Spring Cleaning!

I'm really excited to share my sewing space after my 'Spring Cleaning'!  On Friday, Mary from Sort n' Release came over and helped me get things in order. It was a bunch of work, but so rewarding! 

Here are the after pictures (if you want to see 'before', go here):

The project bins are in the closet (not on the floor), the tops of my fat quarter shelves are tidy!  My cart is so much more logical and I swapped out the quilt on the wall from CatVent to Elephant Parade.  The fabric on my ironing surface is part of my 'homework'.  Since this picture was taken, I've purged a bit from drawers and found a home for (most of) it.

The closet--- Aaaaahhhhh!!!  It is completely transformed! I could hardly step in it before and was just throwing things in and closing the door.  Now each space is assigned a job-- storing completed projects, holding project totes, etc.  I can't believe that it looks this good! But it is more than just looks, it is functional, too.

Here is the view of the design wall side.  I didn't manage to take any pictures of the cutting table and cubbies.  Trust me-- they are looking good!

Here's my pile of sell/donate:

It has a bunch of felt I haven't used for years, some things from cardmaking days, some fabric and notions and storage containers that I didn't 'love'.  Part of the process was-- If I don't like something, why keep it?

Before the big clean, I wanted to finish up my On Ringo Lake.  It needed just a few more inches on either side, so I did a simple border of bricks of the coral/orange/pink/yellow leftovers. The size is much better.

I hope to quilt this in 2 weeks, so I need to think about backing.  I've done a bit of looking and wasn't finding anything, so I placed an order for an assortment of yardage in the colors of the top.

On Friday night, I had my Late Night Sew Night at Blue Bar Quilts.  I would have been perfectly happy to collapse on the couch after such a busy day, but I couldn't.  Sew-cializing needed to happen! I grabbed my log cabin diamonds as a simple, small project to work on.  Now that I have a handful done, I can see how cool this is and I want to devote more time to them.  I'm not sure if I should switch to orange for the next ring?  It might give the quilt a bit more interest...

And lastly, part of my homework was to go through some of my tubs and thin the scrap herd.  They have multiplied into 3 small bins and I know that is not necessary. While sorting, I did a bit of Wild and Goosey with some of the scraps.  After the first few of these blocks, I wasn't too keen on them.  I've now switched to using only really light fabrics for the background and it is making the difference-- I like these better now.

And to finish this long post, I've got a cute picture of Finn to share. He kind of looks like a doll in a box! 

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

Rainbow Plus Top - Complete!

It is always nice to advance a project to a milestone, even when the top is as simple as this one.

Next up for me-- find some time for quilting. I'm starting to accumulate quite a few tops: this one, the grey plus version, the pink/brown log cabin for Project Linus, my On Ringo Lake, Legendary-- and I'm sure there are more waiting to quilt!  I hope to accomplish some of this in the next few months.

I did some other sewing yesterday-- making progress on the different parts of my two Sew Portable Travel Sets.  I started these at the Super Most Awesome Retreat, but  had gotten stuck with assembling the bags.  The bulk was too much for my Featherweight.  I had to wait and borrow a friend's machine and even then, it was still difficult.  I broke one needle and bent another! =O

Here is the foot pedal bag:

The extension plate cover, with Finn modeling (it was Caturday, after all!)

And I made big progress on the totes.  This one is now looking like a bag!  Sewing those straps was a challenge.  I'm hoping I learned some lessons that can make the next one a bit easier. I quilted the panels on the orange one, but don't have a picture.

xoxo,
Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

On Ringo Lake - Top complete!

Great news-- I sewed the final seam on my On Ringo Lake last week! Wooot! Do I call the top done? I'm not sure-- it's mostly queen sized, but if I were to use it on a queen bed, I would like it to be just a smidge bigger.  So I might add about a 3" border of orange/coral 'bricks'.  We will see.  It can age while I think about it. 😊

Now that I'm done with that monumentous project, I can try and tidy up my sewing room.  It has been a bit out of control.  In January, the Mad Mod guild had a speaker that talked about how to go about organizing your sewing space.  She has a business where she will help you bring your space to its fullest potential.  I contacted her to help me and we have a date!  April 27th! I can't wait to improve how I work and to make my closet more than a "throw stuff in and shut the door" place. =O

Yesterday, to celebrate Caturday, Finn assisted me in my sewing room.  He is such a 'helper'! =/  Ay carumba! I love him and that he spends time with me while I sew, but he can be relentless about where he thinks he needs to be!! Apparently it is not enough that I've gifted him the office chair I used to sit in...

I worked a little bit on the first of 2 plus quilts and have all of the blocks sewn into rows.  It won't take much to call this top complete!  I have been curating and cutting brights for a second version of this, but I still haven't snapped a picture.  Maybe next week?  I have some fun quilty things on deck-- Tuesday is the Sun Prairie Quilt Show and Friday I leave for a retreat weekend near LaCrosse.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

On Ringo Lake...Making Progress (slowly!) + Kings Cross prep

I'm making headway on my Quiltville Mystery Quilt, but I'm not quite to the point of showing a big, breakthrough photo.  Lots of sewing is happening, with lots of small pieces and tons of units.

I have all of the orange/coral flying geese and brown flying geese complete and sewn together in pairs and half of the pairs are joined up to the 9 patches (stacked up in the background).

I haven't kept count of the aqua/brown triangles, but I think I'm about halfway done with them? I can't wait to get started on the next step that adds a coral triangle to these and then I can assemble a block!

My big Lutherdale retreat starts in a few days and (crossing fingers) hopefully I will make big progress on this and have something awesome to share when I get back.

Here is an 'action shot' of my sewing room yesterday.  As you can see, I get a lot of help!!

Speaking of retreat... as usual, I have ambitious goals. Before starting the mystery quilt, I decided that King's Cross would be my big, main project to work on while there.  I think I have all the fabrics accumulated (or at least close to all of them). I have the bolt of Pepper Cory-Pepper as the background and a variety of saturated Moda Grunge for the crosses.

 Here is a sampling:

And here are my fabrics (Grunge Dots) for the lighter, more subtle stars.  I'm not sure how I'm going to combine these... Maybe the cream will be star points and the grey as the four patch centers? Not sure yet!

xoxo,

Kristin

ps

Linking up with Bonnie's Mystery Monday Linkup , Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash, Cynthia's Oh Scrap! and Judy's Design Wall Monday

On Ringo Lake - Clue #2

Clue #2 of On Ringo Lake, this year's Quiltville Mystery was released a few days ago and it is a tremendous amount of flying geese.

The first thought I had was that I did a big quilt of only flying geese a few years ago and it took me forever...how will I completed a million of them just for this step??  Well-- they are going together pretty quickly and I've got about 1/3 complete and all of the parts are cut out.  I know that it's not a race, but I'm trying to keep up each week.  Both this week and last week, I spent quite a bit of time starching my fabrics.  For the rest of the clues, I should be able to dive right in and cut and sew right away.  Woot!

Scrap quilts are tedious to cut out, good thing I had some help!

I can't wait to see what this pattern will look like.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Quiltville, Design Wall Mondays, Let's be Sewcial and Oh Scrap!

Binding Binge

When you quilt up three tops in short order, it means there is a lot of binding in your future!  I spent most of yesterday cutting, piecing and attaching binding to the 2 charity chop quilts.  I really don't enjoy how fussy it is to make a scrappy binding, yet I seem to do it all.the.time.  =O

Finn decided to 'help' me with all of this work!  Oh my!!   I managed to finish the machine portion on these 2 quilts and have the binding cut and assembled for Galaxy of Stars.

I did manage to do a teeny-tiny bit of other sewing, too. Two more blocks for Mad Mod's Block Lotto.  This brings my total to 4.

And-- a LOVELY package arrived from Thousands of Bolts!  I decided that I am going to participate in Bonnie Hunter's 2017 Mystery Quilt!  Woooot!  Her name is 'On Ringo Lake'.  I might pick another name, but for now that will do.  The colors sounded really appealing (aqua, coral, chocolate) and I'm in a pretty good place with my other projects--  why not?!?!? =)

I need more neutrals, so I poked around online.  The aquas are so enticing! I got a few more browns, should have picked out more corals and managed to throw in a few other 'extra' fabrics to the order.  Bonnie's Facebook Open Studio Page has a lot of activity about the mystery quilt and many people are sharing their fabric pulls.  I'm tempted to use cool greys instead of creams.  The first clue doesn't come out until Black Friday, so I've got some time to decide.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash and Judy's Design Wall Mondays and Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

 

Finish! Twin Baby Girl (2 of 2) aka Deja Vu!

