Lost Project Gets to Top Stage!

It's been quite a week! I got a nasty stomach bug, and didn't feel like leaving bed, never mind sewing. Thankfully, I didn't get sick until after I made my son-in-law's birthday dinner. I worked on the project I had misplaced, while I was feeling OK, and I got it to top stage today. This is the leftovers from my big Hawaiian quilt. I had to couple a few pieces of one size, and had a couple left over of another size, so I cut those into my scrap user system sizes and they are put away. I cut it so close on the border fabric! I have about a 6" x 12" left, and that is all.

This pic of the twins isn't very clear, but I like how it shows their size. DH wanted a pic of the twins in his helmets, so here they are. Miss S was trying to sleep through the photo shoot, but Mr. L was awake. They've grown so much since they were born. It took a lot of growing to get to helmet size, they were soooo tiny.

Holding Hands

See the way Lucius reaches out to hold Serenity's hand? Is that cute or what? It's a common occurrence around here, they are always reaching for each other.

I am doing a little bit of sewing, but not much to show right now. I found another partly done project I had completely forgotten about, so I'm using it as my leader/ender project. I had some leftover pieces from my Hawaiian quilt, and I had planned to sew up as many blocks as I could minus the black sashing, and use it as a donation quilt.

This is my original Hawaiian quilt, and the one made from the leftovers won't be near as impressive since I'll be skipping all the black. I wasn't motivated enough to cut all the black sashing strips, but this will get rid of the rest of the leftover cut pieces from this. I purposely overcut so I'd have options as I put it all together. I'm surprised the project had gotten buried, I usually keep my in progress projects together, but this was just organization failure.

I need to make another raffle quilt for DH's upcoming scooter rally. I played around with EQ7 today, while holding a fussy Lucius, and I think I have the quilt pretty much figured out. I am really enjoying EQ7. I had Quilt Wizard first, so making quilts on the computer isn't new to me, but I'm having fun with some of the options Quilt Wizard didn't have. The new rally quilt will be a medallion quilt, and I didn't have that option on Quilt Wizard, but it was a breeze on EQ7!

I don't know if I have enough of all the colors I need for the rally quilt. I should be fine on most of the fabrics, but I might need more rust and tan, because I use those colors a lot. I don't want to go scrappy on this quilt, so I need enough of one fabric of each color, much different than usual for me. I have all the fabric I need for the rally bags, which will be shredded denim and bandanna fabric, with a muslin lining.

Tonight's project? Drawing lots of lines on the backs of fabric squares while I watch a movie. DH is out of town for a few days, so it's a good time to watch a chick flick.

Split Four Patch Top

A while back on the Yahoo group Stashbusters, this split four patch pattern was the topic of discussion. I decided to try making one with the 6 inch squares I'm trying to use up. I'm pretty happy with it. The center has been done for a while, and it just needed a couple borders. Now it's folded up in the quilt top cubby.

I think I've put borders on everything that needed them. I have a few quilts that need to be assembled, but the blocks are done. I may be starting on quilt assembly as leaders and enders while I work on some quilts with deadlines. I really need to find time to do lots of cutting, so everything is ready for the next few quilts. Three of the quilts I need to make require lots of fussy cutting, and that can take a while.

I also have several quilts in the works that require diagonal corners, either for Snowball blocks or Indian Hatchet blocks. If I get all of those ready to go, maybe I can get all the diagonal sewing done in a day, with another day to double sew so I can get bonus HST's. I'm running low on good leader/ender projects, so I need to do some thinking on that. I hate to waste any time, now that my sewing time is at such a premium.

Still Adding Borders

I've still been adding borders to get things to quilt top stage. Actually, this top one I had to assemble too, but it was just some flannel orphan blocks. I got to use almost all of this border fabric, just some scraps for the scrap user system left. I was happy to see this fabric go, I had bought it to fussy cut some babies for a project, but that project is long done, so I'm happy to see this novelty fabric out of here. I'm not too hot on pastels as a general rule, but I do have some. This got rid of some of that pastel stash that I'm happy to use.

Remember this top from a while back? I had been debating on whether to add another border after the zig zag or not. I talked it over with my online friend, Stephanie, and she suggested a dark purple border. The color doesn't show true in this photo, but the dark purple border was exactly what it needed, and I'm loving this quilt now. Thanks, Stephanie!

