Checking in on my August Quilty Goals and setting my September Goals

August Goals

1. Work on Trip around the world (work out a name for it to make it easier to refer to)

Sunburnt Zebras done and dusted AND labelled!.

2 Start work on Teashop quilt - choose background fabric for blocks, trace off applique pieces. Get things prepped for taking it away to work on whilst travelling

I bought the vlisofix  in Brisbane last weekend and have traced off the designs onto it

  

3 Blue Jeans Quilt - get it prepped to take away on holidays with us. This will be my machine project whilst we are travelling. 

I have all the circles cut out for the quilt. I have decided to make it 15 rows by 17 which means 255 circles for the blocks. Still have to draw the 5" squares on the last 65

4 Disappearing Hour Glass quilt - collect together green and cream fabric for this quilt. This will be my project for Patchwork Group.

The hour glass blocks are all made. Yay

5 Cut scrap pieces. The basket is overflowing

I emptied the basket. Its full again. 

6 Make a seasonal wall hanging from Mum's embroideries

I have made the 4 seasonal min quilts as well as making a mini quilt from one of my embroideries. Its of an outhouse and I am going to hang it on the outside of the toilet door. 

 

7 Do projects from Caro Sheridan's photography class on Craftsy. Watch one other craftsy class. 

Given I now have just one day left in the month as I type this I have to concede that this is one that isn't going to be done this month.

8. Label Disappearing into the Blue

Labelled. Yay.

With one day left in this month I can say I have done pretty well with my August goals. I basically accomplished 7 of the 8. Just the Craftsy class that I haven't completed.

Fixit Guy and I are off on a couple of months holiday at the beginning of October. We will be gone for all of October and November and will return home at a date to be determined in December. So September is my last month of sewing at home for this year. So my goals are going to include getting some things finished before I go and getting projects ready to take with me. I am taking my little Janome Gem Platinum with me and when we are hooked up to powered sites I will be able to sew. Lots of the time we will be travelling so I am keen to have some hand projects to do in the car and also whilst we are stopped in camping areas without power.

1) Jeans quilt. The circles are all cut and 190 of them have the 5" square traced onto them. I want to get the other 65 circles marked and the 255 5" squares selected. Actually I have cut more of the circles than I need for just one quilt and have been given more jeans to cut up so think I will probably make a couple of quilt. One for us and one to give away. This will be my machine project for while we are away.

2) Finish tracing off the applique pieces for the tea shop quilt. Select fabric and get the applique ironed onto background fabric ready for our trip. Sort out embroidery threads to take with us. This will be my hand project

3) continue working on Disappearing Hourglass (Think of calling it Time Vanishes) The hourglass blocks are all completed. I have to cut them up, rearrange the pieces and sew them back together again. I have 6 more sewing days - 7 if I go to the Gemmies again for the day (which I will do if anyone else from our group is going out there) before we go. I would love to have the top completed and sent off to the long armer before we head out. (Edit. I ended up calling it Vanishing Hours. Will use Time Vanishes for another Disappearing Hourglass should I make it)

4) put together the quilt that is currently on my design wall. Its various orphan blocks I have dug out. I am trying to put it together in a pleasing way. It will probably become a donation quilt.

5) Do that Photography class on Craftsy. I have watched it right through. Just need to make myself go back and do the practical bits of it. Sigh. This is the third month its been on my to do list. It will be good to be able to take better photos on our trip. I have found my two digital cameras and the instruction books for one of them so its a start. Sigh.

6) Fangirl has bought her own townhouse. She moves in about a month. Its brand new and needs curtains and blinds. I have offered to help get them made so that is really going to be my priority. These other projects are going to fit in around that. So Make curtains as required for the townhouse.

That had been do me then!!
What are your goals for September?

WIP Wednesday Progress!

Been working on a few different things this week.

