I am SOOO organized... almost.

So I went looking for the pink yarn to finish these... which I found, and I finished.  Doll slippers, about 2 inches long each.

Then I found the pieces for this...

The front piece was stained by something yucky.  I remember when I started this, but I don't remember setting it aside and not finishing it up.

So I washed it in some shampoo and the stain came out.  after it was dry I sewed in the sleeves.

NOW I have to go back into my craft room to find some yarn that matches that cream color, to finish up the front edges.

OMG I'm afraid to do it... what will I find next??

Knit on...

Getting Organized in the Fall

There's something about fall that makes me want to straighten up.   Maybe it's having to switch wardrobes around, and I'm getting tired of the summer clothes or something.  Although this year what has passed for summer in Wisconsin is not what I'd call a good example of warmth!

My pal Suzi and I took over the church quilt group when our previous leader had to step aside for health reasons.  Last year someone purchased for us a nice cabinet so we could store our fabrics in an accessible fashion where previously we had only boxes and bins.

With the addition of a few stashes that have been donated recently, we have the cabinet filled.  Not to bursting, but it really needed organizing.

We meet one Saturday a month.  During the summer lots of folks take off, so one Saturday when we met the ladies who do the actually quilting were both gone.  That meant we had no pins!!  So no sandwiching work was to be done.

I thought we could make good use of the time by organizing the cabinet.  We unloaded the shelves, unfolded and inspected each piece, and refolded each piece that we were keeping, organizing the pieces by size and color or theme.

Top shelf--less than a yard on the left, a yard or more of solids or what reads as solids in the other three stacks.  Second shelf left to right -- kid prints, a yard or more of our florals/other prints.

This is the bottom half -- the upper shelf has bundles we tied together for potential kits, and some large pieces potentially for backing.  The bottom shelf is also backing pieces, sheets, and pieces of polyester blends we sometimes use for specific charity items.

a close up of our 'kit potential' stack.

All these florals!!  And you'd think we would have more pink...

I sorted our solids by color to see what we need.  I think we need more green!!

We also have a bin where we keep pieces of muslin and our light neutrals like white and cream.  A small bin holds our notions (we use a ton of masking tape!) and another bin holds bundles of binding and our pattern library.

Then there's the strip bag -- or bags as the case may be!  I didn't take pictures of them because they're MESSY!  But they get put to good use in string blocks.  I think string blocks are like butterflies.  The strings and the foundations don't look like much.  Sometimes even the blocks don't appear to be very impressive.  But when they're sewn together in a quilt, they just sing -- or I guess fly if you want to stay with the simile.

 

Sew on!!

Important Stuff

I was feeling kind of bad about not blogging for two weeks.  Until I noticed that LOTS of people took some time off from blogging between the holidays and now.

Congratulations to my blogging friend Rita on her new grandson.  A couple of bloggers have been on the road over the holidays.  And some folks are just taking a breather!

Between Christmas and New Year's Day, I worked at home a few hours but mostly I was off work-work and doing home-work.  Christmas Eve is always at my house, and I cook and clean and do generally fun stuff like that.  The kids go to the various in-laws on Christmas Day, and I do a whole lot of NOTHING but what I want to do! 

This generally puts me in my sewing room.  A lot. 

I work better when things are clean and organized.  My self-proven theory is:  if you can't find things, you can't finish anything.  I do enjoy finishing things... once in a while I have a deadline and that makes it easier.  Deadlines make me schedule things.  Thus I finished up the boss's embroidered golf shirts with the tasteless logos, the baby baptismal gown (photo coming -- hopefully soon!) and the batch of 18" doll clothes.  I also used some of my scrapbooking skills to embellish some small legal pads for the Sunday School crew and finished a tablet keeper for a friend.  Whew!  When you write it down, it looks impressive!

After the mad dash to Christmas, I took some time to clean up.  I tossed a small pile of scraps that probably should have been tossed ages ago, and condensed my boxes of potential doll clothes fabric down to just two.  That freed up a square yard of floor space.  After other culling, two trash bags made their way to the curb.

Do you do what I do with patterns?  After I use them, I put them in a pile and forget that they came in an envelope, thus also creating a pile of envelopes without patterns to match.  Or not match, as the case may be.  Then once in a great while I have to pull EVERYTHING out, organize by brand, then match the pieces and parts and hopefully have whole patterns again.  Hopefully.  It's not an exact science.

So I spent a couple of days on the cleanup.  I used a gift certificate to buy another storage cart that I'm using for thread, cutting implements and small quilting rulers.  Boy, did I have a lot of thread!  But now that it's all in one place, I realize I'm short on some basics like white and black. 

My youngest granddaughter, Miss A, 'helped' by sorting out my pile of two inch squares.  She spent many hours counting making piles of tinly patches and generally having a good time.  We didn't accomplish much except maybe the joy of being together. 

I ask you, what more important task could sewing friends do for each other??

It's All In the Prep Work

I am part of a group of quilters through our church, the Loving Hands Quilters.  We make baptism quilts for the babies in our congregation and those who are baptized in our church.  We donate quilts to various charities both local and worldwide. We enjoy working together.

Everyone has a task they like best, but we all do various things.  Over the past couple of years I've become the "kit maker".  We pick various patterns to sew, and I cut up fabric from our stash and pack each kit in a zip-locked plastic bag.  I label the bag with the pattern name, and everyone works from their personal copy of the pattern.

We cleaned and organized our stash recently.  I ended up with a large tub of fabric, tied into bundles of fabrics that go together.  Now I have to start cutting.

