Slash That Stash!

That's my motto for the next couple months.  I am taking time each week to organize my fabric stashes into manageable bits and pieces.  In 2019, momma wants to make some quilts and she wants to use what she has on hand.  There is a million free (and bought) patterns for precuts that I'm dying to make.  So the idea is to chop up my existing fabrics into pre cut bits so that I can make these patterns more usable for me.  You are more than welcome to join me in a Stash Slashing party for encouragement if you'd like.  So here are the rules I've made for myself as I tackled my first bin...green fabrics.

Any fabrics 1/2 yard or bigger where pressed, neatly folded and placed back into the container.  All fat quarters were also placed back into the container.

Back to QAL Work We Go

Time for a bit of a project update and what I've been up to.  I have a ton going on at work, leading a system conversion from a very archaic computer system to a much better Window based platform, so when I get home in the evenings and weekends, I'm ready to unwind and not think about work.

Above is a look at my cut pieces for the Magnolia Mystery Quilt going on now over at Meadow Mist Designs.  If you have not participated in one of Cheryl's mystery quilt alongs before, I HIGHLY encourage you to hop over there and check it out.

It's been a week or two since I have caught up on the QAL's I'm participating in, so this past week was spent mainly catching up on those.

Oh, deer, just look at that moose under the mistletoe!  The moose and deer blocks caught me up on Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilt's Have A Jolly Little Christmas Quilt.  I just realized as I'm typing this, the last block will be given to us this weekend.  Could we have a quilt finish before Christmas 2017???  I think we just might.

Next up, was the The Double Star Block in Cindy at Stitchin At Home's Medallion Quilt BOM.  I am really loving me some purple and green with this quilt.

Goodnight Moon is the next block in Pat Sloan's The Children's Library BOM.  Only two more to go and this extremely fun QAL will be coming to an end as well.  I had hoped to finish up the Aurifil BOM and show you as well, but we are not currently on speaking terms at the moment.  It is packed full of applique and at the moment, my head just isn't in that game.

Taking a break from the piecing scene, David and I borrowed my mom's garage for a basting quilt session.

We were able to baste four smaller quilts, all currently waiting for me to pick them up and quilt them.

Here is a picture of David and his Poodle Quilt.  While scrolling through Instagram, he ran across Sue at Seven Oak Street Quilt's Poodle block she made for hive queen Karen at Tu-Na Quilts.  Loving all things of the 50's; 57 Chevys, girls in poodle skirts, you get my drift.  He decided to super size the block, change the piecing up a bit and create his own throw back to the 50's with some recent fabric purchases.  I'm thinking that negative space is screaming for some fun flow quilting.  What do you think?

Even after all that was finished last weekend, I snuck in some cutting time, to cut out a quilt for my daughter's 17th birthday.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog, but just incase she does, I won't let the cat out of the bag quite yet on what it is, but it is another one of Lorna's wonderful creations.  Do I have a Sew Fresh Quilts pattern obsession?  Hmmm?

I think I have confessed before, I'm a cluttered mess.  I'm an OCD person's nightmare...ask David.  However, there comes a point about every 3-6 months I can't take it anymore; the stash starts stacking up (from growth or laziness), the sewing space becomes cluttered...I have to clean it up.

So in keeping it real here on the blog (because I keep telling myself I'm not the only one who is like this), I pulled out my fabric totes to "file" the fabrics in there correct bins.

It became clear pretty quick like, that the fabric wasn't going to fit in their respective bins.  AHHHHH.

But Caroline tried to convince me everything was okay, because she fit in this newly almost empty bin...sigh.

So after several go rounds in my head I opted to purchase three more fabric bins and do the fabric shuffle.  My whites, blues and reds are in the biggest of the totes (how patriotic of me) and everything else fell in line.  So the stash is back under control and arranged in the back room.  The cats, bless their hearts, love fabric shuffle time, because the living room is transformed into a kitten playground.

I am feeling more grounded now and believe I can create once again.  I've come to the realization that with two serious quilters in the house, something must be done.  Quilting has taken over the house.  If that sounds like a daydream, trust me it's not.  There is talk about converting our porch into a sunroom/quilting room.  I do love my porch, however, we don't use it.  Why?  Because I'm inside quilting!  This would allow us to have a dedicated room for quilting and let the dinning room be a dinning room (since I'm now cooking again, thank you Instant Pot), the spare bedroom be a bedroom and the breakfast nook be...well something other than home to my Sweet Sixteen.  But, we shall see.  A girl can always dream

My Sewing Space(s)

I figured this meme was a great way to start off this post.  Or maybe the one that says, "the only place housework comes before quilting is in the dictionary."  That also sounds pretty accurate.  So why in the world am I going on about my sewing room, or mess of a sewing room(s)?  Well, if you haven't ran into it yet, Melva from Melva Loves Scraps is currently hosting a linky party that she is calling a Studio Hop.  It's a place to be real and show off your sewing room, good, bad and the cluttered.  I say we love them all and think it's an absolutely great idea.

When my daughter has friends over they are warned as they come in the door.  Although, this may look like a house, it is really a quilting studio.  It just so happens we live here as well.  Adapt, or we can put a tent in the yard.  This is usually where Jen looks at me like, really, mom?  I return to my project and belt out what ever song is playing from my music list, and the friends can't decide if I'm one of the coolest parents ever or just a weirdo.

My quilting addiction hobby necessities can be found in three rooms of the house.  The first place is in the back room.  Chances are you would never see this room in our house.  I'm not showing your the whole room now.  It's located in the back and it a catch all of stuff.  This is were our stash lives.  With two quilters in the house (Dave the Quilting Engineer) stuff can pile up quick.  However, most of this was acquired before he got in on the action.

This bookcase contains totes of fabric sorted by color, pre-cut purchases, UFO's, WIP's and a few finished quilts.  Not a lot of time is spent back here, unless we are searching for something we need.

Next up, is the newest space, which some of you may have already "toured."  This is the quilting space.  The addition of shelves and the HQ Sweet Sixteen are new (like past few weeks).  The windows allow plenty of natural lighting and the shelves plenty of storage.

You can see that some of my UFO's waiting for quilting have made their way out of hiding.  I can't use the excuse "out of sight" any more.  And how did I manage to get a picture without one of the two cats in it???

Next up, is the dinning room, where families come together and laugh and enjoy each others company.  We have a dinning room table and we do come together and enjoy each others company while sitting there, but instead of eating, we sew.

This is a view from David's side of the table.  Both of these sets of shelves house books, current projects, pre-cuts and quilting notions.

This is a shot from my side of the table.  The area isn't looking its cleanest, but at the moment we both have projects going on.  I will say it is a loved space.

So, for better or worse, this is where David and I create.  On a great weekend, this is where you will find us.  There has been talk of rearranging the living room so that we can see our television better from the table.  We are Netflix junkies.  This is probably not our dream sewing arrangement, but it is what works for us.  So far there isn't a design wall, but the floor and bed work for our needs.

So what does your sewing space look like?  Is it hot mess like mine, or maybe it looks like it's straight from a Better Homes and Garden magazine?  What ever the case, hop over to Melva Loves Scraps and show it off.

Stash Sorting

Things are looking pretty fluffy and white in my neck of the woods.  Everyone in the area is preparing for the upcoming snowstorm due to hit tomorrow afternoon.  Hopefully, it will not be as bad as they are predicting, but what ever the case it never hurts to be prepared.  My evening will be filled with some baking so that we have small things that require no heat to eat.  Because we are in a mountainous region, it is very common for snow covered tress to take out power lines and it is better to be safe than sorry.

I have been doing more blog reading than writing as of lately.  Jenn over at A Quarter Inch From the Edge has inspired me to take a good look at my fabric stash.  She is encouraging all of us to take a good look at what we have acquired and has declared 2016 The Year of the Stash.

We had been talking back and forth through email and I told her I do try to make use of the fabric I have hoarded collected.  But that got me thinking...do I really make the best use or is it a half-hearted attempt that ends up in me buying more fabric?  I made my confession to her that I try to use my stash, but maybe if I followed her advice and sorted it by colors I could do better.

I love fat quarters.  Who doesn't??  But I always buy them in groups with good intentions of turning them into something.  What is that they say about the road to hell and good intentions?

These fat quarters came to mind.  The ones on the left were purchased with the hope of making a mini quilt (2 years ago).  The ones on the right were suppose to be a Jacob's Ladder quilt (purchased 3 years ago).  They all lived together in a tote, going absolutely nowhere.  Maybe if I separated them, I could also diminish the guilt of using, say the blue fat quarters, for something else.  Then I wouldn't have to stare at the sad little yellow pieces wondering why they are being skipped over.  Kind of like when you separate a litter of puppies.

