Face Masks

My house has cleared out of people, most things are closed due to Covid 19, so I should have lots of time to quilt right? Wrong. I haven't quilted at all this week.

I started out the week making one each of several patterns of face mask.

DH is an Emergency Room RN, and the hospital is low on masks. I know no homemade mask is going to be as effective as an N-95, nor do I expect it to be, but if it were your husband, would you rather he wear a homemade mask, or have none? 

Overall, most of the nurses on his unit seem to prefer masks that tie. The ones that hook on your ears can make your ears hurt, especially since so many nurses, including DH, work 12 hour shifts. 

 

Here is DH with his favorite of my prototypes. He also liked the white one with ties, which is the Fu mask. The mask he's wearing in the photo is similar to dozens of tutorials out there, but I did make a couple of changes. Most of the tutorials are telling you to cut a 6" x 9" rectangle to start. I had one of his paper masks, and I realized it is actually 6.5" high, so I cut 6.5 x 9 inch rectangles. I added a layer of non woven interfacing to the lining fabric, so it's actually three layers thick. Also, I added a wire in the top of the mask binding. The wire allows the nurses to bend the wire around their nose and makes the mask better fitting. A real medical mask uses a flat wire, about 2mm wide x 4". I couldn't find any flat wire, so DH and I settled on 18 gauge aluminum jewelry wire which he cut and folded back at the ends to eliminate sharp edges. I stitched vertically through the top binding on either side of the wire, so the wire won't shift around too much. 

I sent him to work with this box of masks today, and they are all claimed now. 

These are the masks I made today, not as many because I was busy all morning getting some boxes ready to mail. When the grandkids can't come for the Easter egg hunt I had planned, I'll send the Easter egg hunt to them!

These are the masks prepped to sew up tomorrow. When I get these finished, I'll have made about 50 masks. Whether or not I make more than that depends on what happens from here. I know I'm not the only one making masks, so I may not need to make more, but if this lasts a while and the supply of commercially made masks doesn't get sorted soon, I may be making more. 

My plans for next week have changed drastically. We were going to see our newest granddaughter.

 

She was born this week, and DS the Younger and DDIL just live about five hours from here. If things were normal, we'd absolutely be there, but nothing is normal right now, so no matter how much we'd like to see this newest addition, we're going to have to wait until things calm down. 

Unfortunately, even her daddy had to wait to see her! He had a cold so the hospital wouldn't let him in. Thankfully DDIL had her mother able to go in with her, so she wasn't alone. I'm so thankful for that! 

DS the Younger is happy to have his wife and baby daughter home now! I got to video chat with them, and I don't think this little miss's older brother has a clue as to what she is, or why she's taking up daddy's lap. 

A Backup for my Backup

I don't know what it is these days, but my machines must have gotten the memo that the world has gone mad! Now my Singer 201 (my favorite vintage machine) isn't sewing right. It can only sew VERY slowly. The stitches are still fine, but the motor doesn't seem to be... 

Now I've switched out to my Rocketeer, and it's been a while since I sewed on it. It's funny how hard it can be to get used to sewing on a different machine. 

I still haven't gotten my longarm fixed, and with all this quarantine business I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Thankfully, DD#3 was able to pick up my Bernina from it's spa treatment before the quilt shop closed for quarantine. 

Yesterday I finished basting the purple quilt for Miss E, and I got the Bernina set up for quilting. I don't normally quilt quilts that large on the Bernina now that I have a long arm, but since I have a broken longarm at the moment, I'm thankful I have the Bernina back. 

This week has been all about childcare, so little sewing has gotten done. Next week I should have quite a bit of time to sew. I had hoped to have these log cabin blocks done by now, but that didn't happen. 

I'm home most of the time anyway, so the quarantine hasn't affected me in that way. My husband is an Emergency Room RN, so he's working quite a bit of overtime right now, which does change things for me. 

If anything, this whole thing has reminded me how incredibly blessed I am. How amazing is it to live in a country where we are so used to every possible thing being always available, that if it's not, people panic. Most of the world has no where near the abundance we Americans take for granted. 

I'm thankful I live in a house, and even during a quarantine my grandkids can go in the backyard to play. 

