Cleaning up a few things

I was up early on Christmas Eve, and spent the whole morning in my sewing room - sewing, cutting, and some cleaning.

There is a small ugly chair in my sewing room, and it has been a very convenient place to just drop things I don't want to deal with right away.  I'm happy to say that chair is now cleared off and all the "stuff" has been either used or put away where it belonged.  Bonus - the ugly chair has been moved into the storage room so I can't reload it. 

There were several orphan blocks in that stack, and they are now in the bin with other orphan blocks.  Leftovers from several past projects have now become doll quilt tops.  They are folded neatly with a sticky note pinned on with the size - averaging about 24" square. 

The purple one used nearly all of the lavender squares in the box that Nann sent me last week.  I added a purple solid from my stash for borders.  The red/white/yellow top used a nautical print - also in Nann's box of treasures.  I just added some solids - again from my stash. The NASA prints leftover from Jack's pillowcase are now in a doll quilt top, and I only needed a little of that red solid from the stash.  The light blue and striped one on the bottom was from a previous box that Nann had sent me last summer.  Last year I made 12 doll quilts and paired them up with stuffed animals or dolls.  They were donated to the local safe house.  I have a similar donation goal for 2026.  These 4 tops are a good beginning - once they are quilted and bound of course. 

One additional project got some attention too.  All of the pieces for the January spools mini quilt are all cut and identified with alphabet clips.  My plan for today is to at least get the top sewn.  It's also "clue day" for #6 of the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  

Merry Christmas

Christmas is here, but it will be very quiet. It will be just the 2 of us today and tomorrow, so I suspect we'll do what we do other days.  I'll sew and Dave will probably golf (in his golf simulator).  A Christmas movie or two may be watched of course.  I do have steak planned for a nice supper tonight, and a ham for Christmas Day.  At some point tomorrow we'll Facetime with the grandkids.  They'll all be here for our delayed family Christmas on Monday, so we just have to be patient.

The final Christmas gift sewing is nearly done.  Hand stitching the binding, and adding some embellishments will be the last steps.  

The snowman 3-yard quilt is a completed flimsy finally.  It's the perfect size to be a cuddly couch quilt.  Yesterday I posted about needing to clean, but the only thing cleaned off is my ironing board.  The borders and leftovers of this project were cluttering one end of the ironing board.  And now it's all cleaned off - scraps sorted to the appropriate bins. 

And the binding on this little UFO (28" square) was finished in the car while traveling to and from sporting events this weekend.  The background was a kit called Feel the Churn that I bought on a shop hop a few years ago.  After sewing that little wall hanging together right away, I felt it was kind of boring so it has hung in the closet ever since.  It really needed something appliqued onto it for color.  And this fall that is exactly what happened.  The orange and green batiks all were scraps leftover from a big quilt (Cactus in the Cabin). 

Merry Christmas to everyone!  

A need to clean

 

What does your creative space look like?  Mine needs a good cleaning and reorganizing before the New Year.  Enter at Your Own Risk - that door hanger has become reality.

My sewing room/studio is a large basement bedroom so I have plenty of space for sewing.  And way too much space to fill up with supplies, UFOs, PIGs, and WIPs.  It has a huge long closet that actually looks somewhat organized in this photo. Don't be fooled by that glimpse of organization.  The closet are is actually reaching the chaos stage again lately. 

And I'm ashamed to show you what I've stacked on the floor and on a chair just because I'm not sure where I want to put things or I'm too caught up stitching to put things away.   

Next to my cutting station is a low bookcase with baskets on top that hold some kits and patterns that I want to keep on the radar.  I've gotten into the bad habit of hanging block sets that I'm working on from the front edges of those baskets.  Three on-going Quilt of Valor block sets are currently hanging there, instead of in the closet. 

This whole room needs a big deep cleaning.  But I'll even settle for some surface organization at this point. 

Design Wall Monday - Dec. 22

We were basically NOT home all weekend, so there isn't much of anything to report.  At least not on the sewing front.  I've fallen way behind in reading blogs and commenting.  But we did get to see both daughters' families over the past couple days.  I'll spare you any photos of deer hunting grandsons or wrestling granddaughters. 

On Friday, the 5th clue for Bonnie Hunter's mystery was posted.

