WIP Wednesday

This week I have been working on my Black and White Trip (with a touch of red) Trip Around the World. First of all it now has a name. Gretchen commented that the name of the quilt reminded her of the kids joke "What's black and white and red/read all over?" to which the answer can be a newspaper or (her more favoured) a sunburned zebra. It had reminded me of the joke too and so I decided that I would call it Sunburnt Zebra.

So Sunburnt Zebra has been my quilting project this week. Having ironed all the pieces at patchwork group last week I got to start playing with layouts on my design board. My first attempt I didn't have the centre block centred on my design wall so didn't get very far.

Then I rearranged it, realising I would have to squish things up to get most of it on to get an idea of the pattern. In the above picture I had white on the inside and black on the outside. I decided it looked more balanced to have the same on both sides.

I redid the pattern starting from one side and working my way across the board. The board was neither high enough nor wide enough to fit the whole design on. I was able to widen the board by unrolling a bolt of batting, balancing it on the shelf that ran along the wall the design wall was on, and letting the batting hang beside the wall. The two rows that didn't fit on the bottom of the design could go on the floor.

First two rows sewn together. Looking at the photos helped me decide to make the centre red triangles all the same fabric

I was pretty sure I was going to have to do lots of unpicking with this quilt - I was sure I would put blocks on the wrong way, have them upside down, or sew the wrong side but I managed to get the whole thing together without problem. 

I got it finished today - yay

Now I am working out borders. 

Originally I had planned to use red for the borders and binding and had bought the fabric for this but now think it might be a bit much. I might loose the dramatic affect of the red rows if there is too much other red. Now thinking of perhaps a narrow black border - half the width of the hst blocks and then bind it in red. I have a few different ones to choose from. What do you think? 

Apart from Sunburnt Zebra the only other quilty thing I have done this week was to get my box of green fabrics out and to locate my cream tone on tones and put them together. That is the start of my Disappearing Hourglass quilt

I started a 31 Day decluttering challenge with Forever organised

I blogged about it here 

Hmm. Haven't been going so well cause the first few days there wasn't a lot for me to declutter. Honestly, all the things that she talked about I had basically done. I did clean off my desk instead and we got rid of a heap of stationary items. Today's item was Guilt Clutter. What is this? Jess from Forever Organised Explains it really well on the Facebook Group she has set up for this challenge. I think we crafters can apply this really well to our fabric too

Guilt Clutter 

 I have had lots of people ask what guilt clutter is so I am going to go into more detail here. 
Guilt Clutter is anything you are holding on to purely because you would feel guilty if you were to get rid of it.

Some examples:
- something you paid a lot of money for but no longer has any use
- a gift given to you by a friend or relative
- belongings of a friend or relative who has passed
- an item given to you by a friend or relative who has passed

Guilt clutter is different to sentimental clutter. Sentimental items are things that you love and have no desire to remove from your home. Guilt clutter is something you do not love and are only holding onto it because you feel bad giving it away.

Go through the typical decluttering questions:
- Do I love it?
- Do I need it?
- Do I use it?
- Does it enrich my life?

If you answered no to each of these questions but still can not bring yourself to get rid of it, it is guilt clutter!

Now, why should you get rid of it?

Everyone who is here in this group is here for a reason... We are all in pursuit of that elusive completely organised home. You don't feel happy with your home, you don't love your home, you can't stand looking at all the stuff any longer, your home is packed full of clutter.

I hate to break it to you but you can not organise clutter, it is impossible (and kind of silly). To get to the point where you are ready to organise your home, you need to declutter everything you no longer love or need or use.

A good portion of these items are going to be guilt clutter. Things you don't love but feel like you have to keep.

Every time you walk into your home, you are surrounded by things that make you feel guilty and probably a little resentful. By getting rid of those things, you are freeing up your home to be yours, to be filled with items you love.

Each of us has a finite amount of space in our homes, we don't have never ending space and most of us are not able to just buy a bigger home when this one gets too full. You need to remove the guilt clutter to make room for items that you and your family love (or simply to make room for your family). 

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WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays