A Little Sewing, A LOT of Cutting

I haven't actually sewn that much this week. I did get two quilts assembled. I only took pics while they were on the design wall. 

I had planned on adding a couple borders to this one, but then I stopped and thought about what size it was already. It's already a large twin-full sized quilt. If I add the borders I was planning, it will be queen sized, and I don't need a queen sized quilt in these colors. So, after quilting I'll just add a red binding and call it done.

This quilt is exactly the same size, but for some reason I never planned on putting borders on this one. Now both of these quilts are assembled and stuck into the quilt closet waiting for their turn in the quilting queue. 

So what was I cutting all week? I cut out one baby quilt, and I've got another one half cut out, I should finish cutting that one tomorrow. I also cut out 400 luggage tags from repurposed denim pants. I've got the fronts and backs of the tags cut, as well as the interfacing, but I still need to cut the clear vinyl. I really love upcycling old clothes into totally different things, extending the life of the fabric in a new purpose. 

I thought 400 luggage tags would make a bigger dent in the denim scraps than it did, but that's OK, because I have other denim projects planned. I'd really like to get a lot of that busted this year. No one has been giving me any denim lately, and neither DH nor I wear jeans, so it would be a great time to bust it all, and not collect any more of it. I have a lot more printed denim than I remembered having, and so I'll have to give some thought about how to use that. Most of my printed denim is yardage, so I could always opt for reusable grocery bags. 

New Project from Old Projects

DH has been an RN since 1993, before that he was LPN, before that an Army medic, and before his Army days he was an EMT. He's been in the health field for a LOT of years! He recently retired, and I offered to make him a quilt from his old scrub tops, all of which I made. I've been making all his scrub tops for over 25 years. 

He pulled his scrub tops out of the closet and piled them on the bed. The number of scrub tops he's had has gone up and down over the years, as some wear out and I make more. How many did he retire with? 66! 

I only wanted to use the backs of the scrub tops, so I didn't have to worry about pockets, or ink stains, or any other stains which I may or may not be able to identify. All those years in the Emergency Room had him exposed to a lot. 

Thanks to having lots of experience using men's shirts for quilting, I knew the fastest way to get this pile into a pile of usable fabric was to clip the seams and rip. 

Now I've got this pile of fabrics to work with. This is more than enough to make a quilt, though I do have scraps of other scrub tops that didn't make it to retirement I could add in if I chose to. I've narrowed it down to either doing a stained glass quilt, or making large bricks and making a brick wall quilt. I kind of like the metaphor of the brick wall for his years spent building his career, but I think he'll prefer a stained glass quilt so that's the more likely route to go. I won't know for sure until I start cutting! 

I got to spend more time sightseeing with family this week, since with the lousy weather where they live, and the great weather where we live, my SIL and BIL opted to stay a bit longer. I enjoy spending time with them, so it was a good time, and I got to see a couple places I haven't seen before, and go back to a couple I haven't seen in years. 

Life is always busy, but it's good busy!

I'm Going In!

 Overall, my quilting supplies are pretty organized. Even the part I'm getting ready to show you is mostly organized, it's just too much overflow. The stuff that isn't easily stored in my sewing or fabric rooms is put into time out "under the stairs" (cue spooky music). 

I've been putting off dealing with this area, but I need to cut my denim scraps up for luggage tags. For a while it seems like everyone was giving me jeans to use for quilting projects, but now no one is. I have three totes with denim in them, and of course they are at the very back. By the end of this year, I expect all three totes to be empty. I decided to make 400 luggage tags, instead of the 200 I originally planned. They will be giveaways at DH's business events. The luggage tags will take up a lot of the denim, and I have a big project planned for Christmas 2025 that should use the remaining denim. When I looked at this area, it looked pretty overwhelming, but at a glance I could tell there was actually several things that had a place to live, I had just been too lazy to put them away. Let's start there.