It was an easy clue - directing us to use the Clue #1 units in basically an Ohio Star block.  Added to the Clue #1 units were 4 matching purple squares, and a neutral center square.  These are 6" finished blocks and I'm guessing the rest of the units will make alternate blocks and maybe sashing or borders.  Or there could be more units.  It's a mystery after all.

A week ago I showed a kit that I wanted to make as a reward if I got some things done on the list that were priorities.  Well, I totally forgot about the January mini quilt in that Spools series. I believe this one will move to the head of the line of new projects - but only if I get some other things done this week.  We are not doing our family Christmas until the 29th, so I'll have this week to finish up a couple of Christmas gifts.  Hope I get them done in time.  

The other project that is close to a finish is the snowman 3-yard quilt.  All of the rows are assembled now, so I just have 2 narrow borders to add.  

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC25 - Week #51

Only 1 more week and 2025 will be in the rear view mirror!  I'm hoping that my scrap bins yield lots more quilts in 2026.  I'm also hoping those scrap bins are more empty by this time next year instead of overflowing. 

I have extra scraps to play with this week after receiving a box of FUN from blogging friend Nann.  She had sorted out a few bags of scraps in colors that she knows I love to play with, like red, white, and blue.  Naturally I had to dig right in.

The red, white, and blue bag didn't just contain scraps - it also contained some small blocks.  I'm guessing these were left over from some of Nann's projects or maybe even came from one of the estate sales she has been to. The 2 blocks similar to Snails Trail are already paired up with some batting and backing to make mug rugs as they are the perfect size.  That darling churn dash block inspired me to make more using one of those strips of red star fabric. The flying geese are tucked in with other QOV bits and pieces that will probably end up part of a sampler quilt. 

It didn't take long to cut pieces from her scraps for 4 more churn dash blocks that will finish at 6".  These are now sewn and in the stack of blocks for future Quilts of Valor.  

A real treasure was tucked into the bag - most of a jelly roll with a RWB nautical theme.  So many possibilities for these strips!!  The prints include crab, lobster, octopus, compass - such a neat jelly roll.  I'm giving some thought about what to make with these.

I've "webbed this first section of the String Stars quilt.  My original plan had been to just use the cool colors, but now I'm thinking if I use all colors then it can be much bigger.  That means this will definitely continue into 2026 because I don't have any warm color blocks made yet.

Let's go see what else is happening with scraps this week . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/ 

Wrapping up another week

Yesterday we had horrible high winds - 60 mph plus.  The howling wind woke me up about 4:30, and I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I finally got out of bed at 5:30.  I should have just made some coffee and gone down to the basement to sew, where the wind noises would have been minimal.  But instead I sat down at my computer in my PJs, and tried to catch up with blog comments and some genealogy research.  The coffee didn't happen until about 6:30.

I did make use of that extra early morning time to finish the binding on the Cat Tails table runner.  This will be a gift for my daughter's neighbor.  I used a deep aqua on the back, and green for binding.  It's a simple 60 degree runner pattern using a border print.  I have more of this left and have a plan for something for myself.  That will have to wait for the new year.

Next up yesterday was some sewing time to work on a couple of on-going projects.  Only 1 row remains to be sewn for the snowman 3-yard quilt, and then the borders can be added.  Maybe that will all happen today.  

I also finished sewing the Clue #4 units that were cut out for the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I've only made 9 sets so far for this clue.  Clue #5 should be posted this morning.  

This and that

 Wednesday turned out to be a non-sewing day except for a little handwork on binding.  By the time I did a little Christmas shopping, a lot of grocery shopping, baked a batch of cookies, and some laundry there just wasn't time to spend at the sewing machine.  But it was nice to check off a couple more things from the To Do list. 

Quilters are just the most generous people!  Imagine my surprise yesterday when the postman rang my doorbell instead of just leaving our mail in the mailbox across the street.  He had a box that was much too big for that mailbox.  My blogging friend Nann shared a wonderful "curated" box of goodies with me. (https://withstringsattached.blogspot.com/)  She knows my style so well, and has fabrics sorted into bags even.  Plus, as a retired librarian, she recommends on her blog the best books to read.  And she even tucked in a book she had recently found in a used book sale.  It's actually out of print, so an old copy is a really lucky discovery.  I can read it and pass it along to another avid reader when I'm done.

One of the little bags contained a stack of lavender 30s reproduction squares and 3 lavender snowmen squares.  The snowmen just made me smile immediately, and I'm picturing these making a really cute pillow or placemats.