More sorting fun....................

Here is the whole rack that I showed a portion of in yesterday's post.  Yesterday I sorted the reds, what fun, and there weren't any I wanted to get rid of.  To the right of them is the overflow of Brandon fabrics (which you can see the edge of on the right) and a couple Kaffe yarn dyed wovens.  There is a pile of fat quarters in front of the stack.  So  the second shelf from the top was sorted Saturday and the reds on Sunday.  The 2 unsorted shelves are the Philip Jacobs prints.  On the bottom shelf is Laurel Burch fabric on the left and in the 2 storage boxes are black and white batiks and red and black batiks.  The very top shelf has 2 groups of Robin Pickins fabric and 3 boxes of scraps sorted loosely by color.  Also up there in a plastic bag is the remainder of the Wishwell Weather Report fabric.

Last night I got the rest of the dark brown strips sewn on the 15 ten inch strips for the Kaffe zipper quilt.  Then I knitted for awhile while I watched a cute movie on Prime.  It was called Sheep Detectives.

We ended up with 2" of rain on Saturday, much needed to turn the grass green again.

 

Keeping busy..................

While I was waiting for clothes in the dryer I took down all of the fabric on the top shelf and reorganized it.  I found a few more pieces in other places that belong on that shelf too.  It is a miscellaneous group.  The 2 lower shelves are mostly Philip Jacobs fabrics.  I started organizing it by color a few months ago and never finished.

We finally got some rain yesterday.  I checked it around 9 a.m. and there was 1.75" in the rain gauge.  It rained a little more after that so I'll check the gauge again this morning.  It stayed in the 60s most of the day so it was a perfect day to bake ginger cookies.

Last night I got started on the Kaffe zipper quilt.  I have the brown strip sewn on 7 of the 15 pieces so far.

  

 

Happy 250th birthday America...............

I have let the organizing and cleaning get way behind the last year or two so I shouldn't expect it to be all cleaned up in a week.

One of the stacks included this downloaded pattern for Kaffe fabrics.  They are expecting you to buy the fat quarter pack and label the fabrics in the order they are when you receive it.  I would be cutting from stash so mine might look a little different, especially if I used scraps as well as yardage.  This is a free pattern download and they also show it in cool colors.  I think I should keep this one out and make it soon.

We got 3.75" of rain Thursday evening and another half inch in two small storms yesterday.  I can't even remember the last time we got over 4" in 24 hours.  It was raining again last night at 10:30 so I'll check the rain gauges this morning.  I'm hoping we are now out of the unusually dry and drought categories.  We have been suffering with low rainfall for 3 years.

Last but not least, today is my Blogiversary.  I started this blog on July 4, 2007 at the urging of a friend.  It is my online journal to record all of my quiltmaking and gardening ventures.  I never knew how handy it would be to be able to go back as far as 19 years and see what I was doing.  I am grateful for all of you who are still visiting and for those who leave comments.  I feel like you are all friends; some of you I have actually met in person.  I hope you will continue to visit. 

The workbench organization tweaked...................

 I decided to make a collage of the before and after instead of linking back to the earlier post.  Top photo is from a week ago Tuesday.  I didn't like the Studio dies so close to the window (in case of leaks).  Bottom photo shows we put the stacked units up on their sides Tuesday this week.  We were able to bring the one remaining rack of Studio dies from the bookcase to the workbench.  The last rack on the right doesn't have any dies in the section nearest the window.  The blue plastic unit is still going to be removed and I want to keep that end of the bench empty so I have a place to sort fabric.

Then we proceeded to fabric sorting.  I had 2 big blanket size bins full of brown/rust/beige prints (no batik).  I knew I wanted to pull fabrics for another Snail's Trail quilt so I had 3  groups, ones that I wanted to keep, ones that will be sold, and this group for the quilt.  The keep group fits in one box now.  After I cut off the 11-1/8" strip from each of these fabrics there were be a few remainders that will also fit into that box.  Next we sorted the same size bin of 90s wild prints and the keep pile fits in 2/3 of the box.  I will condense my floral fabrics from 2 of that same size bin down to one full one and the remainder will fit in with the 90s wild prints.  That is 2 big blanket size bins eliminated and the 3 remaining will fit under the pool table/cutting table.  My helper is coming back in 2 weeks and we will continue on the organization.

Meanwhile I'm melting in this heat and didn't get as much done yesterday as I would like.  I've done a lot standing on the cement floor in the basement this week so I may need a day to relax and just sort scraps.  I have a huge pile of Kaffe scraps, mostly strips, so that will be the first I work on.

Organizing success...............

This is the last part of the workbench to be cleaned and organized.  The 6 section cubby was shown before.  The blue plastic drawer unit has clothing patterns and misc. in it and it may be removed in the future.  I have some foam core board to prop in front of it to cover the window at night.

This is the whole 15' 9" of the work bench top.  At the left I still have a few notebooks piled there and they will be moved.  My friend came over yesterday to do the heavy lifting for me.  She lifted the box unit up there to put my long cutting dies in and we left a space between it and the next stack of storage units to put the rest of the tall dies.  They have to be stored up on end, not stacked.  We ended up moving the heavier weight fabrics from the bottom shelf of that stack over to the 6 cube cubby.  I'll decide what goes in that empty shelf later.  As we work to the right, more of my dies are stored there.  At the far right are the smallest of the Studio dies on their little rack.

As we turn the corner to the right, I had a lot of my dies on this bookcase and I wanted it converted back to fabric storage.  There is just one rack of dies left there that may remain.  To the right of this is the door to the fruit cellar, where the previous owner probably had all of her canned goods.

We also cleaned out the area under my longarm and have the storage area under there arranged much better.

Later in the afternoon I needed to check on the garden.  I planted a few Marigold seeds in each of the tomato pots.  This one has the most.  Some only have 2 or 3 plants.  I read that it is a good companion plant for tomatoes.

Those 2 tiny cucumber plants I bought May 1 have really grown.  I see I didn't get the top of the plant in the photo.  There are little curly feelers that are growing out of the largest plant and it is climbing up the cage.  The smaller plant doesn't seem to have any and I'm going to have to figure out a way to get it attached to an upright of the cage.  There are lots of male blooms and very few female blooms so I haven't seen any cucumbers yet.

The cucumber seeds I planted in 2 more pots are doing well.  I need to get some cages in these pots soon.

I have the first bloom on one of the Smooth Oxeye (or False Sunflower) plants.  There are lots of buds so there should be more yellow in the backyard soon.

The last section....................

I went down to the basement and looked at the last section of the workbench but just couldn't talk myself into working on it.  The weather was perfect to be outside so I pulled weeds and cut volunteer trees from the front flower bed.  I watered the porch pots and all 22 of my Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus, filled the bird feeders and planted some Jack Be Little pumpkin seeds in a pot near my neighbor's fence behind my bird feeders.  They are miniatures and the package says 3" across and 2" high.  I thought about planting regular size pumpkins but I really don't have enough room for them to spread all across the back of the lot.

 

While I was doing all of that I was thinking about the projects that are stalled and hope I have come to a good solution for at least one of them.  

I have 30 of these star blocks and got stalled on whether I want to sew them together edge to edge, or border them with dark floral fabrics, and maybe put sashing between them after that narrow border.  Here is the post where I was playing with layouts, 2 1/2 years ago.......  I need to stop dithering and finish it.

Trim, binding, organize...................

It was trimming time for the quilt made with Terrie Mangat fabrics.

Then I grabbed the pile of her fabrics to look for a binding.

I was pretty sure I would use the stripe and it looks good with both front and back.

This was the next area for the basement workbench cleaning and organizing.  I had piles in front of this area.  The fabric is on my worktable to go through later.  I have a helper coming Tuesday so I (we) will so some brainstorming and decide what goes in the 3 bottom bins then.  The little stack of metal containers with handles were used as little table top wastebaskets when I had a group sewing here.  The metal bar is a fringe maker and I think I got it back in the 70s when I had a Viking sewing machine.  The white PVC thing is a little hand quilting frame.

I had to show a close up of the workbench top.  It was a working workbench for my son, with paint and putty marks on it.  We moved to this house when he was 11 (he's 65 now).  I have no intentions of refinishing the top; it has too many good memories attached to it.

This group of small size magazines was in this section of the workbench.  They are from 1990-92.  Most of them were opened to pages of work by Shirley Nilsson.

At the time of these publications I was teaching classes on thread sketching.  Even though I didn't use the same technique as Shirley, I was always inspired by her work.  Now I'll look through each of these magazines and then probably put them in recycling.  It's too hard to locate people who want vintage magazines with articles about people they have never heard of.  Since I was in the quilting community teaching (since 1976) I met a lot of the people who were popular and active in the 1990s so the articles interest me.

There was also a pile of photos I need to look through.  They were taken at QSDS in Columbus OH and the venues we visited that had art quilting exhibits.  I was there as a student 1991-1995 and 2002.  On the odd years we also were bused to Quilt National which was a real treat.

A little more................

I misjudged how many day in a row I could stand on the basement floor so I only cleaned 8" more on the workbench surface.  This wood thread holder had a thick layer of dust on it so that was the first job, cleaning it.  When I worked at Quilting Books Unlimited, a man visited our store and showed us these racks that he handmade.  We ordered some and this is the one I bought.  I think the only place I might use it now is near my embroidery machine, and I use that so seldom that this would just become a dust collector again.  It goes into the maybe sell container.

This was next to the thread rack.  It is from my childhood, 1950s, and I think my mother is the one who wanted it.

I remember enjoying listening to the records, 4 of them, 2 sided, so 8 sides to play.  I have a record player but I'm not sure if I have the center thing for these 45s.  Now you can see that it isn't only sewing things on the workbench top.

I didn't take yesterday's 12 squares off the design wall yet, but instead added 5 more that I cut yesterday.

Even though the steroid shots to my SI joints has given me some relief, I'm not pain free, so I continue to work at the pace that I'm able to do.  Good days, lots of progress, other days, a little progress and I always keep moving.

We got over an inch of rain yesterday morning and the severe storms mostly went south of us in the evening.  

 

5" blooms, more organizing..........................

From the 6" strips I showed on Monday I got 12 fussy cut blooms.  These are cut 5" to finish at 4.5", 2 to match up with the 9" blocks.  There is lots more cutting to do so these will go in the box with the others previously cut.

Back to the basement for more cleaning and organizing.  The next thing in line on the workbench was the box of Christmas fabric.  I will be going through this and pulling out the few pieces I might need for future Christmas stockings or other small projects.  I will sell the rest.

A little farther down the line I found a bag of scraps of Christmas fabric so it got added to the box.

On top of the box were *9* Christmas stocking patterns.  Two were paper which were immediately added to the recycle pile and there are some duplicates which I'll eliminate too.  All of the rest are cardboard or template plastic.

Do you remember when this brand of potato chips came in bags inside a cardboard box?  Also every August there was a 'back to school' pencil in the box.  I'll have to keep this pattern for nostalgic reasons.

Now I have the first 9' of a 15' 9" workbench cleaned.  I have one more of the green boxes that will go in the empty slot on the right.

In the lower 2 shelves are: top shelf - long strips leftover from backings, all labeled with size and sorted by regular prints, Kaffe, and batik, and bottom shelf - heavier weight fabrics for tote bags, etc.

The crate and the green canvas box on top of it are going to be removed, and when I have a helper, this box will be emptied and hoisted into that slot, and then refilled with my long cutting dies.

