2018 Year End Reckoning

2018 was a good quilting year for me! Much better than 2017 where I only finished 3 quilts. 

As usual, I took a photo of my empty spools for the year.

This really isn't a very accurate way of determining how much I've sewn, but I figure from year to year it eventually evens out. I did a lot of quilting this year, but I didn't empty any of my large cones, so none of my quilting thread is counted in this. 

These spools represent 19,035 yards of thread, or 16.5 miles.

I started this year with a UFO list of 53. I finished 19 UFO's this year, with another 6 new start finishes, bringing me to a total of 25 finished quilts for the year. 

The 25 quilts I finished, along with numerous non-quilting projects throughout the year, used about 250 yards of fabric. 

I finished all the goals I had set for myself at the end of 2017. Yup, definitely a good quilting year!

I've been revamping my UFO list for 2019, as well as making a list of quilting goals. 

I listed 51 UFO's for 2019. One of those I am currently quilting on, 20 are quilt tops waiting to be quilted. Probably another dozen are stacks of blocks needing assembly, or at least part of the blocks done. The rest are either cut out or have some units made. I likely have more than 51 UFOs, but I don't see much point in listing more, because I know I can't finish that many quilts in one year. 

My cutting table is a disaster. I'm currently on a cutting spree for several quilts on my 2019 deadline list. The quilts I'm cutting for on my deadline list I did put on my UFO list. I am cutting for a couple more that I'm not planning to work on soon, that have no deadline, so they are more a WIP or WHIMM and aren't going on my UFO list. 

I've been working on my 2019 goals, and although I'm still fiddling with whether or not I'm likely to actually finish them in 2019, here's what I'm attempting.

1) Three wedding quilts for nieces and nephews. All of these are currently being cut out.

2) A quilt for my bed, which is currently being cut out.

3) Baby quilt for grandbaby, Mr. T, due in May, not started.

4) Twin sized quilt for Miss S, started.

5) Twin sized quilt for Mr. J. Fabric collected, need to design before I can start

6) New bed quilt for DD#1, cut out

7) New quilt for DD#2, top done, waiting for quilting

8) Make weighted blankets until I am out of plastic pellets.

I have a couple other quilts I'd like to start and finish in 2019, but for now, this a good list of goals. I'd like to get at least a dozen of the completed quilt tops quilted in 2019, but I'm hoping for more than that. If I can get some of the quilts in blocks assembled into tops that would be great too. 

Moving UFO's to the next step was my method this year, and it was pretty successful. Every time I was assembling a deadline quilt, I grabbed a stack of blocks from a UFO and assembled that too. Everytime I needed a leader/ender project, I looked through my UFO's and looked for units that could be assembled as leaders/enders. I'm not trying to get caught up in a year, I'm just trying to keep momentum going. 

Right now I've got a house full of company. I've got lots going on in January, including more company and an out of town trip. I was hoping for a basting spree in January, but that may end up waiting until February. Until then I'll work on whatever I can. I still have baby bibs to finish, and I have lots of cutting to do. I'm hoping I'm not too high on the 2019 UFO challenge list, but we'll see. I could always finish my quilted mouse pad for a quick finish if I need to. 

Even More Weighted Blankets

I finished two more weighted blankets, and that is very important to me BECAUSE...those two blankets finished the list of goals I had for 2018, that I made at the end of 2017!!!!! Go me!

The last few years I've not met my goals, because life has been crazy. It's still crazy, but in different ways now. It feels amazing to finally meet my year's goals again. I'm working on next year's list, and it's already longer than I'd like, but I'll do what I can. 

This was one of the weighted blankets.

This was the other. It's for kids so a little smaller. 

I was playing bobbin chicken on that last weighted blanket, sewing on Christmas Day. I had a nice Christmas win at bobbin chicken, and finished with only a few inches to spare. 

Since we celebrated Christmas early, and our next round of company arrives today, I actually spent Christmas Eve taking down all the Christmas decorations. I knew if I didn't get the decorations down, there was a chance I wouldn't get them down until mid January, and that would have driven me a bit crazy. 

