I didn’t do very well the first few days of March, but since then I’ve gotten serious about getting in my fifteen minutes of sewing every day, and often more.

First I finished the six grocery bags made from birdseed bags.

Jaye asked how I made these. Over the years, I’ve done it several different ways, sometimes piecing the bags to get a certain size and adding lots of pockets and detail. For these I kept it very simple. I used an old rotary cutter to trim off the top and bottom of each bag, then I sewed a quarter inch from the lower edge, right side out. I turned the bag inside out, and sewed the bottom again (French seam) for strength. Then I sewed across each corner to create a flat bottom.

Then I turned down a “hem” on the top and zigzaged it, catching the denim handles. Finally, I turned the handles up and zigzaged them again for security.

Next, I made a dozen donation blocks for Kat’s March /April block drive for Covered in Love. I had never made the Hunters Star block, and it took me a while to get my brain around it, but after twelve I’m a pro.

Now I’m working on setting these leader-and-enders blocks with ombre fabric. I cut the borders first, then turned the fabric to cut the sashing from the various shades of green. Wish my design wall were bigger!

Hope you’re making lots of progress!

March is roaring in here today, so it’s time to check on the goals.

February Goals:

1. Complete Clue 2 of Charlotte H’s Summer Stars at Fawn Lake . Yes! Cute, tiny units.
2. Complete and mail current commission quilt. Yes!
3. Quilt and bind Gold and Green Christmas Quilt . Yes!
4. Sew up grocery bags from birdseed bags. Mostly. Two are finished and the other four need handles.

Bonus: I made a Quilt of Valor, using the same design as the Christmas quilt.

March Goals:

1. Participate in March-Along, sponsored by Darla, the Scientific Quilter.
2. Clue #3, Summer Stars at Fawn Lake.
3. Make blocks for Kat’s March/April Covered in Love block drive .
4. Complete donation top using green and white leader-and-enders blocks I’ve completed.

If you haven’t done March-Along before, it’s a fun reminder to do something quilty for fifteen minutes every day during the month of March. We decide what we want to count (I think I spent my time blogging today!), and Darla cheers us on. Come join us!

I bought nine yards of fabric this week. Isn’t it pretty? And obviously necessary?

And I used three and a half making Star Wars #13.

This week: + 9 yards, – 3.5 yards

This year: + 33.75 yards, – 25.25 yards

Net destashed added in 2018: 8.5 yards

Clearly, this can’t go on forever! I can’t buy fabric every week, can I?

Hope you’re doing a better job using your stash!

This week I finished the other commissioned baby quilt I was working on. This was special because I had made one for her older sister, accented in purple, and now grandma has ordered this in, well, rose. Then we went to see The Last Jedi last night, and I kept thinking, “Those are x-wings! I’ve appliqued those a lot lately!”

I’ve been working on my studio, partly prompted by a Twilter call for “as is” photos the other day, and partly just a New Year’s clean up. I have a lot crammed into a small room, and some has to be out and messy, but I’m doing what I can.

These birdseed bags have been lying under my cutting table for…a long time. I’ve finally started making them into shopping bags just to get them out of there. They’re straight, not cone-shaped as this picture looks.

This bulletin board was a complete wreck, several layers deep in expired coupons, old project directions, etc. Now it’s ready to tack up something I need currently.

My old webbing baskets on top of my lockers literally disintegrated this winter. I hope it was sun damage from before we installed the current windows that are supposed to protect against uv rays. I shopped my basement for the center basket and Hobby Lobby for the pink ones. One holds a mystery quilt in progress, one has leaders and enders kits, and one has extra shipping supplies.

And I vacuumed!

I’m currently re-reading this book. Not too much is new to me, but it’s interesting to see the small things she does differently, and her work is beautiful. She goes over all the steps involved, so I recommend this if you’re just starting, or getting back into, free motion quilting.

There! What have you been doing?

As usual, this January was a very productive month!  Cold weather kept me in and gave me lots of time to sew.

January Goals:

1. Quilt and bind low-volume donation baby quilt (zebras).  Yes!
2. Quilt and bind bright cat donation baby quilt.  Yes!
3. Complete Clue 1 of Charlotte H’s Summer Stars at Fawn Lake.  Yes!
4. Make string blocks for Kat’s Jan/Feb Covered in Love block drive.  Yes!

