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.  

Design Wall Monday - Waterwheel wall hanging

This is actually beyond the Design Wall phase, but it is what I'm trying to finish this week.  It has been a "progress free" zone in my sewing room lately. But I did manage to get binding onto the wall hanging I made on the cruise in January. 

Waterwheel is a Judy Niemeyer pattern that is paper pieced and ended up about 39" square.  We chose the colorway prior to the cruise and our kit was waiting for us on the ship when we arrived. Mine has lots of pink and orange with black, so I chose a solid black for binding. Bonnie quilted it with a sharp looking geometric design in orange thread. Excellent choice.

My real task this week SHOULD be cleaning up the mess in my sewing room. I've gotten lazy about digging through looking for things, and then not putting away the mess I've made. The number of WIFs and UFOs don't seem to be shrinking much. And the "stuff" for the bus trip is overflowing the plastic tub.  And I only have part of the prizes at my house so it could be worse.  It's difficult to be creative when my creative space is such a mess. 

Check out more Design Walls at:  http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

Random but interesting

Isn’t the detail on this lamp post interesting? I stepped outside our hotel for a little fresh air between conference sessions, and saw this. 

A travel day

One of the biggest benefits of flying out of a regional airport- rarely having to stand in line very long.Headed to Chicago this morning for work. 

One Block Wonder - 3 sides pieced

Three of the 4 sides of my Halloween One Block Wonder are now pieced and hopefully this afternoon I'll get the 4th side at least pinned together into vertical rows.  The black on the top and bottom was a "design as you go" decision.  We'll see how wide this quilt turns out and maybe I'll add black to the sides too.  

On the left side (about center) I have pinned a half hexie to overlap the panel. I'll do 1 or 2 on the right side too but maybe toward the top half. Both the bottom and top sections overlap the panel rather than being cut off for a straight seam to join them.  I may actually hand applique those sections to the panel.  That big polka dot edge on the panel just peeks through in places, and that is what I was hoping would happen. 

No sewing is likely to happen tomorrow as we'll be going to one of the daughter's for Easter.  I need to get some laundry done today, and make some deviled eggs for tomorrow.  

I've linked to Design Wall Monday. Go check out more: http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

A very slow process

Crawling around on the floor to arrange and pin these hexies may be the end of my wanting to make any more OBW quilts.  This has been killing my knees and my back, but I have 2 long vertical rows sewn together and 2 short vertical rows sewn. Several more are pinned. I have to take each pinned row to the basement to sew and press, then bring them back up. So this will definitely be a slow process.

My Halloween OBW is progressing

I'm glad I have a large floor area in our living room, where I can lay out blocks and they aren't in the way of walking, etc.  (We mostly live in our family room.) But with this OBW project I probably need even more space due to the paper plates the hexies are on. I have to say it makes it really easy to move these hexies around and change their locations.  I've had this laid on the floor for several days now where I can pass by, observe the way it looks, and move a hexie or two to a better location.  You can even see on the left where I have half-hexies remaining on plates. The other halves are pinned together into the vertical row next to the panel.  

I have one vertical row pinned together and am ready to sew it together later today after work - and a pedicure.  Once I do that and determine that it is the correct length that I want, then I can get more serious about lining up the rest of the hexies exactly where they will end up.  I don't want to have straight edges lining up with the panel making a sharp division between hexies and panel. A few hexies will extend over onto the panel, but I'm not sure yet exactly where or how many.  So this will be a slow process with other projects happening in between.  Enjoying the process, right?