I'm not planning any more quilty finishes in 2018. If I get any sewing time, I'll work on baby bibs. I mostly plan to work on cutting in any scraps of time I find. At least with the Studio cutter even 15 minutes of cutting leaves me with a noticeable pile of pieces! One of the quilts I'm cutting for is an equilateral triangle quilt, and I can cut 60 triangles in one pass. Honestly, I now spend more time ironing the fabric before cutting than I do actually cutting. 

I ordered some fleece to make up more weighted blankets. Fleece has been my favorite fabric for making weighted blankets. Quilting cotton I think you can feel the pellets too much, Flannel I worry about holding up, minky is really messy to use and drives me nuts. Fleece is sturdy, thick enough to not feel each individual pellet, and easy to work with. I have a LOT more pellets left than I anticipated. I'll just keep making weighted blankets until they are gone. I like using fleece for quilt backing, so any extra fleece I have will be used up soon enough. 

I am still working on FMQ my oldest UFO. The center is finished, and I've got a plan for the three borders. My plan is to have that old UFO be my first finish of 2019. We'll see!

A Little More

I'm determined to finish the year strong, even with the crazy holiday stuff going on and lots of company. 

I had cut these brown HST's for another project, but hated how it was coming out. I dug some blue and orange out of stash to match the tiny flowers in this vintage brown calico, and ended up with what to me looks like a fairly modern quilt. I even had a vintage sheet I had picked up at a thrift store with the same colors in it, that was just big enough for the backing. Now I've got a bonus quilt I'm quite happy with, instead of pushing through and using it for my original purpose and hating it. 

I finished four bibs yesterday. I've got nine more to do, but I may buy more towels and increase that a bit. The bibs I have here at my house are pretty worn out, some are left from when my kids were young. It might be nice to have some nicer bibs for Nana's house too. 

I have two more weighted blankets ready to fill, but that's going to wait for Christmas Day when things should be quiet around here. Any sewing time I have this week will be spent either FMQ on my oldest UFO, making bibs, or cutting projects for next year. My list for next year's projects is already pretty long, and the sooner I get them cut out, the sooner I can start working on them. 

More Weighted Blankets

I finished two more weighted blankets. I thought both of these were on my UFO list, but only one of these was.

^This one is going to Indiana. It was on my UFO list.

^This is going to Washington state. This one I thought was on my UFO list, but wasn't.

^This quilt, however, was on my UFO list, and it's finished too! The blocks were leftover bits from a different quilt, that actually had different blocks entirely. I cut HST's from leftover stripsets to get these blocks. Because I was just cutting from whatever was left, not all my pinwheels spin in the same direction, so I needed sashing to make it work. I had the perfect border fabric in stash, and I think this border used all I had. 

I started quilting on my oldest UFO that I talked about in my last post. It's a monster! 

I also prepped all the boy bibs for sewing. The appliques are fused, and each bib is matched with a ribbing collar, though nothing is sewn yet. 

I have two more weighted blankets ready to sew channels in that are for specific recipients. I'm going to have more plastic pellets left than I thought I would, and eventually, I'll make more weighed blankets until they are gone. I've got several projects that take precedent over that though, so as soon as these last two weighted blankets are done, I'm packing the remaining pellets up for a while. My arm injury is not fond of making weighted blankets, so when the pellets are gone, they are gone and I won't make another one. 

I had just a couple things left to pick up for Christmas, and DH and I got that done today  (besides grocery shopping, still have that to do). I have a little bit of wrapping left to do, but not much of that. Good thing too. We have some of the grandkids this weekend, company for dinner on Sunday, a family arrives Monday to stay a week, then I'll have a couple down days while DH works, then another round of company! I still have some hope I could have another finish or two in 2018, but we'll see, it's getting really busy!

Year End Push

I know I'm not the only one busy in the sewing room this time of year. The thing is, I'm not actually making any Christmas presents this year. I'm mostly trying to finish up some projects I had hoped to finish LAST YEAR! I'm also busy making baby bibs for the latest round of grandchildren. 

I made nine bibs for my granddaughter that was born in May. She's just starting to eat table food. I just found out my next TWO grandbabies are boys, so Miss E got all the girly colored towels I had, so I can use all the more boyish colors on the next grandsons. Truth is, I probably need to go buy more towels to make bibs if I want to give them nine each.  I figure nine is a good number, three days worth, and how many people with babies in the house do laundry less than twice a week?