Blue Jeans Quilt
All 190 of the circles I have cut have the 5" square drawn inside them. I have been chasing some more jeans. I had several lots promised to me but they haven't arrived. Today I was able to visit a Salvo's store that had a $5 a bag special on so I was able to get 5 pair of jeans. A friend gave me 2 pair as well. Then I got a phone call to say another quilting friend had secured a large bag of jeans for me from a clean out at the charity shop she volunteers at. Safe to say I will now have PLENTY of jeans to complete the project. Just have to get moving on it

Disappearing Hour Glass Quilt
I made great progress on this today as I was at an all day quilting get together with a neighbouring quilt group. I got all my hst trimmed up (using my quilt in a day ruler designed for this) and the hour glass blocks made. Tomorrow I will get to iron the blocks and then cut them up to make them disappear. I am going to have to watch the youtube clip a few times tonight to get the process clear in my head.... or take my computer with me to patchwork tomorrow and work on them there.

Disappearing into the Blue and Sunburnt Zebras are both now labelled so I can class them as truly finished.

I have also dug out some of the embroidery blocks my mum made me. I am planning on making 4 of them into seasonal quilt hangings. They were designed to go together in one quilt depicting all 4 seasons but I am going to make them into separate ones. I am trying to use up some of the scrap hst that I have left over from making flying geese in my SOMB quilts in the borders for these mini quilts. We will see how it goes. I took a pile of bits and pieces with me today to work on as well but didn't get to them. Thought I might get sick of the hour glass blocks and I did at the end but was so close to finishing I just pressed on. So pleased to have it done.

I have an red work embroidery of an outside dunny (toilet/loo/bathroom) that I am going to make into a smalling hanging to go on the outside of the toilet door. I have a cross stitched picture of a cat in a bath that Fangirl made many years ago that hangs on the bathroom door. I got a border put on it and have it pinned ready for me to quilt it. I've see a tutorial of a self hanger you can stitch into the binding somehow that I am going to try to locate and do that for the hanger.

 

Decluttering Challenge



Still going slowly with this. 
Day 19. Cleaned out my handbag to take it away. I only have one so it didn't take long
Day 20 Email box - have been continuing to try to get rid of the rubbish. I am setting up lots of rules so emails get diverted to particularly relevant folders which helps me find stuff I need and delete stuff too
Day 21 Someday clutter - nope... haven't done anything with this. Will get to it... someday LOL
Day 22 Electronics and cords. Yes did this one. Got my husband to help me go through all the cords in various drawers and and boxes and we got rid of the ones that were surplus to requirement. I found a place I could send the old phone cords to which was great... post free. It was good to go through things and it came in handy when our club was chasing a cord to connect the computer to the printer. I knew we had a spare and where it was
Day 23 Cosmetics. Cleaned these out when we did the great bathroom renovations
Day 24 Kitchen Counters. Gave these a good clean down on Monday
Day 25 Craft supplies - nope not happened! I did go through the cupboard a six months or so ago but think it could do with a go through.
Day 26 Books and DVDs. DVDs -We've been through these a fair bit over the last few years. Books - have started to go through our bookshelves. Have found some that belong to our daughter and a few I can get rid of. Hope to do a lot more.


Linking up with

Sunday Stash Report - Sunburnt Zebra finished

I have been working all afternoon on Sunburnt Zebra and I am delighted to be able to say that it is finished. I have just finished stitching down the binding. Its almost 11 PM so no chance of a finished photograph today but do have a few sneak peaks of it folded up. Tomorrow I will take it out into the back yard and peg it on my clothes line and get a full length photo of it.


I got it pinned at Patchwork on Wednesday but didn't get to put it under the machine needle till this afternoon. I quilted it very simply. I echo quilted around the dark and light diamonds. I extended the quilting lines over the border as well. As I was stitching on the last of the border to the back of the quilt I found a pucker but decided that since its for me I really couldn't be bothered to do the unpicking I would need to do to get it out so its staying there. I machined the binding to the back, flipped it over and then chose a decorative flower stitch to secure the binding down to the front. I messed up the last corner rather badly but once again I decided that it would be okay. Can you tell I am not a super fussy quilter.