Normally we're what we call 'self-funded'... that is, we are on our own for finances.  This has been OK for a long while, because we have donated fabrics to work from, and we've made do with things from our various personal resource centers.  Once in a while we get some money and go pick up the things that we're missing.  Most of the time we buy solids or tone on tone fabrics, and batting.

This month I have the pleasant task of spending a few dollars to fill the gaps in our stash.  We have a lot of floral calicoes, and we need some coordiates and some muslin.

The ladies requested that we do a couple of heart applique patterns.  I picked up a bolt of Wonder Under at Joann's with my 40% off coupon.  Then I used my ASG discount for another 10% off.  I spent this afternoon tracing my heart templates onto the paper side, and ironing them onto swatches of the various florals and other small pieces of fabric. 

Then. I. Cut. Them. Out.  Wow, even when watching reruns of The Gilmore Girls, that makes for a long, boring afternoon!!  Then, more ironing onto 6 1/2 inch squares of muslin. 

I hope someone else wants to sew around the edges of these hearts.  I think I may be tired of looking at them...

Stash, Resource Center, and Other Miscellaneous Terms

Our office move is done, and during the move we discovered how much stuff we had accumulated over the 25 years our company had been in the building.

We donated enough three ring binders to my granddaughter's school to provide all the incoming kindergarteners with their portfolio binders at no charge, plus binder clips, book ends, file folders, pens and pencils and paper for the teachers.  My SIL drove over twice with the back of the station wagon full. 

This was not surprising because we had over 100 people in our location two years ago, but when we moved out we were down to about 60.  So there was a lot of stuff sitting in desks and file cabinets.  The other location we merged with was about the same.  So putting things away yesterday involved cramming and being creative!  All conference rooms have their own supply of supplies... is that a redundancy or an oxymoron?  Oh well, we don't have to buy some things until next fiscal year!

I brought all my personal things home because the movers would not be responsible for lamps, pictures of relatives, or chotchkies.  Combined with the fact that we're painting the two upstairs bedrooms and having carpeting installed makes our garage look like a warehouse.

SO--- imagine what I was thinking when I got this call last weekend:

"Hi, Sue, what are you doing Tuesday night?  Can you come to church at 6:30?  Someone donated 11 boxes of fabric to the quilting group and we have to go through it."

Hmmm...  11 boxes.  Big boxes or small?  Of fabric.  Could be anything.  Could be good.  Could be junk.

So I met the other ladies in the Loving Hands Quilt Group after work, and got the answer.

Six of the boxes were pretty good sized.  The other five were wide but only about six inches deep.  They were all full of samples of drapery and upholstery fabric.

OK, not what we normally use for quilting!!  I guess when some people say fabric, it's a generic, all-encompassing term like paper or fish.

There were some poly-cotton pieces that can be used for general use quilts.  We do make some to send to charity that need to be sturdy.  Some of the recipients of our work live in less than ideal conditions and normal quilt fabric wouldn't last or keep them warm.  So one box was filled with small pieces that can be sewn as is, and one was filled with larger pieces we may cut up later.

A quantity was designated for another group who can turn them into crafty projects, and some was set aside for a lady who makes small purses and tote bags.  Some of the pieces were backed with some sort of coating that would surely gum up the average sewing machine, so a bunch was tossed out as not suitable for anyone we know.

But I am the lucky owner of several stacks of things picked out by the group as likely candidates for tote or travel bags.

These are a few of the things I came home with, and now I just have to find a place for all of this while I finish up a few other projects to make room for the NEW projects that will surely come to mind when I take the time to tear all the tags off these pieces!!  <sigh>

Today we worked on our quilt projects after church, and Jean came in to look through the boxes we set aside for her.  She kept commenting on how pretty things were, and asking me if I didn't want to look at some of her rejects.  Nope!!  Not looking!!  I know they're lovely but I cannot.  I. Cannot. Bring. Home. One. More. Scrap.

For now...

. 

Instead of Sewing...

This morning I intended to post the catch up photos of the blocks I've finished since Randy's last Sow Along post.  Key word being intended.

The famous writer said "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" or something like that.

First of all, DH is painting the second floor of our house.  Why that matters is that he decided to do it without giving me much notice, and he went at it with a vengence!!  He started hauling stuff down and stacking it in the garage before I knew what he was up to.  I wanted to go through it and make decisions about what actually goes back into the rooms, but that will have to happen in the garage, I guess!

The reason he took off with this is because I had requested that we think about taking down a wall that divides our basement in half, and expand my sewing room downstairs.  We have a gigantic laudry/storage room with a lot of junk in it, and we could make better use of that space.

HE decided that he'd rather shuffle the furniture in the three bedrooms, making the smallest room which is a den into a guest room/den, moving our furniture into the guest room, and putting my sewing stuff into the master bedroom.   Huh.  Except. My cutting table has to stay in the basement.  And probably a lot of the stash too.

Just think about it before you say no, he asked.  OK.  I knew the answer to that one.  He MUST have known it was a big no because when I said it three days later he was not really surprised.  Meanwhile he started dragging stuff down and I had to go to the paint store.

But all this moving and cleaning and inspecting has put me seriously behind schedule!  Can you imagine what it would be if I had to move all my stuff up two floors?  Well, I can't afford to lose the whole summer, can I?

I spend enough time cleaning up after I work on a project, or more accurately, cleaning up and organizing when I want to work on something because I didn't clean up after myself when I last stopped!  Last night after dinner with DH I spent a half hour re-ordering the Sow Along greens and backgrounds so I could catch up.  Two blocks were actually sewn together and pressed but I can't find the camera again.  It WAS on the desk.  Which could now be in the garage or under a dropcloth!

Well, after A's preschool graduation ceremony on Friday, and E's last school concert, there is a long weekend ahead. 

Maybe I can get caught up.

Sew on...