I'm thankful that even without going to the store, I had things in the house I could share with others, and even though we may end up eating some really odd meals, no one here is going to go hungry. 

Goodness knows I could quilt for ages on what I have in stash!

Most of my kids are fields that will survive the crisis, one I am especially concerned for as far as jobs go. With DH being a nurse, he's getting more hours, not less, so he's got a lot of job security. He also has risk associated with the job, but we'll take that as it comes. He gets exposed to a lot of stuff on a regular basis. 

Life may be full of challenges these days, but keep looking for the blessings, you can find them, even on the dark days, if you look hard enough.

Everyone Move One Step to the Right

As you work in your sewing room, do you ever feel like you are just moving stuff from one place to another and not actually getting anything done? I've been feeling a bit like that lately.

I have several projects that have been hanging around in eyesight for far too long. Does a quilt sewn into rows really need to sit for a month before I sew the rows together? Does the backing I cut fabric for really need to sit out for two weeks before I finally sew it and layer the quilt for basting? Probably not. I was cutting the 2" strips from my scrap user system most of last summer, and I still haven't finished sewing up what I cut, never mind finishing cutting up the browns which I never got to. I start to get really grumpy when things are in my line of sight for too long. 

All of those orange and yellow blocks I had been sewing? I finally finished sewing those up. I never counted any of the pieces I cut, but oddly enough, I ended up with an equal number of orange/yellow/orange blocks as I did of yellow/orange/yellow blocks. That's great, because I had always planned on using the blocks to alternate for each other. Even better is with the 192 blocks I finished with, I can make a twin sized quilt set 10x12, and a throw sized quilt set 8x9 and use up every single block. I've (mis)counted pieces while cutting before and not had it work out so well. 

My sister is visiting and since I already had a houseful, I put her in my sewing room. In an effort to clean it up a bit, I finally got that quilt that's been in rows for a month into a quilt top!

I also got the backing fabric I had cut sewn up, and have the quilt laid out ready for basting. I'm hoping to start basting it tomorrow, but we'll see. 

Subcutting strips seemed a good quiet thing to work on while talking to my sister, so I have the Modern Technology Quilt all cut out and ready to sew!

I injured my left knee over a year ago, and it's doing fine now. Just as I was about to start walking for exercise again, I injured my right knee! No fun, and just as I was pretty much back to normal! My sewing studio is in the basement in our house, and all the climbing of stairs just isn't giving my new injury a chance to settle down. I came up with a temporary solution to cut down on trips up and down the stairs. 

I set up a sewing area in my living room (not for the first time), and I'll be piecing in there for now. I'll still be going downstairs for other things, but not nearly as often, and hopefully my knee will appreciate the break. I'm really thinking moving to a one story house is a wise idea. I've got three projects upstairs to sew on, and it will take quite a while to sew up all of those. The log cabin blocks I was making will likely be finished by next weekend, but the others will take a while, especially the Lady of the Lake blocks.

In non-quilty news, DH crashed on his scooter a week ago. Thankfully, he suffered only minor injuries, but Italian scooter parts are expensive so the bike is totaled. He's healing up nicely, the bike has already been towed and the insurance company has already paid. Now he's looking for another maxi scooter. The one he totaled was a Piaggio X-9 500cc, and his other scooters are only 200 cc bikes. He likes to have one that will go highway speeds without a problem. He has a motorcycle too, but he loves his scooters. He supports my quilting so I support his two wheeled hobbies. I think my hobby is safer though ;-) I don't even have to wear a helmet!

Slotted Rulers-June Tailor vs. Stripology

Do you own a slotted ruler? Do you like it? I hear a lot of opinions online about slotted rulers. I've used June Tailor Shape Cut rulers for at least ten years, but when BluPrint had a site wide sale and as a member I could save 30% off those very expensive Stripology slotted rulers I had heard so much good about, I plunged in and bought all three sizes they offered. Now that I'm familiar with both, I have some opinions and suggestions on both versions. I am not sponsored by anyone, I bought all these rulers myself, so I am being brutally honest in this review. 

Here are my June Tailor rulers. I have the Shape Cut Plus (which is just longer than the original Shape Cut which I've also had in the past), The Quarter Cut ruler, and the Half Square/Quarter Square Ruler.

Here are the three Stripology rulers I purchased from BluPrint. There is the original Striplogy ruler, The Square up Ruler, and The Stripology mini.

I'm going to try to compare the rulers most similar in style and function, but first I'm going to give you some basic differences in the rulers. June Tailor rulers are made of much thinner plastic that the Stripology rulers. I've gone through several over the years. Most I've simply worn out through using them so much, and eventually, on a slotted ruler or really any ruler, you will wear away enough of the enough of the edge that the ruler can no longer give you an accurate cut. Also, one time I dropped a brand new June Tailor ruler and broke the corner off. I actually taped it back together and still use it as a backup, but with the thinner plastic I would think a break from falling is more likely on the June Tailor rulers. That said, June Tailor rulers are also much cheaper than the Stripology rulers. JoAnn Fabrics routinely have the June Tailor rulers on sale or you can use a coupon if they aren't. JoAnn does not carry the Stripology rulers, and you rarely find them on sale. So as far as durability goes, I am going to say Stripology wins, but you are going to pay for that, so if money is your main consideration, you will have to decide whether you'd rather pay more less often on Striplogy rulers, or less more often on June Tailor rulers. Another issue with thinner vs thicker plastic is weight, the Stripology rulers are much heavier, so if that's an issue, now you know which is heavier, which is lighter in weight. 

Another major difference in the rulers is the grip. June Tailor rulers have no grip on the back. They slide across the fabric, and if you don't hold them correctly, they will slip and mess up your cut. Now, there are multiple aftermarket options for adding grip to your rulers, so to me, that's not a big issue with the June Tailor rulers, but then, I have no problems holding the rulers with no added grip. The Stripology rulers have a LOT of grip on the back, which honestly, I kind of hate. I always lift up a ruler to reposition it on fabric, but on huge rulers like these, it's pretty easy to lay it down a little crooked. With a June Tailor ruler, I can nudge it into position because there isn't grip on the back of the ruler. With the Stripology rulers, there is no nudging, that ruler isn't going anywhere, at least not without messing up your layers of fabric.  If you have a problem with rulers slipping while you are cutting, you'll love the Stripology rulers, after you get it lined up correctly on the fabric. 

I have years worth of experience cutting with June Tailor rulers, so what have I cut with the Stripology rulers?

I've cut one quilts worth of strips. I had a twin sized quilt kit that I'm trying to expand into a full or larger sized quilt without buying more fabric. It's all HST's in two sizes, and they had you cut squares at the 7/8" mark and cut the squares diagonally. I know from experience, if I cut on the half inch mark instead, and use my Easy Angle ruler to sub-cut, that those 3/8" differences on each strip usually mean I can get an extra strip from each fabric. Those extra strips add up to a larger quilt. Since I needed different sized strips, I was not using the marks the Stripology rulers have to cut 2.5" or 1.5" strips faster. I was cutting two 4.5" strips, followed by 3  2.5" strips from each fat quarter. I ended up with a string leftover, not even a 1.5" strip. 

Here is the June Tailor Shape Cut Plus ruler next to the original Stripology ruler. The rulers are offset from each other, because I'm trying to show the lengths of the slots. The June Tailor ruler has longer slots and that is really important! I had 45 fat quarters to cut up. I folded the selvage edge to what would have been the fold if the fabric had been WOF. That's a pretty common way to cut, crosswise grain. I grabbed the Stripology ruler and started making my cuts. Remember, I have years of experience using slotted rulers, just this ruler was new to me. My rotary cutter of preference is a 60mm blade, and I had just put in a new blade. When I moved the ruler, not one cut was through top to bottom every single cut was short and I had to use scissors to finish the cuts. I tried the next fat quarter, making extra sure my fabric was centered in the ruler, same thing, not one cut went top to bottom. I decided maybe the larger circumference of the blade was not compatible with the Stripology ruler, so I opened a brand new 45 mm rotary cutter with a brand new blade. Same thing, the slots are simply not long enough to make a cut though a fabric with the selvages meeting the fold. To me, this is a critical design flaw, and I do not recommend the original Stripology ruler. I also don't intend to keep it. 