So that is my finish for the week. The quilt is 2.15m square so that was a total of 10.35m of fabric used up. Whoo hoo. I had no fabric purchases so my stats are

Used this week:                          10.35m
Added this week                                 0m

Year to Date Used                      125.52m
Year to Date added                     80.27m
Net Used                                    45.25m


Linking up with  Sunday Stash Report @ Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

Today at Patchwork Group I got Sunburnt Zebra pinned. I didn't get a photo but you are just going to have to believe me. One of the best things about our Patchwork Group is the large pinning out table with have there. Its great to not have to crawl around on the floor to pin out quilts

Still don't have a photo of the quilt with its borders on but with any luck by Sunday I  might have a completed quilt... now would'n't that be grand :)

After I got Sunburnt Zebras pinned out I started work on my next project. Disappearing Hourglass quilt as demonstrated on Missouri Quilt Company. This one is going to be for our bed. I am doing it in greens and creams. Today I sorted through my box of green fabric and chose the ones that I thought that I would use. Then I cut them into 10" squares along with the tone on tone cream fabrics. This is going to be my new project to do at Patchwork Group.

I have started to sort out my scrap fabrics again. Its an ongoing project isn't it. Haven't got far with it yet but have ironed the scraps to make it easier to trim them up.

31 Days of Decluttering.
Hmmm yes well. I have been dipping in and out of the challenges that are coming up daily on the Facebook Page  Spring Organising Challenge with Forever Organised. 

So far I have done Shoes (only one pair disposed off but got them all tidied up which was a bonus) Appliances: got rid of a hair straightener.

Bath Toys - nope got none

Magazines - got rid of a pile of newspapers (well put into a box  which was put into the shed for Fixit Guy to use as mulch on the front garden bed.

Coffee Mugs -14 disposed of

Medications - tidied the whole medicines cabinet and threw out a heap of out of date stuff and stuff we don't use. 

That's as far as I've got with the list but I have also done some other sorting out and tidying up done including cleaning off my kitchen desk and sorting all the drawers. Now I am in the midst of cleaning up the office. Its not really a room... more like a walk in cupboard. It doesn't have any windows. It has two walls of built in cupboards and bookcases and a 3rd wall with 2 filing cabinets and small desk. I'm planning on decluttering the cupboards, filing cabinets and bookshelves but at the moment just working on getting the floor cleared and the junk that has been stuffed in there dealt with.

This might not look impressive to you but if you saw what it was like before you would know it really is impressive

#Run Outback 60km challenge is another challenge I've been participating in. The idea is to run or walk 60 km over August. Fixit Guy and I have both been doing this. We are only walking it (although I did run one day) We walk down by the river usually twice a day. Its about 4km each walk. So we have covered this challenge pretty quickly.

Linking up with



and WOW - Wip on Wednesday

Sunday Stash Report - almost there

Sunburnt Zebra, my latest project is almost done. I had to buy some more fabric for the border. I ended up buying two different fabrics thinking I would put on two borders. One was black with white flowers on it with red centres and the second was bigger black white and red floral. When I got them back home to the quilt I realised that my original idea of a plain black border was better. I still liked the black with white flowers so used it as the second border but decided that the big floral was too busy for the rest of the quilt so its gone into my stash. I got the borders on and the top finished Friday night but I keep forgetting to take a photo of it.

I am very tempted to make a pieced backing for this quilt too as I have some left over half square triangles and various bits and pieces from the HST however I have bought a piece of backing fabric to use for this quilt and feel I might as well use it.

That was the only project I worked on this week.

So its 0 out and 1m in and no photos.

Whilst I haven't had a finish this week my darling Fixit Guy has. His craft is wood turning and his project since retiring has been this gorgeous clock which now sits on the desk in our kitchen. Isn't it wonderful! It doesn't quite reflect our lives are newly minted retirees but we are certainly more relaxed and less bound by the clock.

Used this week:                          0m
Added this week                          1m

Year to Date Used                     115.17
Year to Date added                     80.27
Net Used                                    34.90 

Linking up with Sunday Stash Report @ Patchwork Times

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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and

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays