Tuesday ToDo #64

I got really distracted since my last Tuesday ToDo post, but since I was spending my time cleaning and organizing my quilting supplies I do not regret it. I did not get my blue Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks made this month, but I did finish both my Arlington Square twin size quilts. 

The Arlington Square pattern is is a nickel quilt designed
by Pat Speth from her Nickel Quilts book

When I originally made these blocks during last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge I had intended to make a queen size quilt, but by the time I got to the end of the year I decided I already have too many big quilts and I split the blocks and made two smaller quilts to give away. These were not my best effort but they are done. I'm glad about that.

I did manage to assemble the Lake Cabin lap quilt but it still needs the border. This was a leader-ender project I'd been working on for a couple of months that I finally picked up as my main project when I was procrastinating. This was made primarily from my scrap bins. The outer border will be from yardage.

The name of this pattern is Lake Cabin by Kim Brackett,
from her Scrap Basket Sensations book

For this coming week I would like to:

• Put the border on the Lake Cabin lap quilt
• Label and bind the purple log cabin quilt
• Start working on my Blue and Pink RSC blocks
• Cut out the Aged Elegance bonus crib quilt
• Continue ironing and organizing my fabric

I'm linking up with TuesdayTo, Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss.

Arlington Squares Finished!

Both of the Arlington Square quilts are finished! I wasn't sure I would make it by the end of the month, but I did. The first of them was backed with a grey geometric flannel I had leftover from my rag quilt days.

This one was quilted with the Synchronicity pantograph from My Creative Stitches. 

The second Arlington Square quilt was backed with a wild print fabric I found in my stash while I was sifting it during the past three weeks.

This wild fabric was called Kool Aid Stripe from Michael Miller fabrics

This one was actually quilted with Lone Minniken's Border Collie pantograph (at the request of the recipient). It's hard to see them; I probably should have made the dogs a little smaller.

Luckily, this finishes up my One Monthly Goal. I'll be linking up with Patty's One Monthly Goal Finish. 

Other than these two quilts, I spent most of the last three weeks sifting and ironing fabric. I have managed to get through more than half of the piles of fabric I've had sitting around my studio and they are all organized and contained into new tubs under my long arm.

Jan Friday Night Sew-In

I had hoped to spend the FNSI making the backing for the Arlington Square quilt and then getting it on the long arm, but when I actually got into my sewing room I didn't feel like it. I guess I have a hard time working up the motivation to work on projects I don't really like.

So, instead, I found myself picking up my current leader-ender project. I had most of the block strips assembled and I started putting them together. The quilt is pretty small so it went together quickly. It really helped having everything already cut out. I did decide to change the fabric in the sashing. I didn't like the striped fabric I had originally cut out. Now that I've got my fabric more organized I was able to poke through and find a better option.

The name of this pattern is Lake Cabin by Kim Brackett,
from her Scrap Basket Sensations book. 

At the moment, I'm trying to decide what color pieces are going into the center of the pinwheels; I am auditioning the different options.

I chose these colors to coordinate with this old Morris print fabric I chose for the border. All the rest of the fabric was from my purple and pink scrap bins. It feels good to make something from scraps.

I definitely need to go back to the Arlington Square backing over the weekend, but I had a fun time working on this one this evening for the Friday Night Sew-In. Thanks for letting me join you all.

Cleaning FINALLY

At the beginning of last week, I printed out my patterns for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project and walked into my sewing room to start sewing them and looked around at the mess. And I'm not sure what happened, but I FINALLY started cleaning up. I didn't take any photos, alas, but it was a huge mess. I had piles in front of the design wall, I had piles in front of my fabric shelves, and I had piles on every horizontal surface which I'm not actively using on a regular basis. So many piles everywhere. 

A lot of it was my fabric binges throughout the last couple of years during the pandemic. I scored a couple of old-lady-retiring-from-sewing piles of fabric and I was still regularly visiting Hancock's of Paducah's clearance section. (You can get some amazing deals there on recent designs as they go out of production.)

This was the largest of my three fabric scores as it gives some indication of how much fabric I was dealing with.

When I sifted those big piles and started washing them, that was the start of the piles. And then, astonishingly, I kept shopping. Anyway, I have now spent the last 5 days ironing fabrics. This was most of Sunday's iron pile. 

I am trying to get my stash under control. I am sifting out fabrics that need to find a new home. And I am trying to find room to store the fabrics I am keeping so I can actually see them. 

Before my current effort, when I looked for a particular fabric, it could take me an hour as I dug through boxes and piles and I still might not find it. So, hopefully, I have come up with a workable solution. I ordered eight large Sterilite tubs and I plan to store the fabric overflow like this. Then, in theory, I can pull out the tub and look in the side and see what is in there. It will still take several minutes as I pull out each tub, but at least I'll be able to see how much and what I already have.

I also will store my current set of UFOs in my husband's old closet.

At the moment, these are mostly just fabrics I've ironed.
Once I get the tubs, I'll shift some of these fabrics into them
and organize my UFOs on these shelves.

I've gotten my fat quarters rounded up and sorted into one set of ArtBin Super Satchel project tubs. These may not be their final destination, but I had these bins handy and they all fit. And I made another bin for the half-yard pieces (not pictured).