Next up was the Stripology Squared, and here it is side by side with the Shape Cut Plus. The Striplogy Squared ruler worked great. The slots are actually about 1/2" longer than the June Tailor ruler. I've been told by someone that has the Stripology XL ruler, which I don't have, that the slots in it are the same length as the Stripology Squared. So if you are wanting to buy a Stripology ruler, definitely skip the original version, and go for the Stripology Squared or the XL. The XL ruler is also longer, like my Shape Cut Plus, but I'm not sure of the exact length since I don't have one. Longer rulers are nice if you are cutting a lot of strips since you don't have to reposition as often. If I am cutting a bunch of strips all the same width, I'm going to be using my Studio cutter, and not a slotted ruler at all. I use my slotted rulers most when I need different sized strips. I still had to deal with my dislike of so much grip on the back of the ruler. It wasn't uncommon for me to be 1/8 off the line on one end of the ruler, so I would have to pick up the ruler and try again. After several times of that, I felt like I was wasting a lot of time positioning the ruler, when with the June Tailor ruler I could have lightly nudged it into position and been done cutting. The upside to all the grip on the Stripology rulers is once it's in position, you can hold the ruler quite lightly and it won't budge at all when you are cutting. If you are a ruler positioning pro (which evidently I'm not), but have issues with rulers slipping (which I don't have problems with), the Stripology rulers are right up your alley. That said, I intend to keep using the Stripology Squared, and as with most things, I would imagine I'll get better at using it with practice. 

The Stripology Squared ruler was designed to help you square up quilt blocks, which, honestly, I rarely do. I am all about sewing accurately in the first place, because sliver trimming is right up there with dental work in my world. The June Tailor Half Square/Quarter Square ruler is designed for squaring up much smaller blocks, so it's not a side by side comparison. If you want to easily square up 12" quilt blocks with a slotted ruler, Stripology Squared is the way to go. You can do it with the Shape Cut Plus, but the Stripology Squared has markings the June Tailor ruler doesn't to help you center those large blocks. 

The June Tailor Half Square/Quarter Square ruler is more comparable in size to the Stripology mini. Because they aren't designed for quite the same thing, they have some different options. 

The June Tailor Ruler has a slot just for cutting squares in half on the diagonal. 

It also has slots to draw two lines 1/4" on either side of the diagonal if you prefer sewing lines. 

If I needed to subcut things 6.5" or less away from home, I'd bring the Stripology Mini with me because it's a bit smaller and more durable, less likely to break on the go. The Stripology Mini is also marketed as the ruler to use if you want to cut things on the 1/4" I watched the YouTube video on how to use it for that, and it seems needlessly complicated to me. 

June Tailor has the Quarter Cut ruler for cutting on the quarter inch. The 1/2" slots on the Quarter Cut and the Stripology Mini are the same length. The 1/4" slots on the Quarter Cut are shorter, but since I usually only use it for subcutting, I rarely have an issue with that. The Quarter Cut is almost twice as long as the Stripology Mini, so there's less repositioning of the ruler. For quarter inch cuts, I'd go June Tailor for sure. 

My comparisons may be as clear as mud, because the real questions are how do you use your rulers, what do you need them to do, and what do you personally struggle with when it comes to cutting? For me, my perfect slotted ruler would likely be a combination of the two brands. Some grip on the back would be nice, but for the way I cut, Stripology rulers have too much grip. If you struggle with rulers slipping, the June Tailor rulers would be nightmare, and Stripology might be perfect. Of the three Stripology rulers I currently own, I think the only one I will get a lot of use of is the Stripology Squared. If I get to really like it, maybe someday I'll buy Stripology XL, but it's so big and likely heavy, I think it will make my issues with positioning the ruler even worse, so someday buying the XL is not likely. I wish the June Tailor rulers were made from the same gauge plastic/acrylic as the Stripology rulers. It would be nice to have them last longer. 

I never really noticed I had an issue with positioning rulers before. None that I owned previously can't be nudged an 1/8". Stripology rulers don't nudge, they will skew the fabric every time, at least for me they will. 

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that I'm glad both of these brands exist because different quilters will benefit from each brand. Overall, I'm still a June Tailor girl, but I do plan on giving the Stripology rulers further tries. I can totally see some people preferring the Stripology rulers, but I'm more likely to replace my June Tailor rulers than ever buying another Striplogy one. Hopefully I gave you enough information, to give you an idea of which brand would work better for you. 

