What I’m Working On…

I had a busy week with family but still managed to get in a lot of sewing time…why you might ask?  Well, one night this week I woke in the night with the flu.  That left me taking the next day off.  I felt okay no fever or anything, just a rotten stomach.  As long as I didn’t do a lot, I was okay…so sitting at a sewing machine was the perfect thing I could do.

The quilt you see in the photo below was WAY overdue to be finished…WAY!  I had finished doing the longarming on it late Sunday night so I got it bound on my sick day.  I need to take pictures and write a post to show you the finished quilt.  I ended up really liking it.

I had some fabric leftovers a blog reader gifted to me and I used it for the binding.  I just love polka dots!!

Being the blue and green quilt came off the frame I made a backing and loaded this quilt…This is the one I made with… the leftover blocks from our Inspired by the Past quilt.

I was feeling okay but not up to longarming.  The less I moved the better.

So…I sorted the Frolic Leftovers I bought at the thrift store.

The original person who owned these leftovers had sewn LOTS of 1 1/2″ strips together.  I ended up cutting those up and sewed them into four patches.

There are a lot!  Now I need to come up with a quilt that uses a lot of them as I have some from my other leftovers.  Hmm.

I do have something in mind but need to do a couple of test blocks to see if I really like it.

You might be thinking I’m tired of Frolic leftovers.  I have to admit, I’m super happy that this batch of leftovers leans more to purple instead of pink.  I make very few quilts with purple so this will be fun.

I didn’t iron these.  I left them in the bucket and will iron these one day when Gannon is here.

Here’s something I want to share with you as I know many of you don’t take time to read the comments.  Here is one Shirley wrote after seeing my blog post about my thrift store finds.

“So happy you found these useful. This thrift store is run by the churches of Winneshiek+ churches. All profit goes into the community. I been cleaning my sewing room up and had to destash. I dropped six large garbage bags off. The black and gold were leftovers from a black and gold double heart bargello wedding quilt for my Godchild. I needed 15 yellow and 15 black. So some I used and some didn’t work and then I tried to group some of them together. Anyway, I was excited they got good money for my leftovers and someone found a good use for them. Just so you know. I dropped a whole roll of batting off there yesterday. I switched to a more dense batting. Some of their fabrics go directly to quilter guilds that donate quilts also. Anyway, it is not often you see where your donations go. Enjoy.”

How fun is that.  Shirley was so kind and donated.  I was the lucky girl to find the leftovers!!  I bet reading the blog and seeing what I do with the leftovers is going to be a lot of fun for her!

From there I cut out and sewed together things to make five more of my pincushions from Oui jars.  HERE is the tutorial for that in case you missed it.

Again I didn’t finish these.  I can do that when Gannon is here too.

Then I looked around the sewing room trying to figure out what else I could sew on.  I have this goal to get the sewing room cleaned up.  I am tired of started projects sitting all over and I am bound and determined that no projects will be put back into a cabinet.  If they are out, they are going to get finished.

Sitting on the back corner of the island in my sewing room was my Garlic Knots quilt from Bonnie Hunter.  I had started out working on my Dirty Dozen UFOs back in August and this was one of them.  Between cancer and having to lay this out to sew it, I gave up on it again.  It has been sitting on my island since August just waiting for me to get the nerve to construct it.

Do you see the plus sign made from the sashing?  It’s beautiful but UGH.  That all has to be laid out to construct.  I am not a “lay a quilt out” sort of girl. I NEVER use a design wall.  I hate the thought of design walls.  So…how was the quilt ever going to get constructed??  The answer, I was either going to have to use a design wall or think of something else.  The something else won out.  I’m going to build the quilt in sections like this…

I’m constructing it in sections.  I can lay it out on my island a row of three at a time.  So far, this is working for me.  It didn’t take me very long at all to get this far.

My plan is to finish the construction of this section, then do a similar middle section, and then one more section.  Then I’ll sew the sections together.  I am so frustrated with myself that I let this sit so long.  It’s been taking up valuable space on my island.  It’s time to get it done.

I’ve been adding to this each morning.  It’s not a lot of sewing but I’ve been adding one three-block section with the coordinating strip.  Little by little, it will get done.  Small steps are totally okay as long as the steps mean I’m closer to a finish.  As soon as I get any extra time, I’m going to work hard on this as not that I’ve figured out how I am going to lay it out and construct it without a design wall, I want this DONE!

So thanks to a sick day, I got lots done in the sewing room.  As long as I could sit, I was totally okay to be there…and it made my sick day, much more pleasant.  Whatever I had was gone in about 18 hours so that was nice.

Here’s to hoping I get another day next week that I can dedicate to the sewing room.