I'm happy to report that twin baby girl quilt #2 is complete-- even with the label! And-- before the babies are born!  Win-win-win!

This quilt is the same as the earlier one, except I'm using a pink scrappy binding.  One of the fabrics in these quilts was from a fat quarter challenge with the Mad City Quilt Guild and we have the opportunity to display our challenge projects at Madison's newest quilt store, Blue Bar Quilts. So the grey bound version is living there for a few weeks until the new babies need it.

In other news, I got a new to me fancy camera!  I am not always pleased with my quilt pictures I get from my phone and point and shoot camera.  I had the opportunity to buy a used Canon Rebel body and then found a used kit lens at our local camera shop.  I barely know how to use it, but still did a bit of fooling around.  Here is Finn posing for me (actually, wondering what in the world I am doing and why am I not preparing his dinner!!!!) and it looks great on my computer monitor.  I want to see the difference when I print photos, because that is where I think my phone is really lacking.

xoxo

Kristin 

ps

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish it up Friday. 

2016 - The year of the UFO?

Happy New Year! 



I'm very excited to start the year and have a great attitude about the next 365 days.  With the big change of moving last July, I am just now starting to feel settled in to my new home (and sewing room!!).

Project-wise, I'm not in the middle of anything right now.  It's a funny place for me to be!  I normally have something going and something queued up (or started before the prior project is complete!).

I finished Maize Maze in early December and hoped to quilt it over Christmas.  Due to technical difficulties with my mom's longarm, I didn't get to quilt it.  =(

I finished the top for Elephant Parade on the same day as I put the final borders on Maize Maze, so add this to the list of tops waiting to quilt...

Speaking of...  While at my parent's over Christmas, I pulled out two tops that are waiting to be quilted: My bed quilt and a civil war throw.  I didn't have a good picture of my bed quilt (it's been hibernating for years)!! And I don't know that I have any of this throw.  It was a kit that my Aunt Nancy gifted me several years ago.  I put it together super quickly and I have grand plans of quilting it in beautiful all over victorian feathers.  One little problem-- I'm not quite skilled enough to quilt it the way I want to.  =(  It looks like it will make a warm snuggly couch throw, perfect for this time of year.  I'm tempted to quilt it with a panto and 'git 'er done'.

I spent a good part of yesterday in my sewing room enjoying a commitment free Saturday.  I pulled out one of my UFO's, 'Cartwheels'.  I've been working on this for a few years now and I'm hoping to get the top complete.  I added the outer filmstrip border and just need to do one more border of lime green.

 

This list of quilts is just a portion of my UFO's and I'm hoping to finish more than I start this year.  All People Quilt is challenging us to make progress getting things complete and I'll use their chart, but I'm not sure I'll take part in the contest.

Thanks for visiting!  I'll wrap up by sharing a cute picture of Finn from yesterday.  The sun was pouring in the sewing room and he was very happy to sunbathe!

Baby Steps with Elephant Parade

My elephants are moving along!  All of the big and little elephants are complete and I've started on the frog and turtle.  I kept saying "Frosch und Kröte" while working on them (even though Frosch und Schildkröte would be more accurate).  This was a book I read in high school german class and translates to Frog and Toad. =)

I had a very difficult time selecting the greens!  Green is a color I'm drawn to and have an abundant selection. I could probably make a Turtle Parade!

Since it was Caturday, I'll share a picture of my sweet baby, Finn.  He was "helping"!

Caturday

Putty was on ironing duty this week. He needed to inspect a new black that I picked up. I think he approves.

Caturday

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a cat.

Fuzzy Wuzzy's hair's growing back.

Putty is recovering from his shave. After getting over the initial shock of what happened to him, he liks his haircut. He has a lot more zip in his step. The only problem is that he misses the warmth from his coat. For the first time ever, he is snuggling under covers. Poor guy.

I would say he no longer looks like a squirrel with a silky body and a fluffy tail. Instead, he kind looks like a teddy bear with a scruffy, fuzzy coat. Hopefully he'll be back to his full fluffiness soon.

Notice in this picture how he's "helping" me with my cutting. He's right on top of the ruler and the fabric. Thanks a lot, cat!