Saga of the Poly Pellets

 I've mentioned several times lately that I want to use up the pellets I have, and be done with making weighted blankets forever. I finished the weighted blanket for Mr T, that I showed on the blog last week, and I finally got the replacement blanket for Miss S ready to fill. The top has been done for over a year! Procrastination that bad is a sure sign I don't want to do it. 

I knew I didn't have enough pellets for her blanket and Mr. T's, so I ordered more pellets, like a year ago. I didn't open the box until this week. 

Ummm....these pellets are black. The backing of Miss S's new weighted blanket is a very pale pink. They are going to show through and look like bugs. I know I didn't order black pellets, but a lot of the companies sell multiple colors. I got the wrong ones, but I didn't open the box in time to return them. So, guess who ordered more white pellets this week? 😒

I transferred the black pellets to plastic shoeboxes, because I prefer to work out of those when filling the weighted blankets. The two other weighted blankets I have in the works should be fine with black pellets. While I was transferring the black pellets, I came across a few issues with them. 

The plastic shoebox on the left has pellets from several different purchases mixed together, but there isn't enough left to fill a weighted blanket. You can see I've gotten clear, white and various shades of gray over my many purchases. I'm not sure how much you can tell from this side by side photo, but the black pellets are TINY! Each one is half to one fourth the size of the lighter colored pellets. To top it off, the black pellets have some major static electricity going on. Even transferring them to the plastic shoeboxes I had pellets sticking to everything, me, the table, the wall, they were everywhere! I think filling weighted blankets with these is going to be a nightmare. I have too many of them to just toss them though, and poly pellets aren't cheap. It is totally on me for not opening the box in a timely manner, I would have returned them if I had. 

I stuck dryer sheets in with the black pellets, hoping that might cut down on the static issue. The light colored pellets I ordered are supposed to arrive Saturday afternoon, so I won't end up filling Miss S's weighted blanket until next week. I finished the top of the next weighted blanket yesterday, so I'll start sewing the channels in it, and I have yet another weighted blanket on the design wall, that needs to be assembled. 

I'm pretty frustrated about the pellet issue, so I might just need a day to blow off some steam and start another quilt that was already planned. Nothing like a bunch of chain piecing to improve my mood. 

Oh, my FMQ an hour a day is going great! I finished quilting the quilt I was quilting last week, and I will finish quilting another one tomorrow. I only have one more quilt basted and ready to quilt, but I'm going to quilt it next, just because I get asked all the time how many basting pins I have since I can baste so many quilts at once, and I honestly have no idea. I want to be able to get a photo of all my basting pins together before I start another basting spree. I'm not going to bind those quilts until they are all quilted, just because I really need to get basting. Sewing on bindings will be a good activity when I need a break from basting. My goal will be to baste until I run out of pins, so I should have another big stack when I'm done. 

I'm very blessed to be able to keep one sewing machine always set up for FMQ. I do use that machine for walking foot quilting and sewing on bindings too, but it's basically the quilting/binding machine. I do all my piecing and other sewing on different machines. Quilting an hour a day is really helping me get through my UFO's. I still have a lot of UFO's, but I think I'm finishing them at a similar rate to finishing the tops, so I'm not falling further behind, and that's improvement.