The Christmas fabrics that I'm keeping will go into the top right green box, which is empty right now, and the bin they are in will join my other empty bins.

I have a goal of trying to match all of the extra lids with their boxes as I find them.  Right now I have 5 extra lids and one box that I can't find the matching lid.

After my visit to my tomato plants, I came around to the front of my house for another photo of my new table and pots.  The geranium has a bunch of new buds so there will be some bright color in a few days.

 

Sorting...................

This little orange basket was bugging me so I finally sorted through everything in it.  In the front left is larger pieces that I'm not sure why they were in there.  The pile next to the basket in the top row is pieces I will cut into squares soon.  Everything in the basket is batik fabric pieces.

The pile at the top right is all trimmings from making crazy pieced blocks and some strip pieced small sections.  This pile went back into the basket.

Some groups got labeled and put into zip top bags that I can keep adding to as I continue a clean up of the studio.

Earlier in the day yesterday I pulled fabrics for the other project I want to work on but I didn't get them cut.  Last night I cut the Marcia Derse strips sets in half and sewed them back together for a 4 strip unit.  I just need to figure out which 16 patch I'm going to make with them and I can continue on.

 

A new month, unlimited possibilities.....................

As usual at the beginning of a new month, I'm looking ahead to what I want to work on.  The last 18 months have been devoted to emptying storage boxes with partial projects in them.  9 of the quilts last year came from these empty boxes. The bottom supports on my drafting table are a great place to store lots of the boxes.

As I go through more boxes, I'm finding more pieces leftover from previous projects.  These 180 four and a half inch squares are left from the Double 9 patch quilt I made in 2008.  

These 72 green four and a half inch squares are left from a blue and green Double 4 Patch quilt also made in 2008.  I used a lot of the blue leftovers in 2 Bear Paw quilts.  In this post I was trying out layouts of the blocks.

In another box are these 204 batik four and a half inch squares.  A lot of them are leftover from a kit I sold to a friend for a Double 4 patch quilt, maybe from 2 kits.  Now that I have a record of these on my blog, I can refer back to this post if I find a pattern that I want to make that will take this size square.  I also have the 35 purple and green leftover portion of the 4.5" strips to cut into 4 squares of each.

I'll keep looking through things today.  I know I want to press the flannel scraps and cut more tumblers and squares from them.  If I can just get the pain in my back and leg to stop I'll get more done.  I have an appointment this month for a treatment that will possibly work.

Discoveries and an idea..........

My post today will be in reverse order to explain how I get ideas.

This is sewing from 2 nights, 82 blocks.  (total number from several days = 269).  As I was sewing them, I was considering an all triangle square center of a baby quilt.  I was trying to decide if all of the ones with the same 2 fabrics would be grouped together or if I would spread them out in a random grouping.  Then I started thinking about how else I could use them: a small center with a border around it and then another round of triangle squares and a final border.  Then......I thought about one of the boxes I found in the basement earlier in the day.

The top box is the one I am talking about, with 4.5" squares and 4.5" x 8.5" rectangles.  Then I remembered a quilt top I have made fairly recently.

What if I used the triangles to make a quilt top similar to this one (which is Marcia Derse fabric)?  The larger rectangles are already the right size and I would just need to cut the narrow rectangles.  I could use this as my master plan but change the layout if I thought it needed to be changed.

This solidifies my idea that keeping busy and making pieces for the parts department keeps the designing mind active.

So, back to yesterday morning, I found these 2 boxes on one shelf below the boxes of flannel pieces.  I have used some of the Kaffe flying geese in another quilt top...one I can't decide if it is finished or needs more (like a calming border).

I have LOTS of drawers and boxes full of strips, all labeled.  When I have a project in mind that will use strips, I usually search through the boxes and drawers to see if I can use the strips in them or would be better off cutting new strips.

I need to keep looking to see what I have missed.  I have about a dozen project boxes I haven't looked in yet.