I now have five quilt tops in my quilt top cubby. I have another quilt top I'd like to quilt tomorrow, so it's not in the cubby. I have one more quilt center waiting for borders, and a few quilts where the blocks are done, and that's as far as I got. Are any of these the quilts that are due in the next couple of months? Of course not, it can't be that easy! By getting some of the projects that were laying out to quilt top stage, it is cleaning up my sewing room slowly, but surely. I'm uncovering some surfaces, and I will soon be able to start the projects with due dates with a somewhat clear conscience. Of course, it would be better if the quilts were finished, but if I need them, finishing a quilt top to completed quilt takes a lot less time than starting from scratch. I can live with quilt tops much more guilt free than quilt parts everywhere.

One More Top

I didn't get near as much done as far as sewing goes as I had hoped, but I did get the borders on this one quilt top. I had no clue what fabric to use for borders for this, and as I was hunting through my yardage, I had a bit of an epiphany.

I couldn't find anything in my yardage that I liked with this center, so I started looking through my 1 yard and under bolts. I had this yellow which I really liked, and I had just enough to do the border. That is when I realized something about myself. I hate using the last of a fabric that I like. Now if I don't like a fabric, or am just sick of it, I am relieved to have the rest of it gone, but if I really like a fabric, I don't want to use the rest of it. I do have a tiny bit of this left, and by that, I mean a couple short strings (less than 6 inches long), one 1 1/2 inch strip, and four 5 inch squares. Realistically, this means this fabric will show up in three more quilts, since I have three different sizes stuck in my scrap user system. Still, there isn't a lot left, and it's not enough to be a major part of a quilt. It makes me sad, using all of this fabric. I do like the way it looks on this quilt, I don't regret using it for the border. I'm just sad I don't have more of it left.

On the up side, my fabric storage system is working just as it should. I have all pieces over one yard in one area, and pieces one yard and under in another. If I'm using my fabric, it starts in the yardage area, moves to the one yard and under area when it's down to that, and the last little bit goes into the pre-cut shape or strip drawers. Eventually it will be used up entirely, and that is really the point, to use my fabric, not hoard it.

OK, now that I've admitted my unusual attachment to fabric, I can go to bed happy in the knowledge that I am not alone in my odd fabric obsession. I hear plenty of fabric obsession stories in my Yahoo quilting groups :-)

My Love for Stripes

This isn't a great photo. but you can see I opted for some more striped borders. Both of these baby quilt tops are made from denim and flannel. This top one I need to actually finish up in the next few days, because the baby it is for is already here.

I had the center of this one pieced, and hadn't decided on borders when this remnant of striped flannel caught my eye while shopping for some black background. Almost all of the remnant is in these borders, I can probably cut a couple squares from the remaining bits but it is pretty much out of here. I didn't have enough of the flannel to do the corners, thus the denim corners.

I have a couple more borders cut for other quilts, and I'd like to get those sewn on this weekend. I need to clean up my sewing room, and getting some of these almost-finished tops to finished tops stage should help. I cleaned off a shelf in the sewing room for completed tops, so now they will have a place to live until I get a chance to have another quilting spree.

Today I was hoping to sew, but I did our taxes instead. It took much longer than I bargained for, since I couldn't get the information from last year to transfer like it should have. Ah well, it's done now, and filed as well, so at least it's something to cross off my to-do list!

It is just amazing how much my life has changed in the last few months. We went from just three of us living here, to eight. Everyone has such drastically different schedules, and with newborn twins in the house, my life is busier than ever. Cooking, cleaning, and laundry for eight is a full time job, and when you add helping with twins to that, sewing time is hard to come by. There have been a couple times I've spent an hour sewing, and that feels like a huge extravagance. I am enjoying my time with my kids and grandkids, so it's not a problem, it's just different, and I'm having to rethink realistic goals for my sewing.

I'm hoping to get some sewing time tomorrow, but we should have some company on Sunday. I babysit Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday is DH's birthday, and DS the Elder should be flying into town that day :-) During busy, busy times like this, sewing helps keep me sane, so I'll keep quilting, even if it's 15 minutes at a time.