles all finished.

I went on and started working on the corner triangle units.  I only needed four of them so that was quick.

In between times I played with Rosie…ranted about the baby quilt…cross stitched for a bit (that’s impossible with Rosie) and listened to audiobooks.  It was the perfect sewing stretch that I’ve been longing for (minus that baby quilt)…and I had an AWESOME audiobook.

By bedtime, I had all but one block left of the baby quilt and all of the mystery, blocks, corner triangles and setting triangles FINISHED!!  Yahoo.  I set some out for a little preview.  What do you think?

I think I’ll like it.  I started cleaning up ..and I had this stack of unused pieces…I haven’t quite decided what to do with them yet.

Sunday rolled around…I got the sashing pieces cut…and some sewing done on them.  I’m hoping to finish sewing them tonight (I’m writing this on Sunday evening) and then this week I’ll work on getting the top sewn together.

I got my tote of mystery fabric put away….

I finished the last block for the baby quilt and I started working on cleaning things up.  I have a gal that comes in once a month and cleans for me.  She’s here about 3 1/2 hours and she’s worth her weight in gold.  When Kramer got sick I quit having her come as I didn’t think I could afford it.  I’ve learned, I have to afford her to come.  It’s worth my sanity.  I don’t get my nails done, color my hair or anything else personal that costs a lot of money.  So I have my friend come and clean…and I’m A-okay with that.  I always remind myself that most businesses have a cleaning person and my childcare is a business so it’s okay for me to afford it.

Anyway…she came and cleaned on Sunday.  It was wonderful.  It encouraged me to get things cleaned up and put away…and now as I write this, I’m sitting in a wonderfully clean house, my sewing is picked up…I accomplished lots this weekend and plan to sew more tonight.  I’ve had such a crazy time of things since Christmas and this is exactly what I needed for a weekend.

Also on Sunday I took some time to clean my sewing room up.  Since Rosie came my sewing room has turned into a dumping ground.  (I sew in the kitchen now instead of upstairs.  It’s just temporary until Rosie does a little better.)  Things just get tossed in the sewing room and and not put away.  I took an hour today and that’s MUCH better.

While I was there I pulled out two quilts….my spider web string….(read about it HERE)

and my original Wild Child quilt (read about it HERE)

There is a family that had a fire last week.  I know the family and wanted to help so I contacted the sister.  She said a 13 and 15 year old girl lost the contents of their bedroom.  I decided to give up these two quilts to help out the family.  The girls each have double beds and these quilts should be big enough.  I hope they enjoy them and the gift of the quilts can ease the loss a little bit.

I was a little sad to see the quilts go but…then I reminded myself, I can make two more of this pattern or any other pattern…and that was all the cheer I needed.  I’d much rather have the quilts going to this family than sitting here in the house.

I’m off to sew.  Stop back in the evening post and hear all about my frustrations with the baby quilt.