So I pleaded with my daughter to drag my totes from the back room, put on my jammies, turned on some Netflix and prepared to sort.

I only left behind two totes.  One with left over Miss Kate fabrics the other 1930's reproductions.   As you can see from the pictures, everything is just thrown in.  They actually use to be in a folded neat order, but quite frankly who has time for that? (okay, lots of people, just not me)

Tote by tote, I created piles of yellow, orange, blue and so forth.  What was surprising to me is the colors I thought I had a ton of turned out to be some of my smallest piles.  Purple being the color I lacked the most.

It's not a huge stash of fabric, but it's mine.  My biggest fear at this point was that I wouldn't be able to make the fabric fit back into the totes they came out of.  Blues took up a whole container.  Reds, pinks and oranges in the next.  Followed by grays, black and yellow.  Greens, white and purple.  And an extremely large tote of browns and tan/neutrals.  I had no idea the last grouping would be the largest.  Of course this does not include precuts.  They hangout somewhere completely different.

Princess Caroline of the Fuzzy Butts thought fabric sorting was the BEST THING EVER!  Or at least the empty tote part.

Everything made it safely back to the bookshelf, but dang it if I didn't find a tote full of fat quarters that we forgot to pull.  Maybe I will try again this weekend.  I'm still not 100% happy with how I'm storing my stash, though I think by color grouping I will use it more.  So if anyone has a better idea, I'm all ears.

One last thing...I have you heard about the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party over at Sew Fresh Quilts?

  Lorna has put together another fabulous sew along, this time with ugly (though I think they are darling, probably why I needed to hire a stylist) little Christmas sweaters.  Now with my stash sorted and the weather looking more and more like Christmas everyday, I am ready to get my sew-a-long on!  Hope you will consider joining in, Lorna's sew-a-longs are the bomb.

If no one hears from me in the next few days, please consider sending out some search and rescue sled dogs or even a St. Bernard with a barrel of whiskey.  If you could convince him to bring wine...even better!  Stay warm my friends!!  Thank God for quilts.

Today I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop! Whoop!

2016 The Quilter's Planner

**As an update to this post:  Watermelon Taffy didn't actually make it into the 2015 The Quilter's Planner as planned, but the tutorial can still be found on my Tutorial page.  The Quilter's Planner is a wonderful tool and contains the works of many talented bloggers that I am happy to call friends and I hope you will check it out.**

Stephanie from Late Night Quilter completely made my day 100% happier when she sent an email Tuesday to let me know that my pattern for the Watermelon Taffy Block would be included as one of the 52 free blocks in her upcoming 2016 The Quilter's Planner.

I read the email twice and did a happy dance.  Ten months ago when I started my quilt blogging adventure I would have never dreamed that I would write a pattern for a block, let alone be included in an amazing project such as this one.  So a huge thank you to Stephanie for all of her hard work on this project and also allowing me to contribute!

Now let's talk a bit more about this planner.  I think quilters fall into two distinct categories; extremely detailed and organized or hot-mess chaos.  I can admit that I fall into the later category.  If you love details and making sure everything in your life is organized this book will allow you to do that in one great convenient place.  This is the book for you.  If you are a hot-mess of chaos, like me, this book will provide an opportunity to get your thoughts down in a organized fashion and keep track of all the things you forget to do.  This book IS for you.

Let's talk about all the great things that she's included in this planner:

Monthly and Weekly Calendars

Prompts for goal setting (a study shows people who wright down their goals accomplish more)

Project planning pages

Graph paper, space to practice free motion quilting and savings swatches

A reference section for quilting calculations and common piecing techniques 

52 original quilt block designs (from various bloggers like me) and 8 full quilt patterns from Cheryl Brickey (Meadow Mist Designs), Yvonne Fuchs (Quilting Jetgirl), Amy Garro (13 Spools), Lee Heinrich (Freshly Pieced), Mandy Leins (Mandalei Quilts), Pat Sloan (Pat Sloan), Kitty Wilkin (Night Quilter) and of course Stephanie (Late Night Quilter) herself. 

And art work pull-outs by Kelsey Boes (Lovely and Enough)

The Quilter's Planner 2016 became available for pre-order on October 22 on Indiegogo and should ship out sometime in December (early January at the latest).  I know I already have mine pre-ordered and am looking forward to a more organized and productive 2016,  thanks to all of Stephanie's hard work.