Bonus:  I also made two quilts for my Etsy shop, and another on commission.  I also appliqued cardinals to complete an old wall hanging.

February Goals:

1. Complete Clue 2 of Charlotte H’s Summer Stars at Fawn Lake .
2. Complete and mail current commission quilt.
3. Quilt and bind Gold and Green Christmas Quilt .
4. Sew up grocery bags from birdseed bags.

Let’s see how much I get done in February!

How are you doing?

And another one! It never rains but it pours, and I have another commission. This little Jedi will get rose colored applique.

Instead of a quilt top on my wall today, I have a “finished” quilt from 2007.  I liked the birch fabric and the interesting ways I added sparkle to the snowflakes, but it was never right.  Up close, the printed cardinals are colorful and interesting, but they don’t show up from any distance away.  At some point I added the red buttons.  Yesterday and today I added three applique cardinals.

This is a paper pieced pattern from Debby Krativil, but I used it for applique.  I changed the tail on one of them.  I satin stitched them to the quilt using a Sulky gray metallic thread to continue the glittery theme.

What do think, is this finally finished?  I’m pretty happy with it.

Here is a quick post to share my current work, and to try out my Christmas laptop from DH.  I haven’t finished setting it up yet, but so far so good.  Maybe I’ll post more often if I won’t have to wait forever for everything to load.

I’m in the middle of sewing eighteen string blocks for Kat’s Jan/Feb block drive for Covered in Love.  I have many, many strings, but I wasn’t sure I had anything but leftover, muddy colors.  Then I looked at the drawer by my cutting table, a half-way house for strips not yet sorted by color.  I forgot that I had just 5’made lots of donation pillowcases and other projects that left lots of colorful strings.  The strings I save are less than 2.5″, but no less than 1.5″.

Many of you have shown photos of cleaning up your spaces to get a fresh start for the year, including cutting up the scraps.  I did, too, and friends seemed impressed, but what you have to know is that my scrap bin is tiny, just about 6″ x 8″.  It fits on my small cutting table, and fills up fast, so I have to attend to it before overflows and falls over (with or without help from cats).  It’s so small that emptying it is never too daunting, but a good procrastination task when I don’t want to start something new.   I don’t cut scraps after every project, but every three or four, or whenever it’s very full.  I like to leave the scraps from a quilt to marinate a bit until it is completely quilted and bound, just in case I need to fix or change something or use them in a label.

When I do cut, I cut 2.5 width of fabric strips, and squares.  My squares are 2.5″, 3.5″, 4.5″, and 6.5″.  I just added the 4.5″ squares in the last month, because I’ve been doing donation blocks that use a lot of that size.  I store my scraps by size, except for the strings.  I have so many of those that I sort them by color.  Eventually.

Can’t wait to see what you’re doing this week!

(This is a Page on my site, but not everyone saw it.)

Happy New Year!  Yuri and I have been hard at work on this year’s goals.  Unlike regular resolutions, which can be difficult when all you want to do is stay inside and eat comfort food, January in the northern hemisphere is a good time to renew commitment and focus on quilting.  The house is clean (or it will be when our Christmas is all put away), we’ve received new books and tools as gifts, extra family has gone home (or will soon), and I’m certainly not outside gardening or even walking right now!

2018 Goals:

Time on task:  Similar to last year, I want to be more disciplined about spending time in my studio.  I’m not really going to do much housework anyway, so I may as will quit procrastinating and get to sewing.  Especially in these cooler months.

Creativity:  Let’s not say “art quilt”.  Let’s just say I want to experiment with more techniques and incorporate new things into my quilting.  I plan to read/reread some books and magazines and choose some to try.

Color:  My color selection tends to be…bold?  bright?  saturated?  I want to make at least a few where I lower the volume and get a bit more subtle.  This will be limited by my current stash and scrap collection, but it’s a goal.

Stash:  I’m going for another fifty yards of stash reduction.  This is pretty modest.  It allows me to buy quite a bit of fabric, turn my stash over a bit, and use the scraps.  Some of the new fabric will be low volume.

January Goals:

1. Quilt and bind low-volume donation baby quilt (zebras).
2. Quilt and bind bright cat donation baby quilt.
3. Complete Clue 1 of Charlotte H’s Summer Stars at Fawn Lake.
4. Make string blocks for Kat’s Jan/Feb Covered in Love block drive.

Best of luck to all of us in this fresh, new year!