Bonus Post for the Week

I actually had quite a bit of time to sew today for a nice change! I'm still working on sewing up scrap blocks.

This is where I was sewing today, at least when I stopped for the day. I had a nice pile of orange/yellow blocks to show for my time, and I sewed the second neutral colored log onto my log cabin blocks. I've already grabbed the black logs to work on tomorrow, and you can see them in the lower right hand corner. I've still got a pretty big pile of orange/yellow blocks to sew up to the left of the machine. I have the pieces for each block clipped together. Right behind the machine you can see my tin of clips from the blocks I sewed up today. I just toss the clips in the tin as I make each block because I don't need them holding block pieces anymore. It's a good thing I'm freeing some up, because I also use the clips to hold the blocks in sets of ten, and I was out of clips!

I opened up a log cabin block so you could see the first two logs are on. I got all the orange/yellow blocks in that stack pressed, but I never press these types of blocks until the block is done, finger pressing during construction works fine for me. 

My last blog post got a question for a comment, and although I normally only blog once a week, I'm doing this post to answer that question, so Elle, here is your answer!

Elle asked if I liked my way of storing some of my fabrics, could I show it, so here you go. 

It's not a great photo and my studio is a mess, but I hadn't planned on taking photos in there. These fabric cabinets hold all my quilting fabrics over 1 yard and up. I sort by color, because that's how I choose fabric. I'm not big on holiday prints, so the few I have are just mixed in. All my novelty prints are just in their color family. I do have some 1930's prints and Civil War prints stored elsewhere, but I've only ever bought those in fat quarters or fat eighths, so they wouldn't be stored here anyway. It's the same for Asian Inspired fabrics, I only buy them in fat quarters or smaller. Those three collections I keep separate from the stash, but, again, they wouldn't be stored here anyway. 

Since I tend to either make scrap quilts or at least multi-fabric style quilts, my yardage takes the biggest hits when I'm piecing backings. The quilt you can see laid out on the table is going to have the all of one fabric from stash, and a chunk of another fabric for it's backing.  I also use yardage for backgrounds, and I like using colored backgrounds (like the purple background in the quilt on the table) In my yardage stash I have a lot of solids and blenders to use as backgrounds. 

My fabric stays stored nicely vertical because I wrap it around corrugated plastic. Yes, I know a lot of people use comic book boards, but for some of my yardage, especially solids, it's not unusual for me to buy it by the bolt. As soon as I get it home, I take it off the bolt, fold it one more time matching the selvages to the fold, and wrap it around one of my mini-bolt forms made from corrugated plastic. I use a LOT of fabric every year, and I've stored my stash like this for several years, and I've never had any damage to the fabric from the plastic. 

Why was I willing to pay more for corrugated plastic? Because I can do things like this, have it halfway off the shelf and it's completely steady, whether there's one yard on it or 15 yards. Why would I ever want it off the shelf partway? Let's say I'm trying to choose a sashing fabric. I could grab every fabric that might work off the shelf, and audition them all, then after thinking about it for a couple days, I have a huge stack of fabric to put away. Yeah, no thanks. Instead, I open all my glass doors, pull each possibility partway off the shelf, and after I've done that, I grab some of my blocks, walk past the shelves and compare the blocks to the fabrics partially out. Whatever I immediately reject gets pushed back in, until I only have two or three options left. Oftentimes I can narrow it down to my final choice with this method, but if I'm still on the fence about it, I take out my two or three fabrics, unwind them a bit and even if I have to let them sit out a couple days to decide, I've got far less fabric to put away, which keeps my studio tidier. 

I switched to this system of organizing my yardage this way years ago, and I'll never change it. I had tried storing it in totes, and I could never find anything. I tried stacking it after wrapping it around a quilt ruler so it was all the same width, what a disaster for me! It seemed like every time I needed a fabric, it was on the bottom, and my stacks were always falling over. I tried using a quilt ruler to hold up the stack while I slid the fabric I wanted out, but honestly, when you are stacking drastically different amount of fabric, they just don't stack well. You can't see the one yard pieces, and the 10 or 15 yard pieces make everything fall. If I had further divided them by how much fabric there was I would have just had even more stacks to deal with! By storing the fabric vertically, around something firm, the fabrics are as easy to take out and put back as books on a bookcase. I haven't had a fabric avalanche since I switched to this method, and I don't miss the mess. 