I finished one weighted blanket since my last post.

Too bad I can't count this one as a UFO finish :-( I already finished the UFO version of this weighted blanket earlier this year. Then, the recipient thought is was TOO heavy. I use a serpentine stitch to quilt the channels to reinforce the seams. No way I was unpicking all those stitches! I ended up cutting the too heavy blanket apart, and salvaging as much of the fabric as I could. (I've got a plan for that fabric, so it's another UFO now) This version is a new start for this year, but at least it's a finish as well. 

I have four weighted blankets to finish that really are UFO's, tops were made last year. I'm hoping (somewhat unrealistically) to get those all finished by the end of the year. 

AND...because working on baby bibs and five weighted blankets wasn't enough...I dug out my oldest UFO and started working on it. My oldest UFO is the Double Delight mystery quilt from 2008. Yup, ten year UFO that won't be finished this year either. I am hoping to have it finished in January though. 

Why was it a UFO? Let me count the ways. First, although I love scrappy quilts, I was a beginning quilter at the time, so I didn't have a quilter's stash. I only went scrappy on two colors, and I had to buy fabric to do that. I ended up finding my quilt boring compared to others. 

Likely because I found it boring, I decided to do a different layout. Instead of putting it on point, I decided to straight set it, which meant I needed to make more blocks. Even with more blocks, it wasn't large enough for my bed, so I added three borders, one of which is pieced blocks, which also needed to be made. 

Eventually, I got the top together (a couple years later), but remember the beginner quilter thing? Yeah, well I now had this huge quilt and no idea how to quilt it. I got it basted and stitched in the ditch around the blocks and borders. Not a bad beginning, right? I was at the very beginning of my foray into FMQ, up until this point I had only stitched in the ditch or cross hatched the entire quilt with a walking foot, which would have gotten the job done and the quilt on my bed. BUT, at this point I decided I had put enough work into the quilt it deserved nicer quilting. BIG MISTAKE! Determining a quilt needs nicer quilting is a sure roadblock for me. 

I decided to use quilt stencils. I bought a stencil appropriate for the size of the blocks, and bought a pounce pad to mark the blocks. I originally bought a white pounce pad, which didn't show up well enough for me to the marks on the quilt. I set it aside...FOR YEARS. I bought a pink pounce pad eventually, and decided to try again. By this time I had done a couple quilts with quilt stencils and done OK. Of course, none of those quilts were this big. I could see the pink on the quilt, and I quilted some blocks. It didn't take long to decide I hated using the pounce pad and the stencil, and I set the quilt aside...FOR YEARS!!!

I've finished quilting the other quilts I had basted, though two still need binding. I don't really have time to baste another quilt right now, so I decided to dig out Double Delight. I had decided if I had less than 20 blocks quilted with the stencil, I was going to rip them out and start over with a non-marking method. If I had more than 20 blocks done, I was going to do all the marking at once with a washable marker and push through. 

I dug the quilt out of the closet, spread it out upstairs, and counted the blocks I had quilted...four...four blocks and the quilt was the start of my UFO pile. I took a couple days of ripping for short periods of time during breaks, and ripped out those four blocks. I'm leaving the ditch quilting in, even though I decided to do an allover leaf design in the center of the quilt. It will only be noticeable on the back. Today I quilted for just over an hour, and quilted 12 blocks. One hour of quilting and I'm further along than I was before. I'm sure I won't get the center finished before January, so I have plenty of time to think what to do in the borders, though the wide outer border I'm going to use the same allover leaf design in. I'm only actually going to custom quilt two of the borders. 

The biggest bummer for me about finishing this quilt, is that I am in a different bedroom now, and it really won't match my new room. So I'll have finally finished a quilt for my bed, that won't match the bedroom!

With the holidays comes lots of stuff going on. I'll have some kind of company 14 of the days between now and January 2nd, plus I have a grandbaby due January 3rd, so whenever that happens we'll be taking a quick trip to see the new baby. I will have a few days to sew between different groups of company. What will I get done before the end of the year? I don't know, but hopefully I'll have a couple things marked off my list! 

Oh, in my quest to clean up my sewing rooms before the company comes, I've been using my new Studio cutter to deal with the scraps from the last few quilts I've finished. 

