Digging into the mess

An interesting and semi-productive morning was spent in my sewing room.  As I mentioned yesterday, the mess in the room has been wearing on me.  So this morning I decided I had to do something about it.  It's quite amazing what you find when you actually dig into a disorganized mess.

I started with the cutting table and ironing board. Both were full of odds and ends of random things.  The first task was to collect all of the pieces of the Halloween OBW quilt that is "in progress" and put them together in one neatly organized project bin.  So that is ready to work on again soon.  And I finished sewing that last 12 Saturday Sampler blocks that were laying on the ironing board, so those are ready for May.  There are still some triangles left, and two different pieced units. But I think I finally have an idea of how these might go together.  And the ironing board is cleared off. Yay!!

Next I tackled the scrap pile that was growing on the right side of the cutting surface. Larger pieces were folded up and put back into my stash drawers. The smaller pieces were sorted into the scrap/string bins by color.  Buried in the scraps were 7 "kits" for patriotic Garlic Knot blocks, and a bunch of leftovers from a Kim Diehl project.  Those Kim Diehl scraps were from Cracker Jack, and I had begun to sew them into pinwheels - way back during the winter when I was finishing up the original project.  

So, I finished sewing them into 6 pinwheels that measure 6.5" square.  I'm not sure what these will become eventually, but one step at a time, right?  They are now tucked in with other Kim Diehl projects waiting to be made.

The Garlic Knot block kits were next.  They're so fast to make, and it didn't take long to finish these up too. These will all be added to the stack for a Quilt of Valor.  

My cutting table isn't very large, but it's now clean.  It's actually a kitchen cabinet section with a butcher block top.  The basket in the corner (made of magazine paper) holds patterns and my largest rulers. The center back has an office caddy that holds my often-used smaller rulers and various marking tools.  On the far right is my scrap bucket, made by friend Carol for each of us in the Sew Vintage group.   

There are plenty of other areas in my sewing room that still need attention.  But that will need to wait for another day.