I also bought a set of Sterilite drawers where I will start storing my scraps. (They just fit under my long-arm table!) My plan is to adopt some sort of scrap-saving system like Bonnie Hunter recommends, where you precut strips and pieces.

Right now I am focusing on sorting and organizing fabrics piled around everywhere. Next month I will likely start sifting and organizing my scrap bins. I'm hoping to alternate days of ironing/organizing with days of actually making forward progress on my sewing goals.

For this coming week, I would like to change gears and get to work on finishing my One Monthly Goal to finish those Arlington Square quilts. And I really would like to start working on my blue Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. 

And one last parting thought because it is obviously true about me:

Linking up with:
Sew & Tell
Monday This & That
Monday Musings
Tuesday ToDo

Weekend's Progress

I worked all weekend and made good progress on my weekly task list. I nearly finished my purple log cabin. Since I decided to custom quilt it, it took a lot longer than I anticipated but now it only needs a label and binding.

Finish the Purple Log Cabin flimsy
Make backing for this log cabin flimsy
Get at least one of the above projects quilted!

On Sunday, I managed to finish quilting one of the Arlington Square flimsies. It also needs to be bound. I am in the process of pre-washing the fabric for the second one.

For this coming week, I would like to:

• Label and bind the Purple Log Cabin quilt.
• Bind the quilted Arlington Square quilt. 
• Quilt and bind the 2nd Arlington Square Quilt.



• Start working on my Blue RSC blocks. I kept falling behind last year and I'd prefer to keep up this year.
• Cut out the Aged Elegance bonus crib quilt.
• Figure out Chilhowie fabrics.

Thanks for dropping by. I am linking up with 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Monday Sew & Tell

Monday This & That

Tuesday ToDo

Jan Friday Night w/Friends

Last night I participated in Friday Night With Friends again. It was nice to spend a night playing with my quilt projects.

I actually spent most of yesterday finishing the backing for my purple Log Cabin quilt. I was surprised at how many of these fabrics I still had in my stash after 20 years. I did have to add in a couple fabrics that weren't on the front. And I used muslin on the top and bottom because I knew quite a bit of it would be trimmed off when I finish the quilt.

By the evening, I was ready to put it all on my long arm. That was a bit of a production. Ideally, I would have liked to get the backing perfectly centered both side-to-side and from top to bottom. I did pretty well from side-to-side, but not as well from top to bottom. It started about an inch off and by the time I had quilted about half of it, it was off even more. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to align them more accurately.

I got it about halfway quilted before I decided I'd better go to bed at 12:30AM.

Thanks again Cheryl for another lovely Friday sewing night.

Another Distraction

I've been thinking about how I want to finish some of the flimsies on my UFO list. One of them is a really old log cabin quilt I started in approximately 2002. Back in 2020, I actually finished the blocks and assembled them into a large quilt, but I didn't like it well enough to pay somebody to quilt it for me, so I hung it in my closet and forgot about it.

This year is the year I will finally finish it. Since getting the long arm, I decided I don't actually want to make a bunch of big quilts I don't need; they're expensive to finish once you add the backing and batting so I thought I would partially disassemble it and make four small quilts, but then I had an idea: My mother said her favorite color is purple and it occurred to me I could take this quilt apart and make a purple twin-size quilt for her. 

Over New Years' weekend, we binged Lord of the Rings and I spent the time taking this quilt apart. I finished before the second movie was over. I then ironed the blocks and put the purple ones on the wall and the green ones in a project tub for later in the year.

If I had designed a quilt from scratch for my mother, this is not the one I would have made, but I want to find a good home for these blocks and this should do as a quickie gift for her.

I spent today assembling the blocks and I'm nearly done with the flimsy. I still want to add two borders, but I haven't decided which fabrics to use yet.

I'm also thinking about making a pieced backing for this one. It would be nice to use up the print I used in the center of the blocks.

I guess because it's nearly Tuesday, I should come up with my task list for the week:

• Finish the Purple Log Cabin flimsy
• Make backing for this log cabin flimsy
• Work on backings for both Arlington Square flimsies
• Get at least one of the above projects quilted!
• Start working on Blue RSC blocks
• Figure out Chilhowie fabrics
• Cut out pieces for Aged Elegance bonus crib quilt

I'm linking up with Monday Musings and Tuesday ToDo.

Aged Elegance Bonus Quilt

I started cleaning up my sewing room and practically the first thing I picked up got me distracted. Gad, I'm so good at coming up with new projects.

I found these leftover pieces of Aged Elegance border and put them up on my design wall and decided they were a good size to make a frame for a little crib quilt. So, naturally, I decided to play with Electric Quilt to make a little flower design to fill it in.

I think I'll give this design a try. 

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday, DrEAMI and Monday Sew & Tell.

Jan One Monthly Goal

My OMG for January is to finish BOTH Arlington Square twin-size quilts. I just finished assembling them last week and I'm hoping they won't get hung up in the closet and wait for some unspecified future finish.

These were made as part of last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I had been hoping to finish them by the end of the year but I got distracted by too many other projects and didn't make it.

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilt's January OMG.