Wheel of Mechanics!

Things have gotten so out of hand with the gas line fiasco, I'm starting to find it funny. We got our turf reinstalled, and while they were doing that, they ran a spike through our air conditioner coolant line. NOT what you want at any time, but it was 100 degrees outside so definitely not a welcome circumstance. The turf company was great about it though. While one of them came to tell us what happened, the other guy had his boss on the phone, and they had an air conditioner repairman here in less than an hour! We paid the turf people, they paid the air conditioner guy. 

We went and ordered a new stove, boy have the prices gone up since our last one! The stove I have currently has a bunch of bells and whistles I never used, so I downgraded, and it still cost about the same. 

The gas company is done with our house, but they'll be in my neighborhood for ten MONTHS! Considering they broke three water mains in two days, so our neighborhood keeps losing water, it's going to be a loooooooooong ten months! I'm hoping when they get to other side of the neighborhood, they won't be parking the trucks at my house anymore, and hopefully it will be quieter here too. 

It's just been crazy around here with all the mechanics and tradesmen around here! Pipeline men, gas company men, water dept. men, one HVAC guy for the furnace, a different one for the air conditioner, turf installers, our pest guy comes Monday, and the new stove gets installed a week from today! It sure doesn't feel like social distancing when you have this many strangers around just doing their jobs. 

I actually got to see some of my grandkids for the first time in four months. One of them is just starting to walk, and I feel so blessed to have seen some of his first toddling steps. 

I did manage to get some sewing done, but I'm doing some proCRAFTinating. I'm working on other projects instead of what I need to be working on! I hadn't touched the baby quilts until today when I got one ready for basting and dug out my basting pins. I'll baste it in the morning when I call my mom. 

I finished getting this quilt top together and now it's hung in the quilt closet. While I was in the closet, I pulled one top out because it needs to be finished this year, and it won't take long to piece a backing for it and get it basted. It's a good one to baste while messing with the baby quilts. 

While I was in the closet, I counted the quilt tops hanging in there. I have 12 quilt tops hanging that don't need to be finished this year, one of which needs a pieced border I haven't cut yet. The rest are completed tops. I bought a lot of 25 skirt hangers, and that's what I hang my quilt tops on. I decided I'd like to have all the hangers filled by the end of the year. It's not really THAT lofty of a goal, because I easily have at least 13 UFO's at block stage. I still have multiple quilts that need to be finished this year, so those will never hang in the quilt closet. 

I can still work on finishing UFO's too, because I have about a dozen already basted in a laundry basket. With all the new starts I need to work on, I'm really doubting I'll get all those quilted. 

Most of my pro"craft" inating has been working on my 2" cut strip busting projects. I'm mostly down to black, neutrals, and brown. I made all those black/white log cabin blocks a while back, and I still had pieces left. 

The pieces I cut at 9.5" I sewed up into blocks that will finish at 9". Obviously, I haven't pressed any of them yet. Now I'm working on neutral 9" blocks, and when I see how many I have, I'll come up with a plan for them. I already have some of these rail blocks in other colors that I haven't gotten them into quilt tops yet, so I could combine them, or throw in some random blocks if I don't have a good number to set. I'll make a plan when I see what I've got which is how I normally do scrap projects.

The odd sizes of strips I had I sewed into black/white/black or white/black/white strips. These are so scrappy with so many novelty fabrics, that once they are subcut into 2" pieces the actual square may not be that color, but I think overall it will be fine. I'm mixing in all the grays I had into these too. 

I think it will all work out in the end. I decided to make this quilt, Growing Up Odd, All the squares will be black, white, or gray (well, or whatever the predominant color in in the 1.5" square that shows, and I will use red sashing. I'm going to use up the rest of my colors in one of these quilts with white sashing too, but I am going to try to use one color per block for the other one. I have an overflowing box of 2" squares, so I can easily add them in to make the other sized blocks. If you have a lot of scraps like I do, the blog I just linked to has a bunch of excellent scrap patterns. 

I had to take down the sewing machine in the living room for the grandkids to come and not get hurt, so now my TV time is pressing and sub-cutting which works fine. I'll have to take a new photo of my sewing room now that I've got a third sewing machine in there, and I switched to a smaller table, because I wanted to ditch the Tin Lizzie table which was bigger than I needed for just piecing. The smaller table is a much better scale for the room, considering I already had two big sewing cabinets in there. 

I hope you are all staying healthy and getting some sewing in should you wish to. I know some people are busier than ever with their kids home all the time. I homeschooled my five kids for years, so I always had to sew around them, but if you're not used to it, it's tough to get used to. I didn't have a sewing room then either, so I did a lot of handwork, because it was just easier to manage around the kids.