In case you are interested in this method, I bought poster sized corrugated plastic from ebay by the case, and my husband cut several sheets at a time to the size I wanted with a jigsaw. He could cut up a case of corrugated plastic to size in less than an hour. I've been reusing the mini-bolt forms for years now. I have a stack of empty ones in the studio now, but I haven't been buying any yardage lately so empty they'll stay for a while.

Downside to this method? It was expensive to implement, but once you have the shelves and mini-bolts forms, you are good to go for years. My shelves are the Ikea Billy bookshelves in the narrower width. Fabric is heavy, and I didn't want bowing shelves.  Comic book boards get all bent up, especially if you are storing large amounts of fabric on it. I've never had a corrugated plastic form need to be replaced.  

I also mentioned in my last post that my scrap user system was organized. 

I have drawers for each size strip I save, and the strips are sorted by color, again, that's how I choose fabric, it may not be how you do. By the time it gets to the scrap user system all types of cottons are mixed together, I don't keep batiks, reproductions or themed fabric separately. I will use everything together for a scrap quilt, including fabric I've gotten from men's shirts. 

Sorting my scrap user system this way is completely functional. It stays organized, If I'm doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt I almost always have whatever I need in my scrap user system, and rarely go into any type of yardage. 

Downside to this method? My husband really hates the look of plastic drawers, so I'm trying to find other options. I may look for a used dresser to store these instead. Also, these drawers are the larger size, which means I can store a lot, but it also means I can go quite a while before I make a quilt from the scrap strips. I think I'd actually use scraps faster if I had less room to store them. That said, scrap quilts are my favorite, and I do actually use my scraps. My 2" cut strip drawer is almost empty because I've been concentrating on busting that size. 

How about squares? Do you save those? If a scrap strip is pretty short, I tend to cut it into squares. I have several go to scrap patterns that use squares. This cutlery organizer was almost empty six months ago, but since I was busting my 2" strips, I also cut a bunch of 2" squares. 

Here is a better view of the organizer. I have organizers that hold 1.5" squares, 2" squares, and 2.5" squares. I bought all of these at Goodwill or some other thrift shop. They are all different brands, and different brands are a good thing, because each brand is a slightly different size, and will hold a different size square better. When I am cutting scrap novelty fabrics, I will cut 4.5 or 6.5 inch squares if the scrap is big enough. Most of the kids quilts I make with novelty fabrics use those sized squares for the focus fabrics like an I Spy quilt. I only save those sizes in novelty fabrics, and the larger squares I currently have on hand are in plastic drawers. 

Downside to this method? The cutlery organizers don't have lids, so it you drop it you've got quite a mess to deal with. That said, most of the ones I have will fit inside of one of the plastic project bins I have, so I have taken them on the go and had it work out just fine. Some of the cutlery organizers would even fit in a 2 gallon zip bag. You can buy divided containers with lids, but they are pricy, most of the organizers I've bought for under $2 at thrift stores. 

Now, my fat quarter to 1 yard pieces are what I am unhappy with. Mostly because of the plastic drawer thing. 

When I first put my yardage on corrugated plastic, I also wrapped my fat quarters to one yards pieces around ...comic book boards, cut down. With the smaller fabrics I had no issues using a more flexible material. In this photo you can see the two sets of media shelves I stored them on years ago. I liked them stored vertically, I liked being able to see them. What I didn't like was the dust and dog fur all over my fabric. Remember, my yardage shelves have glass doors, doors = no fur + no dust. Southern Arizona is a dusty place. 

When I couldn't stand the dust and fur anymore, I went and got more plastic drawers. 