P.S.  Don't forget to check out the Dog Gone Cute Blog hop going on every Tuesday and Thursday this month.  I day on the hop has come and gone but you can check it out here.

Elf Not on My Shelf Anymore: A cleaning victory

I can admit that I'm a sucker for simple entertainment.  I can amuse myself for quite a long time making up new words to songs, like I'm some sort of Weird Al Yankovic wanna be.  My dad was the same way.  So when the Elf on the Shelf craze hit I truly thought my family needed one.  I could clearly  visualize the amusement posing a small stuffed elf would bring!  I really hadn't taken into
consideration that my daughter was almost thirteen years old and possibly too old to start this tradition.  If I'm honest this was probably what I was thinking anyway...

Of course I would have never left him like this for Jen to find.  

The problem is he never made it out of the box.  For the past two years he has not sat on a shelf high and proud, but was left stuffed in his box unloved and unseen.  Santa would be very upset to know that he became just another "thing" laying around.  A victim of hoarding.

After last weeks cleaning spree I decided that it was time for him to live.  He needed a new home where he would be loved and allowed to have the adventures he deserves. My dear cousin has three wonderful little boys who are just the right age to enjoy this holiday tradition, so I knew what I had to do.  He had to go.

So today I set in motion Operation Santa's Watching.  I pulled some strings and acquired a letter from the big man himself and wrapped the package.  Hopefully in a few days 2 little boys (the third is too little) will open this package and their little eyes will widen with the hope that from miles away the jolly old man that is Saint Nick is watching them.  

 Sometimes there are rewards in tasks we don't want to do and for me this is one of them.

The Bookcase--Not a fairy tale

After I finished cleaning the area of my night stand I was feeling pretty good about starting on the area around my bookcase.

 The bookcase sits just outside of the closet and has become a catchall for things I don't quite feel like putting up.  The intention is there, "Oh, I'll put that up in a minuet," but the follow through somehow gets lost.

Seeing the placement of a sweater that is to small for me stuffed on a shelf makes me pause and say, "What is wrong with you? And why are we keeping that??"  So with my tail tucked between my legs I began pulling things from the shelves and putting them in the floor.  Everything had to come down because my intention was to move the shelf closer to the side wall.

Once I saw how much stuff (mostly books though) I had stored on the shelves I thought I might have to call in for back up.

The one thing I love almost as much as my quilting stuff, is my books.  There is nothing like holding a great book and turning the pages to find out what hides inside.  I hope that one day when I'm senile and don't know my name, my grandchildren will go through my books and think that I must have been pretty cool or off my rocker crazy.  Weeding my book collection was one of the hardest things I've had to do.  Seeing this mess on the floor and knowing I had to make decisions, caused the irrational part of me to think that moving and starting over might just be the easiest choice. 

In the meantime, my daughter was performing the same task in her room, but having a blast doing so.  Through out her elementary school days, I accumulated quite a book collection for her.  I had a bad Scholastic Book Club addiction.  However, she did not inherit my passion for books.  Reading was not something in those days that came easy for her and most set on the shelf never opened.  We boxed up all of the books she had out grown and donated them to one of her teachers.  She assured me that her students would love them.  This made my heart feel happy again.  In the end I would just like to see them loved and used.

After a nice glass of moscato, I returned to the mess I had made and I have to say I was pleased with my progress.

When it comes to organizing I'm a complete loss so I turned to my dear friend Pinterest.  This lead to the purchase of two fabric covered storage boxes to house my paperback books.  It's amazing how many more you can fit in that space just by doing that.  I also read several articles about adding visual interest to the shelves my arranging the books in different ways.  Most of the things that were in the floor went into the yard sale box or made their way back to their original spots.  The boards are the only oddball thing that remain in the space and they will have to wait till I pull the mattress off the bed to go home.  

By moving the bookcase further down the wall I made space for another future project from Pinterest.

I found this half table on Larcie Bird's blog and I love it!  It makes me think "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"  (If you haven't noticed, I love Alice in Wonderland)  In her blog they actually found a table at a yard sale and chopped that baby in half.  I'm not sure if I shall take that route or possibly just build one and use an upholstered storage cube for a bench.  I think it will be a great place for my laptop and to use as a small office space.  Not including the closet, I'm half way done with this room.  Back to cleaning!