Just putting away what belonged elsewhere helped quite a bit, but that denim I need is still in the very back. 

Three totes of denim scraps just like I thought. I have more patterned denim than I remember, but I'll either use it in projects this year, or it will be donated for someone else to use. These totes will not be going back under the stairs. 

After taking everything out from under the stairs, I had to look at how to put things back under the stairs. I have several totes with men shirts to use for quilting, divided by color. I don't have any shirt projects planned right now, so those can definitely go in the back for now. All my flannel is in totes, because it's too bulky for me to want to store it one shelves. I will probably need to get into the flannel this year, but I still have room in the back, so I stack it in the back as well, but I'm very mindful what I put in front of that.   

I found one tote less than half full, with a few pieces of fabric from which I had meant to make DH scrub tops. Well, now that he's retired, that's not a thing (talk about procrastination!) so I left that tote out. The fabrics can either be put onto my fabric shelves, or be cut up for my donation pillowcases, since they are all novelty prints. Whatever I use them for, they aren't going back under the stairs. I found another tote that had yardgage in it that didn't fit on my shelves at the time. I do have some space on my shelves, but not enough for that whole tote. Again, I'm planning to make and donate 100 pillowcases this year, so I think I will have room for all of that fabric on the shelves soon. I decided to keep that tote out too. 

With three totes of denim staying out, and two totes with fabric staying out, putting things back under the stairs was easier than taking it all out. Especially since I had taken the time to put so much away that actually had a spot and just wasn't put it belonged.

It's still a lot, but not quite as overwhelming. Unless I stop using flannel and mens shirts, I'll always have a few totes. I do have a lot fewer totes that I used to, and I actually emptied two totes today. Not all the totes are full, so when I realized how little was in some of them, I did some rearranging. Come to think of it, one of the ones I emptied would be great to store the finished luggage tags in! It's a shallower tote, and should fit them quite well. 

Do I have some totes that are currently in my way? Yes, but they won't be in my way for that long. Once I get all the luggage tags prepped, I'll start sewing them up, and I'll start prepping the pillowcase project. As I empty totes I'll just store the empty ones in the storage room, in case we ever move, I could use them then. 

I've got about 250 scooter silhouettes cut out now. I told DH if he ever wants me to make a bunch of these again, I'm having a custom die made to cut out both the scooter and the luggage tags themselves. If he were paying me an hourly wage to do this, the custom die would pay for itself in no time at all. At least the denim and the interfacing for the luggage tags can be rotary cut! I rotary cut the clear vinyl too, but it can be tricky since it can stick to the ruler. Even with sewing around the appliques, sewing the luggage tags takes a fraction of the time prepping them does. 

The only sewing I've done this week is working on assembling some quilts, but none of those are finished. I haven't done any FMQ yet this year! We've still got out of town visitors in town, so we've been having fun with them. DH is getting his Retirement in Real Time YouTube channel channel going. He's learning a lot, and once that channel is going he's hoping to start a scooter channel as well, to go along with his scooter magazine. He's only really retired from nursing, not from working! 

My routine is all thrown off with him not having a schedule, so we'll both have to make adjustments, which we expected. We'll get it figured out!

The Christmas of Denim Jackets

I made a lot of stuff for Christmas 2024. One of the things I did was upcycle denim jackets to customized one of a kind jackets that reflected the recipients interests. I already showed my sisters jacket a couple posts ago, but here are pics of the ones I did for my grandkids.

 The Dragon Jacket

Star Wars #1

Star Wars #2

Horse Fan

Kitties All Around

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

Video Games

When Bowser is your favorite Mario Character

Paw Patrol

For the denim jackets I bought as many as I could second hand. I started shopping for them in June. I did have to buy a couple of them new, but my goal was to upcycle when I could. The amount of clothes going to landfills is insane, and if I can give old wearable jackets a new life, I wanted to go that route. 

