More Prepping Than Sewing

 I haven't sewn much in the last week. I did sew some. 

I got all the blocks from the most recent Ruby Jubilee mystery quilt clue done. It won't be long before the next clue is out, but I got these done before it did, so I'm counting that as a win!

All the quarter blocks for a resized Strip Twist are finished. I need to snip dog ears before I can sew the blocks together. I also got a few misc. units sewn as leaders/enders. 

Mostly I've been prepping for other projects. DH had five days off, so I knew my schedule would be off, and I can often get more prepwork done while he's here than sewing. 

I have about 60 luggage tags ready to sew now (could be more, per usual I didn't count). Most will have scooter appliques on them, and I've got all the applique cut and fused into place. I was really wishing I had a Cricut to cut my appliques for me. Making 2" tall scooter silhouettes was fiddly and my hands were hurting pretty badly after each cutting session. 

This is a stack of rectangles that will become 61 drawstring bags. Eleven of them (the scooter ones) are for promotional events for DH's scooter magazine, the other 50 are for a scooter rally in November. The scooter rally has a western theme, so I went through my stash and pulled anything remotely western and busted a lot of fabric I won't miss at all. I've never been a fan of the western esthetic, and most of the fabrics I had were leftovers from my scrub making business from years ago. I'll have busted 20 yards of fabric when those are finished. Any leftover bits are already cut to scrap user system sizes and I'm thrilled to be moving this out of stash and into usable forms. I've had lots of people tell me how they are still using their rally bags years later, so I don't mind making them. Drawstring bags can be used for all kinds of things, and they aren't hard to make. I feel better about busting stash for them, than using single use plastic bags. 

My last thrift store haul of fabric has already made its way into projects. DH and I went back to the thrift store with the great prices on fabric, and I got all of this.

All of those bags and bundles of fabric, plus 3 men's shirts I'll use for quilting, came to a total of.......$15 I've found I really love playing in other's people scraps, so although I used to mainly look for yardage at thrift stores, I'm finding the bags of scraps more fun than I ever expected! Most thrift stores have raised their prices so much, that using men's shirts for fabric isn't as reasonable as it used to be. This one has clothes for 78 cents per item this month, so adding three men's shirts to my shirt stash was very affordable, and, as a bonus, one of the shirts was PURPLE! 

DH goes back to work tomorrow, and my goal for tomorrow is to finish the hooded cloak for one of my grandsons. His brother got one last year, and now he wants one. I've got it cut out and quite a bit of it pinned and ready to sew. 

Over the weekend I'll be working on the rag quilt for DS the Younger. I've got a ton to do, but I'm hopeful I can get it all done by the deadlines.