I even used my strip cutter die to cut up the batting scraps so I can try to make a jelly roll rug next year. I've got all the fabric scraps cut into scrap user sizes now, and the cotton batting scraps that were hanging around were cut into 2.5" strips. I've got a bunch of batting scraps in the closet, that need to be made into Frankenbatts, but that's a job for a different month! 

It Runs in the Family

Some families run thick with musical talent, others athletic ability, mine runs thick with creative genes; the need to craft something yourself, even if it would be easier or less expensive to buy it ready made.

I remember my maternal grandfather woodworking, my granddaughter now has the doll cradle he made me when I was a little girl. I have my paternal grandmother's treadle sewing machine. I remember the bookshelves my dad made me, and all the clothes my mom made, even taking the time to hand embroider on my Easter outfit. My mother still crafts, and I hope I'll be doing the same in my 80's. 

My mom made this afghan for my next grandchild to be born. I left the note she tied on when I took the photo. She converted a coloring book picture to a stitch chart to make the elephant, still crafting, still innovative, still creative, even in her 80's. I had kept the afghan she made for my son too, when he was a baby, so this new grandbaby will be getting two afghans from his great-grandmother. 

My oldest sister is also incredibly talented, and while I mostly quilt, she dabbles in so many crafts! One of my daughters is currently pregnant, and she wanted something specific for the nursery wall, but was having a hard time finding it. My sister heard what she wanted, and made it in just a few days.

Won't this look adorable in a nursery?

My sister made herself this scrappy afghan and I loved the look of it...

..so she made me one. It's usually me giving away blankets, not receiving one! 

While she was crocheting, she made hats for my grandkids. She actually made two more than this, but two of my grandkids already got theirs. 

My sister does a lot of papercrafts too.

She made beads out of scrap scrapbooking paper, then made a basket from the beads.

She likes upcycling as well, her junk mail looks way better than mine!

All the quilling in this is made from junk mail.

This little lady also started out as junk mail. The junk mail in my house just goes into the recycle bin, and my version of upcycling is turning clothes into quilts! 

I've been watching the next generation figure out their creative talents. One of my daughters is really into photography. Another is an amazing baker, making up her own recipes and flavor combinations. My youngest daughter likes to weld and do metal crafts. 

She made me this quilter from scrap metal and old bicycle parts. 

My oldest son has dabbled in woodworking, and my youngest son was really into cartooning for a while. I have a niece that's a chef, and another that does the graphics for video games. One of my nephews has done extensive landscaping and remodeling. Those creative genes go on, I can't wait to see how they show in the next generation!

A Quilt Top, A Finish, and a Start

I finally feel like I got something done! Of course, that could be because I actually finished something ;-)

It's not a great photo because my cutting table was making a shadow on the quilt, but here's a big quilt that's been in my way with the borders finally sewn on! It's folded into fourths for the photo, it's a queen sized quilt and I didn't have enough space to easily lay it out for a photo. Now this quilt top is hanging the sewing room closet, where it can wait (out of my way) until it gets quilted.

I just finished the quilt for my next grandson less than an hour ago. It's big for a baby quilt, but they specifically asked for it to be suitable for him to drag around until he's five or so. I had the perfect piece of minky for the backing in my stash, so I made it as big as I could and still use the minky for the backing. I literally only cut off the selvages and trimmed the bottom and top edges straight on the minky! I cut it really close, closer than I probably should have, but I was happy to use up every bit of that minky.

On the minky back, you can see the quilting I did pretty well. I opted to use my Bernina with a walking foot to quilt it. This is my favorite way to quilt an equilateral triangle quilt. I like to quilt 1/2" away from each side of every seam, which makes an interesting looking design, and you get bonus stars at the intersections. You could certainly change up the distance from the seam to quilt, I just really like the 1" sashing look it gives when I quilt 1/2" away from the seam. These are 6" triangles, if you went bigger or smaller you'd have to adjust.

As for the new start, I started playing around with some leftover 1" HSTs. I haven't counted how many I have, It's easy enough to make more should I need them. I have no idea what the final project will be, but I started making little stars.