Two of my other grandkids got Minecraft quilts, and I've already shown those. All the grandkids got two pillowcases for Christmas, one holiday pillowcase, and one that went with their interests. 

 I also took some extra units and made big hot pads. I used one layer of cotton batting and a layer of insulbrite so hot pans and casseroles could be placed directly on top.

DD#1 even sent me a photo of her hot pad in action! She has the largest family, so she got a larger hot pad. 

I felt really good about turning finds from second hand shops and misc units hanging around the sewing studio into useful gifts. I'm hoping to be able to upcycle a few things for Christmas 2026 too! The grandkids liked their jackets a lot more than I expected! A lot of kids are disappointed when they get clothes instead of a shiny new toy, but the jackets went over really well. I've been trying to think outside the box on gifts, I like giving useful things or experiences much more than stuff that ends up as clutter. 

If any of you have some outside the box gift ideas, please share them with me! I'm trying to keep the gift budget well in hand, but also give nice gifts too. 

Year End Reckoning and 2025 Goals

New Year's Eve and/or Day is a great time to go over my goals, whether I met them or not. 

These are my empty thread spools for the year. They represent 30,002 yards or just over 17 miles of thread! I finished 40 quilts in 2024, 30 of which were UFO's. That is a personal record for me, one I do not plan to break in 2025.

So how did I do on my 2024 goals?

1) Make bed quilts for four of my grandsons ☑️

2) Two baby quilts ☑️

3) 40 finishes ☑️

4) Make quilts for my nieces and nephews that don't have one from me- Not finished, but I have one done, one ready to quilt, and several ready to assemble, so well on my way. 

5) One empty hanger in the quilt closet 🤣 Not even close! The problem is I'm making quilts faster than I finish them! I know at this rate I'll never catch up, which is why for 2025, I'm making several non-quilty sewing goals. 

So what are my 2025 goals?

1) I'd like to finish all the niece and nephew quilts.

2) I'd like to finish all the queen/king sized quilts that are started.

3) I have at least one scooter quilt that will be a new start, and I'd like to make DH a quilt from his scrub tops to celebrate his retirement. 

4) I'd like to make 100 pillowcases to donate. I certainly have enough fabric to do that easily, and once the pillowcases are cut out, they don't take long to sew up. I made about 36 this year, in about three weeks from start to finish, so I don't find this an unreasonable goal. 

5) I have a goal to make at least 200 scooter themed luggage tags for DH to use as giveaways at Scooter Zine events we have planned. 

Besides the big quilts in progress I want to get finished, I have no goals for UFO's next year. Will I work on them? Absolutely, but I don't care how many I get done. I think there is 0% chance I'll end 2025 with an empty hanger in the quilt closet. I started 2024 with all the hangers full, plus a huge laundry basket filled with quilt tops. Even with 30 UFO finishes, I have five quilt tops not on hangers, plus some hangers have 2 quilt tops on them. I finished three quilt tops in the last couple weeks, I have another on the design wall, and I have piles of quilt blocks everywhere waiting to be assembled. While the weather is cool, I hope to assemble as many of those quilts as I can. I hate assembling quilts in the summer, since those long rows are always piled up on my lap. I don't mind quilting during the summer, partly because the quilt is only on my lap for a day or two while I'm working on the center, and probably mostly because I quilt by timer and limit FMQ to an hour per day. I can handle it for an hour. 

I'm hoping that by working on pillowcases and luggage tags for a bit of next year, while still doing my hour of FMQ per day, I'll slow down on the piecing, and possibly start catching up on the quilting. I did stock up on quilting thread, but I've been avoiding buying fabric, so maybe I'll see some overall progress. I think 2025 will be quite a ride, so besides finishing things already started, I'm opting for quicker goals. Granted, I'm making a lot of pillowcases, and a lot of luggage tags, but those all take a much shorter time than a quilt. 

All the Christmas gifts have been given now, but I think I'll share pics of those next week!