New Ironing Station

DH is still working on his scooter magazine on his days off, so my new cutting island isn't happening yet, BUT, I did get the new ironing station finished!

The big board on top DH helped me make years ago, and the cover was gross. I had made two covers originally, and I thought I had already switched to the second one, but I came across it while moving stuff around, so I switched to the new cover now. I moved my quilting magazines (This is after going through them and purging a bunch) to the bottom shelves, along with all of my FMQ and walking foot quilting books to the bottom shelves. I have the shelves away from the wall, so that when I'm pressing yardage it can go behind the shelves as I press. Because I have the shelves about 3" from the wall, I wanted really heavy stuff on the bottom shelf to stabilize the shelves as much as possible, and it seems to be working. 

The middle shelves I'll likely put different containers on, but these were just on top of the cube storage shelves that had been here. It was good enough to put them here for now. I like all my bias tape rolls on the top shelf, but I'm wondering if I should put them in containers to make sure they don't get any starch on them. What do you think? I am a starch fan, and I don't go crazy with it, but overspray can and does happen on occasion. 

Having a permanent ironing station again will make the room less crowded, since I won't have to keep putting up an ironing board in the center of the room when I need one. 

The cube shelves are now in the fabric room, waiting for DH to have the time and motivation to make my new cutting island. I already emptied a different set of shelves from the fabric room, and those shelves were moved to the new shed. Not much goes to waste around here, it just gets moved around for new purposes, though I have been known to purge a bunch too. 

Speaking of purging, I had to re-buy something I purged years ago. Ice cube trays. Our ice maker in the freezer broke, and I needed to buy ice cube trays. I've never had any luck with getting an ice maker repaired, so I wasn't thinking it was worth having a repairman out for that. 

I am calling a repairman tomorrow though, because the air conditioner in our addition went out, and it's still 100 degrees during the day here. The unit is only four years old, so I'm pretty put off that it isn't working. I'm hoping it just needs to be recharged or something. Thankfully, it's getting pretty cool at night, so if I can get a repairman out tomorrow, it might not be too bad. The unit for the rest of the house is functioning, thankfully, but our bedroom is in the addition. I noticed it getting hotter and hotter while I was sewing in the bedroom today, and when I checked the thermostat, I was bummed. 

I haven't finished anything sewing-wise in the last week. I have 50 of 80 blocks done for another quillow, and I have the strips sewn into pairs for the last of those blocks. I sewed all of my blue 1.5" strips into pairs, and I'm hoping to get at least two quillows out of those, When working with narrow strips like that, I always press the pairs of strips flat before sewing pairs together. I'll be going for six strip stripsets, so after I spend tomorrow pressing the huge pile of pairs, I will be able to sew the pairs into three (thus six strips) before pressing again. Sub-cutting the stripsets won't take that long. Neither will the rest of the sewing. Pressing a big pile of strip pairs, THAT will take a while, and you better believe I won't be pressing in my bedroom with no air conditioning. I guess I'll give my new ironing station a try, even though it means I'll have to keep carrying stuff up and down the stairs. 

One of the quillows I'm making was requested to be white, which surprised me. It's for a child so I didn't think white was the best option. I made a few blocks of a couple different options, and when given a sneak peek, the parents changed their minds. 

The thing is, when faced with a choice of "white", I had pulled all the narrow strips I had with a white background, that had colors on it.

At first I found the blocks pretty boring, but when I started making more I actually really started to like them. After years of quilting and figuring out my own quilt preferences, I've decided I am not a "low volume" kind of girl, especially in narrow strips like these. When only an inch of fabric is showing, and there's a lot of color on there, you don't really know how it will read in such a small area. Occasionally I like a busier background, but most of the time I prefer a blender, tone on tone or a solid for a background. Low volume may be big in the quilting world right now, but I'm OK with not being on that bandwagon. The thing is, I'm liking these fabrics with each other, just not as a background for a block. So, even though the white quillow wasn't on the docket anymore, I'm still making one, and I've already figured out who will get it.  I need to make about 60 more "white" blocks.

It's funny, I had already realized I wasn't really using the busy white fabrics from stash, so I started using them for backings. I'll still have scraps from those fabrics for quite a while, even if I never buy another fabric like that, so I'm glad I found something I like them in. I don't mind busier backgrounds as much if the pieces are bigger, like 3 inches, or even two inches if it's paired with the right thing. Fat quarter bundles always have busy neutrals, so I think I'll always have some in stash. 

Last year I was asked a bunch of times how I could stand making the same pattern over and over again. Honestly, rail fence blocks are about as easy and boring as you can get. I don't really get tired of making them though, for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is since this a scrap busting project, it's an easy, fast way to use a bunch of scraps, and  I'm literally dealing with hundreds of different fabrics, so there's a lot to look at. I made the quillows with car use in mind, and I don't need to make heirloom quilts to use in a car. They'll get stepped on, spilled on, drooled on, maybe even vomited on if someone gets motion sick. It mostly just needs to hold together and be easily washable. It's a great use of scraps in a simple pattern. One of my kids prefers strip quilts as opposed to all others. No stars or triangles for her, it's all about rectangles. So although I am certainly capable of making something much more complex, not every quilt needs that, nor does every recipient want that. 

I though I was making four more quillows, but my list has grown to seven. One of the things about having a large family, I always know someone who wants a quilt!