I've only made two stars so far, but I'll make them until the leftover HSTs are gone, then I'll decide what to do with them. Once I know how many I have, I can decide if I want to make more HSTs or just figure out how to use them in something small. This star will finish at 4" in a quilt. Right now I'm thinking they might be the centers of an economy block (square in a square in square) Those blocks would be 8", so if I made 25 or so, I could get a baby quilt out of it. I don't think I have enough HSTs to make 25 stars, but I'm liking the idea, so perhaps I'll be making more. 

For the next while I won't be using anything for leaders/enders, not even these cute stars. I won't be piecing much for a bit. I have towel bibs to make for two different grandbabies, and I want to finish the weighted blankets I have ready to sew channels in. Since I won't be piecing, no leaders/enders will be happening. 

I haven't been quilting on my longarm since I got back from my trip. I was stuck on how to quilt the quilt. I was reading in the Stashbusters yahoo group, and they were talking about simple quilting. I really needed that discussion, because I realized if I had just done something simple I would have finished both the quilts I've got basted by now. Finished is better than perfect, and I needed the reminder. Now I feel ready to start quilting those last two basted quilts. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great day, even with missing one of my daughter's families. We had three people not show due to illness, and another show up for the same reason. We're pretty flexible around here, so no problems either way. 

I've spent the last couple days cooking, but I did find the time to make a couple bibs for my youngest granddaughter.

She ate solids for the first time today at Thanksgiving dinner. She was not sure what to think about the banana we gave her. 

I got the quilt for the next grandbaby on the design wall, and I've actually gotten 6 (maybe 7) rows sewn. Once I finish sewing all the rows and press them, I'll start sewing the rows to each other. It should be a quick finish, no borders going on this one. I've got the backing ready to go, and the clock is ticking so I need to get this one finished up! Baby will be here soon!

I laid this mini quilt out a while back, but I finally got the top together this week. It's got 160 pieces and it's 8x10 inches. The baby quilt above only has 170 pieces, and it's about 56x60 inches. Quite different scales I've been working on! This mini quilt will actually be a mouse pad for me! I hardly ever make myself anything, but I need a mousepad, so I decided to make one. 

Besides the two bibs, I didn't finish anything this week, but progress is progress. At least I'm moving forward instead of standing still. I'll be thankful for that.

Baby Steps

I'm still not back in the swing of things. I am finally over being sick though, which is great! 

I am usually great at prioritizing and getting things done, but I'm just a bit off. Thanksgiving completely snuck up on me this year, and it's a good thing there will only be 15 of us for dinner. I was scrambling to figure out what I needed to buy for dinner. I'm glad this isn't one of the years I've had 40 coming for dinner. I can do dinner for 15 with ease. 

I am trying to prioritize which projects to work on. The next grandbaby to come is due January 3, so I really need to get the baby stuff finished. 

I cut out some swaddling blankets yesterday, and got them sewn up today. Sometimes I really have fun choosing just two fabrics for a project. I'd be bored stiff making a quilt with only two fabrics, but a swaddling blanket or a pillowcase? Those are fun projects that only use two or three fabrics. 

Now the only thing left to make for this upcoming grandbaby is the baby quilt. I need to cut some more equilateral triangles before I can start sewing on it, so that's tomorrow's project. 

I haven't done any FMQ this week, I told you I'm really off schedule. I've got a quilt ready to go, and finally wound the bobbins I needed to quilt it, but that's as far as I've gotten. 

Hopefully when I blog next, I can show some progress on the baby quilt. I need to get a move on just in case this baby decides to make an early arrival. 

Back to Basics

Wow! I don't know about any of you, but I have a really hard time getting back to normal after being gone. I was away for 12 days, and I've been struggling to get back into my routine ever since. 

I have been sticking with my FMQ for an hour every morning, (followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill) and I have a finish to show for the quilting.

This is for my grandson, Mr LJ. It's his big boy bed quilt, because he turns two this month. Where has the time gone? He's going to have to give up his crib, because he's got a baby brother or sister on the way who's going to need it. That's just as well, because Mr. LJ has been working on climbing out of the crib in question, and he'll be safer in a bed. DH calls Mr. LJ "Hot Rod", thus the hot rod border on his transportation quilt. 

I only have two more quilts basted, neither are deadline quilts or very big, I just basted a couple extra because I still had pins left on the last basting spree. 

