Working on Everything at Once

I have been sneaking to my sewing room every chance I get this week, and am working on so many projects it's funny. I usually have at least some time to sew on weekends, so I've designated that my quilting time. Any chance I can snag during the week is bonus time, and that's when I've been working on other projects, like more Christmas stockings.

I love the look of the string stockings I made last year, but I am five stockings short for how many people we are expecting for Christmas this year. The string stockings take longer to make, but I like them so well, I am doing more the same way. I got the front and back of a pink stocking done. I won't assemble the stockings until all the string piecing is done.

I have been string piecing on my featherweight, trying to cycle through my machines. I still haven't messed with my 503 Rocketeer named Cliff yet. I need to get some projects out of my way so I have a cleaned off spot to put him. I started some blue string blocks ages ago, and got sidetracked with other projects, but since I am string piecing anyway, I'm using the blue strings blocks as leaders/enders for my stockings.

 Right now I'm over halfway done string piecing a blue stocking, and while I worked on the pink stocking and the blue one, I've finished four blue stings blocks. I've trimmed them, but haven't removed the paper yet, I'll wait until I have a stack of them.

I looked at step 2 to the mystery this morning, and saw I'd need purple strips. I decided to check my strip drawer to see what I already had cut that would work.

What a mess! Time to organize this. I did not figure it would take me the two hours it did.

All sorted by color now, and I took the shirt strips that were mixed in out, as I am storing those elsewhere now. I still mix them in with quilting fabrics when I feel like it, I just have several quilts in my head that will use only shirts, so for now I'd like them separate. I also separated out any strips that did not fit into any particular color family, and all the really short strips. I have a pineapple blossom quilt planned for early 2013, and I hope to make several log cabin quilts next year, so I figured I'd start cutting the short strips first. When I sorted my 2.5" strips, they stay stacked pretty well, but these stacks keep falling over. I may resort to ziploc bags to keep the colors separate. I make so many just light/dark quilts like log cabins, that I hate having the colors SO separated. I want them separate, but not.....hmmm, I'll have to keep thinking on that. I do a lot of color controlled scrappy too, so separate makes sense. One of these days I need to tackle my 1.5" strips.

 Here is my bowl of short strips and way multicolored (don't fit in any color family) strips. When I get a chance, I'll start cutting logs for some 2013 quilts.

A lot of my current projects are all from the same fabrics. I wanted to bust a bunch of floral fabrics, and I had about twenty yards of the same cream fabric. The cream fabric was misprinted, so I am having to dodge some wonky printed areas, but the fabric is nice and it was hugely discounted because of the misprint. I wanted to make a Floribunda quilt (Jacob's Ladder) a la Bonnie Hunter, but I purposely cut too many pieces, and strip pieced more than what I needed for the four patches in the Jacob's ladder blocks. Right now I am working on three different style blocks from the same fabrics, and I pinned sample blocks up on my design wall to keep the orientation of the blocks all the same.

Top left is a Jacob's Ladder block, right is a paddle wheel block. On the bottom is a Friendship Star block. On the friendship stars I am planning to make half with cream stars, half with cream background, and alternate them in a quilt. I have to be careful when I making blocks like the friendship star and paddle wheel blocks. There have been a few times I didn't pay enough attention and had some blocks spinning one way and some the other. I am piecing these on my Bernina, which faces my design wall, so hopefully I can keep the ripping to a minimum. After sorting my strip drawer today, I didn't feel like cutting the mystery quilt pieces, so I just worked on these quilt blocks today, plus quilt blocks for another quilt I can't show yet. One of the floral quilts is for a gift, but since I am making multiple quilts, I don't mind showing the quilts along the way. The other quilt I am working on is a gift, no occasion, just because so no deadline, but if I showed a pic of it, some of my family that reads my blog would know immediately who it is for, as it is a themed quilt. No pics of that one until it is given away.

Tomorrow's plan, cut the pieces for step two of the mystery, so some more sub-cutting for my cream/floral blocks, and start sewing the newly cut pieces. I'm already planning on ordering pizza for dinner, then the girls and I have planned a Christmas movie/present wrapping session. I finished my Christmas shopping this week, and since DH is out of town for a scooter rally, it's a great time to make a big mess in the living room wrapping everything that's not wrapped yet!