My husband doesn't like purple plastic drawers any better than clear. Still, the fabrics are sorted by color, they are organized, and in drawers I don't even need the cards anymore, So I gave them to my sister to use for fabric postcards. Aside from the fact I am trying to find an alternative to plastic drawers, this method works fine. I think if I had fewer plastic drawers I'd like it better. I realized if I made a bunch of pillowcases from the novelty fabrics in these drawers, I could drastically reduce the number the drawers I need really quickly, so I may be doing that at some point. I have a lot of novelty fabrics from my scrub top making days, and I've bought more for I Spy quilts, but I'm ready to whittle the novelty fabrics down. I've been using lots of novelty fabrics as backings, if I have yardage of it, but pillowcases would really make a dent in the  under 1 yard pieces. I'm not at the point where I want to give away the novelty prints, I actually think they are fun to sew up, and novelty pillowcases are great add ons to gifts, or even instead of wrapping paper on a gift. I'm just ready to reduce the number of novelty fabrics in my stash by using them. 

Downside to this method- plastic drawers?

In case anyone is wondering because I've been asked before, I got the purple plastic drawers at Target, I think they were a seasonal item, but I do occasionally see other colors around. I do know I got them on clearance really inexpensively. 

So there you go, overall, I really like the way my fabric is organized, I'm just trying to find an alternative to plastic drawers. I'm not looking to buy anything right now since we are hoping to buy a new house. I do have an idea that could replace plastic drawers in the new house, but wouldn't work here, so we'll see what happens. I've got all kinds of ideas for the new studio space I'd have. It would be a completely different configuration than my current studio, so I'd need to do a few changes but pretty much everything in my studio will either work in the new studio, or be repurposed elsewhere in the new house. I would need a couple new pieces (plastic drawer alternatives???), but we'd be repurposing so much of what we have, it would even out in the end. Where my studio would be in the new house it will be very visible, and I want it to not only be functional but also look nice since it will be one of the first things everyone would see when walking in. I've already started clearing out some things that I don't want to move. If I don't care enough about it to move it, I don't need it. 

Not Much

I don't feel like I've gotten much done in the last week. I did make some burp rags for the new grandbaby.

I haven't washed them yet, so they don't have nice frayed edges yet, but they are sitting on my washer and dryer, so I got them that far. I found out the parents were hoping for a couple more swaddling blankets, so I chose fabrics for those, but haven't gotten any further with that. The baby is coming in about two weeks, so I really should get going on that!

I have sewn more scrap blocks, I've got about 130 yellow/orange concentric square blocks. 120 blocks would make a nice twin sized quilt. We'll see how many blocks I have in the end before I decide what to do with them. 

I've got 50 of the black/white log cabin blocks now. I was just working on one log cabin block while working on one orange/yellow block. Each block has the same number of pieces, so I'd finish two blocks at once. I decided I had too many sizes of pieces hanging around, so instead I am working on one orange/yellow block, while adding the next log on to the black/white log cabin blocks. I'm now only keeping one size of log cabin block on my table. I've already sewn all of the first logs to the center square, and now I'm sewing log #2 on as leaders/enders. My pile of log cabin blocks will be stagnant for a bit, but I'll finish all the rest pretty quickly once I'm sewing on the last log as leaders/enders. How many will I have in the end? If I had counted the center squares I'd know the answer to that, but as my method with most scrap quilts, I don't count much, I just sew up what I've got and count at the end. The red center squares were just all of a piece of red I had in stash. I didn't even measure the red before I cut it. I might plan out a wedding quilt to the last bit of fabric to make sure I have enough of everything, but scrap quilts I just usually completely wing it. Sometimes it's quite freeing to just improvise everything on a quilt, I do that with all my bonus HST's from other projects too. Oftentimes my improvised quilts are my favorites. 

I've been watching YouTube videos of quilt studio tours. Those are really interesting. My studio is pretty organized, but if we buy the house we are thinking about, I'll have a completely new space to figure out. I don't know about you, but I always feel like my studio is a work in progress. My over 1 yard pieces of fabric is exactly how I want it stored, my scrap user system is organized, and although my fat quarter-1 yard pieces are organized, I don't like how they are stored. Eventually I want to get rid of all the plastic drawers I have fabric in, as well as any totes I have fabric in. The few totes I have are not quilting cotton, and I've whittled those down to what I actually have plans to use. I do have a couple totes of fabric from men's shirts which I will use for quilting. This year is much busier with family stuff than I anticipated, so sewing and quilting is taking a backseat to family, which is always how I would prioritize it. I may love quilting, but family comes first! At least I'm finding short spurts of time to sew, it helps me stay sane when things are crazy.