I haven't managed to get any cutting or other sewing done since I got home Sunday night. I caught a stomach bug, and haven't felt very good, so I haven't been terribly motivated. I did, however, get a bunch of Christmas presents wrapped, and even have a couple boxes ready to ship when December hits.

Yes, I know, I'm one of those super annoying early shoppers who is done before most people start shopping. I have a big family, and I need to spread out the cost, so it's partially practical, and the other side of that is I hate crowds and hate shopping, so I'd prefer to get it all done before the stores are crowded. Actually, this isn't even early by my standards. When my kids were little, we were so broke that my goal was to be finished with Christmas shopping by October 1st, so I had enough money to use for holiday foods and such. Financially we are better now, so I could wait to shop, but there's still the I hate crowds and shopping, so shopping early still works best for me. I do have a few little things to buy, but overall, I'm pretty much finished with Christmas shopping. 

I've got grandkids visiting this weekend, so not much on the sewing front will get done then. Maybe I can make myself a plan so next week will be more productive. 

I've completely given up hope of getting the next wedding quilt done by mid-December. It was a really short engagement, and I've had lots going on, so I'm not going to stress about it. In fact, I'm not even sure I will start that quilt before January. We've got a ton of things going on from now to the end of the year, lots of company coming and events. The only thing I've done for that wedding quilt is pre-wash the batiks, and choose a pattern. I have a grandbaby quilt that I really need to make, and that will be my priority. I have the baby quilt partially cut out, so maybe next week that will be my focus, finish cutting out the baby quilt and making the other swaddling blankets. 

I have a LOT of things I had hoped to get done by year's end. I'm not sure much of that will get done. All I can do is prioritize and do what I can. I'm missing my sister, and yesterday was her birthday. I'm not sure if it's harder or easier that it was so soon after she passed away. I still have one sister and a brother, and I'm thankful for that. I usually keep myself really busy, but I think right now, I just need to give myself some grace and just be. 

Change of Plan

Sometimes plans are changed due to general busy-ness, time conflicts or illness. Sometimes  serious issues crop up and completely derail your life for a bit. 

My week started out with news the my oldest grandson broke his arm. From the look of the X-ray, I’d say he did a good job of breaking it.

Things completely derailed on Wednesday when I lost a sister. I knew it could happen, but hoped it wouldn’t.

Nothing like a change of view to adjust your perspective. I won’t be blogging for a couple weeks, because I’ve got family to spend time with. Quilting can wait. 

Men's Shirts

I think I may have a problem. Have you ever noticed a really nice shirt on a man and thought, wow, would I like to make a quilt with that? I can rarely tell you what the man looked like, age, hair color, etc..., but I can often describe his shirt in detail.

Now that I've got a small stockpile of men's shirts, I've often seen a shirt on a man, leaned over to my husband and whispered, "I have that shirt!" I'm starting to wonder if this is unusual behavior. 

It makes a certain amount of sense. I'm not a floral kind of girl. I love stripes, plaids, and geometric prints. My preferred prints are more masculine in nature, and not always easy to find in quilting cottons.

I am also a fan of upcycling. I'm always looking for ways to reuse things, and over the years I've remade curtains, tablecloths, graduation gowns, etc... into clothes for my kids. I like finding potential in the things others discard. 

My latest men's shirt finish is Allietare, a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt from few years ago.

Everything but the border fabric and the gold constant are men's shirts. 

One of my grandsons recently got a full-sized bed and needed a larger quilt. I have been pretty swamped lately, so I looked though my UFOs and found this. I knew it would work, and be much faster to finish a UFO than start a whole new quilt. 

Since the top is a bit old for an almost 8 year old, I used some fun motorcycle fabric from stash on the back. The colors worked well with the top, and I had just enough to make the backing. I only have some small scraps left from the backing fabric. 

Besides this finish, my exciting news of the week is that my Studio cutter arrived!

I haven't cut anything with it yet, but you can see some blue fabrics piled on my cutting table waiting to be cut. I moved my Go dies to the shelves right under the Go cutter, and all my Studio strip dies are now in the cabinet behind those shelves. Those blue fabrics need to be cut into strips so I can sub-cut them with a rotary cutter for a baby quilt. The other project waiting to be cut is a wedding quilt, but I think I can cut all of it with the Studio cutter. 

I've already started quilting the next quilt for a different grandson.

The newest quilt goes to this guy who will soon be moving to a big boy bed! I need to have his quilt finished by his birthday in November, so I better go quilt some more!

Not Much Sewing

This week has seemed pretty busy, but it's been more about family than sewing. 

On Saturday we finally managed the dining table swap. DD#1 wanted a bigger dining table, we wanted a smaller one. She wanted rectangular, we wanted to switch to oval. Rather than either of us spending any money a swap was arranged. DD#1 also wanted my old cutting table to put in her kitchen. It's counter height and she desperately needed more counter space. So Saturday, DH and I drove out to their place, about 90 minutes away, dropped off the two tables and four chairs, and picked up one table and four chairs. We got to spend a little time with the four grandkids there, and even got to see their chickens.

^Here's the grandkids...

^...and here's the chickens. I don't know anything about chickens, but these do have a pretty blue/green sheen in the sunlight. They remind me of an oil slick without the detriment to the environment. 

^Here's the table we got in the swap. It's really made the family rounds. DS the Elder and DD#2 bought it several years ago when they were sharing an apartment. DD#2 took it when she got married, and they used it for a while, then passed it to DD#1 when her family relocated from South Africa to the USA. Now we've got it, so it's really gotten around. 

When we were ready to come home, the window regulator broke on DH's side of the car, and the window fell down into the door! We had to drive home with the window down on the highway, I was not a fan. We managed to get the van into the shop on Sunday, which was good because it rained a lot and we don't have covered parking. 

The grandtwins had fall break from school this week, so I got to do some fun stuff with them too. 

The weather was perfect for a trip to the zoo!

This weekend I'll have a houseful. DD#2 is coming down with her family for the weekend, so everyone else be over to see them. It should be a fun, busy time. 

As far as sewing goes I did get some in. I only have one corner left to quilt on Mr. L's quilt (he's the one on the polar bear) I should finish his quilt next week. 

I got some lightweight baby blankets hemmed for one of the grandbabies on the way. I also got burp rags cut out for new grandbabies. I have the fabric out to make some double-sided baby blankets but haven't cut those out yet. 

I listed my Go cutter on ebay, and I'm waiting on my Studio cutter before I start cutting out the next quilts. Working on the misc. baby stuff is a good use of my sewing time until it arrives. 

Company is due anytime, so I better get going!

Overcoming the Overdue!

I just finished the last overdue wedding quilt!!!

Of course I have two wedding quilts I need to start, but hey, no overdue ones hanging over my head!!! That's a win!

I finished another quilt top. It's a very scrappy version of a Crayon Box quilt. It's now hanging in the closet with the other UFO quilt tops. I hope they make friends in there, because I have no idea when this one will get quilted. You can see my old cutting table to the right in this photo. With the bigger cutting table, I'm going to have to lay out quilts somewhere else to take pics.

I started quilting another quilt this morning. FMQ one hour per day is really working well for me. I find that I can get get most quilts quilted in two weeks or less just quilting an hour per day. Of course, I'm not quilting anything fancy. I just want to get some quilts finished, I don't need them to win ribbons. 

I have another quilt top close to being finished, and I have the borders ready to go on that one. After that quilt top is together, I need to get going on the baby stuff for the two grandbabies on the way, and at least cut out one wedding quilt, that wedding is in December. I'll wait for my Studio cutter to arrive before I cut anything. I am really excited about that!

I got the melamine edging put on my new cutting station today. DH thought I would have him do it, but I laughed. It's iron on, and I am pretty handy with an iron, at least in the sewing room!

Lots of stuff to get done, but I am so relieved to have the overdue quilts finished! I'm going to celebrate by icing my arm and watching a movie!

Solving Cutting Problems

I have learned work arounds for my arm issues on everything but cutting. Since I've been concentrating on UFOs it hasn't been a huge issue. Today I finished quilting the last overdue wedding quilt, so new starts are just around the corner. I needed to figure out how I was going to handle cutting. I've tried doing one 30 minute rotary cutting session per day, but even that is too much. I need something that allows me to cut fabric with less stress on my arm. 

I have an Accuquilt Go cutter, and I like it, but I've never had a dedicated spot to put it. DH was thinking I should buy the Go! Big Electric, but I was really struggling with the cost of that, and they hardly ever go on sale. What I really have been wanting is the Accuquilt Studio, which is easier to crank than the Go cutter, can use all the dies I currently own with an adapter, AND, it can also use all the Sizzix brand dies with an adapter. Of course, it also uses Studio dies, which are more expensive than Go dies, but go on sale far more frequently, bringing them to about the same price as the Go version. I was still debating which cutter I was going to get, but I knew an upgrade was in order. 

No matter which way I went, I knew I needed a dedicated space for the cutter, and I knew I'd still have some rotary cutting to do no matter which cutter I got. The cutting table I had was big enough for a die cutting machine, but not big enough for that and a rotary cutting mat at the same time. I originally looked at various carts and tables to hold the die cutter. Accuquilt sells a cutting table, for $999. Quilt in a Day sells one designed for die cutters, for $1,100. I looked at larger cutting tables, I found several over $2,000. None of those were fitting my budget, I felt bad enough just buying a new cutter. 

I started looking at kitchen island carts, and those were much more affordable. I wanted the cart to be able to store all the dies, and finding one that worked with the strip dies is tricky, because I needed cabinet all the way top to bottom, with no drawer above it. I found one on Wayfair that I liked, and would work great with either the Go Big or the Studio. It was just over $300. That was a much better deal than any of the other options I found, and it would fit at one end of my cutting table. 

The thing is, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. I knew there had to be a better solution. DH suggested we go to the two reclaimed building supplies shops in town. One is called the Re-store, and the other is the Habistore. They sell all kinds of things from houses, restaurants, hotels, you name it. Door, windows, screens, cabinets, appliances, and regular furniture. We went to the Re-store first, and I found some heavy duty metal file cabinets, that we could push together and make a new cutting table, but we'd have to build a platform for a top to make it the right height. DH offered to make the file cabinets work, but I wasn't sold on that idea. They were out of kitchen cabinets the day we went. 

We then went to the Habistore. All their profits go to Habitat for Humanity, so I like shopping there. They happened to have several cabinet options available the day we went, and the thing about kitchen base cabinets is, they are already the correct height. Here's what we came up with.

I bought two sets of pot drawer cabinets, each 30" wide, so this side is 60" worth of cabinets.

I moved my scrap user system into these drawers, I know, time to make some quilts with my scraps! I've been too busy with UFO's this year to use any scraps, I've only made more! Next year I hope to make a dent in these. 

The cabinets I chose for the other side were only 48" wide, so I added a two foot wide set of shelves that's 12" deep to make up the difference. I've yet to store anything in these yet, but I'll be moving my dies over here.

I decided to keep two sets of the plastic drawers I had under my old cutting table, and I stuck them on the end. These have all my big thread cones, bias tape, and patterns, along with some misc. stuff. 

DH cut a piece of melamine for the countertop, and we bought the edge tape for it, but I haven't applied it yet. My old cutting table was 36" x 48". My new cutting table is 49" x 75" Total cost for everything, cabinets, shelves, countertop, edge trim? $255. That's less than I was going to pay for just the kitchen cart to hold the die cutter, and I upgraded the cutting table and all the storage. The base cabinet pot drawers I bought and put my scrap user system in are still being sold new, for $400 each. I paid $56 each. I don't mind the cabinets being used, they still have a lot of years left in them. The two sides don't even match, but I'm not worried about that either. Great storage solution for less money. That's a win! Room for a die cutter and room to rotary cut? That's a win!

DD#1 wanted my old cutting table, and she's got room for it in her kitchen. She was really wanting some extra counter space, and that table is counter height. The two sets of plastic drawers I am getting rid of she wanted too, so all of that is ready to go to its new home. 

I spent hours reading reviews, watching YouTube tutorials, checking forums, and reading blogs to determine which cutter I was going to buy. This article really turned the tide for me. I do have some of the mobility issues she mentions in favor of the Go Big, but the advantage of being able to use any dies on the Studio was HUGE. I'm also pretty sure I can turn a crank with my left hand. To top it off, the Studio is currently on sale for 33% off, and dies are 40% off. Not that I'm telling or anything, but, does anyone want to buy a GO! I won't need it anymore.