WIP Wednesday

My main work in progress this week has been tidying my sewing area. I have been going through each of my cupboards and sorting things out. 

I had started this earlier in the month when I started going through the boxes of fabrics I have and refolding them, sorting them, pulling out the scrappy bits and putting them into my scrap basket to be cut into useful units. I blogged about this on my last WIP  Post. (2 weeks ago)

 I have 4 cupboards in our tv/sewing room for my sewing stuff, plus 4 sets of plastic drawers (17 drawers all up) and 3 drawers in my sewing table/desk. 

So far in my clean up I have gone through all the plastic drawers, 

3 of the cupboards and the plastic boxes and baskets that sit on top of the plastic drawers. All my plastic containers in the cupboards have been gone through, things have been reorganised, and I am very happy with my progress.

I still have to do the sewing table drawers and the cupboard that has the folders that contain the patterns I have torn out of magazines, sorted into various categories. 

The room is still quite a mess. (the photos were taken very strategically to hide most of it)

 My cutting table needs cleaning off and sorting out and on the floor are things that I have pulled out of the various cupboards that I no longer wish to store there. I have to work out what to do with them.

It has been very time consuming as I have also been dealing with the scraps of fabric I have generated - although now I have given up on that and they are once more going into the scrap basket. 

I also decided to deal with the half square triangles I had made when making the blocks for Sparkle quilts and flying geese. 

Rather than just trimming off the excess fabric I had sewn another row about 1/4" from the required sewing line and then trimmed the blocks between the two rows resulting in small half square triangles I had a great pile of these which I was determined to trim up and make useful. So... I pressed them open and then trimmed them to the largest squares I could. I ended up with piles of 2.5", 2.25", 2", 1.75", 1.5" and a very few 1.25" half square triangle blocks. I am not sure what I will use them for but they will come in handy for borders I am sure.

All the hst blocks are now trimmed. But it took hours and hours. (thank goodness for audio books)

I have been working on my En Provence quilt today. I now have all the units made for it. I finally finished the 144 quarter square triangles needed for the last 2 clues. Now - too trim them all up and put the blocks together. Not more trimming. Arghhhh

I got a large cushion for the dogs to sleep on in the sewing room finished during the week. Its stuffed with off cuts and trimmings. I am working on another one now. It has quite a few large bits of fabric in it as I got a bit ruthless with getting rid of some 2nd hand fabric I had been hanging on to and other bits and pieces (eg all the collars and strips of button holes for shirts cut up for a shirt challenge I took part in a few years ago) Not sure that the dogs will find them as comfortable but we will see. I nearly have enough for another pillow now.

The last thing I have been working on is a table runner/mini quilt I started making a few years ago using fabric I had bought in Norway in 2006 (or 2010) All I  have done so far is pull it out of it's plastic bag and put it up on the design board to try to work out what I can do next. I have found some reddish fabric with gold stars that I think goes pretty well with it. That is all I have done so far.

The red looks a lot pinker in this photo. Its not quite that pink!

Norway has been on my mind the last couple of days as we are going to be going back there in August for the wedding of our host son Joergen. He lived with our family in 2005. It is very exciting.

So time for me to go to bed. Its so hot here at the moment and last night I was up till after 1AM trimming those hst (and listening to my audiobook) Then when I went to bed I couldn't sleep. Its late again now so I will post this and then to bed.

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WIP.....Thursday

Running a little late with my weekly WIP report. Not that I have a lot to report this week anyway.

In Australia it is the middle of summer and summer holidays. The schools are all having their big break... 6 weeks long. Many businesses shut down between Christmas and New Year as sole traders take a bit of a break. Many companies close for a bit longer (particularly manufacturing plants etc) and the work force has their annual leave. 

We had 2 of our children home with us for Christmas, which was lovely, but a little disruptive to the usual routine (delightfully so). As well as Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have had my brother call in overnight and also Boyo celebrated his birthday.  We have had a bit of extra entertaining, some board game playing, extra cooking and .... well not as much free sewing time as I usually get.

I have done a little bit of work on my En Provence quilt. Bonnie Hunter released the last 2 clues in pretty quick succession this week but a busy weekend and early part of the week meant I didn't get much sewing time. 

I also sabotaged myself somewhat. In my last WIP Wednesday report I somewhat gleefully reported I had an empty scrap basket. I had ironed and cut and sorted my way through all my scraps till I got to the bottom. 

WELLL then in the post Christmas euphoria I decided to tidy up my fabric storage cupboards and went through all my boxes of fabric (sorted by colour) refolding fabric and getting out the odd bits, and putting them into my scrap basket. I also did a major sort out of my picture fabrics, leftovers from when I used to do year quilts (see HERE for explanation of what they are). There were lots of little bits in there that went into my scrap basket and ... in just one day by scrap basket was back to its overflowing status.

I then was determined to get it back to its pristine state and spent ages each day it seems on my feet at my cutting table once more cutting and sorting the scraps. 

I didn't need to do my ironing as the fabric wasn't too badly scrunched. Despite my determined efforts in the time I had available I wasn't able to get the basket emptied. 

Another session and I think I would have gotten to the bottom but it will have to wait now.

Yesterday at Patchwork Group I was able to get a bit of preparation done on the next 2 units. They are 2 lots of quarter square triangles. I prefer to use the 4 at a time method rather than the ruler method Bonnie outlines in her clue. (I have some of the speciality rulers but ..... not the ones she demonstrates for making the units so I decided to stick with what I knew) I got the  squares all cut that I will need - lots of greens, some yellow, some neutrals and some light purples. I got all the lines drawn and the first lot of stitching done on the green and yellow ones. Still lots to do. Then I can start to put them together. I am NOT looking forward to that as I am not happy with some of my units. They ended up a bit small and I am not convinced my fudging skills will be enough. 

Now I am away from home for a week. Today we drove to Brisbane (a 10 hour trip) and we will be here for a week. I have bought my sewing machine with me and hope to get the next 2 units of En Provence done and hopefully some piecing of the blocks. 

As well as my En Provence project I have also bought some Australian prints with me to make a backing for a quilt for the daughter of our 2004 Japanese Host son. She is the nearest thing we have to a grand daughter so she deserves a special quilt. At first I thought I would make a quilt from scratch for her but I was working on  "Stingen Em Along", my String X quilt (another Bonnie Hunter pattern) shortly after we heard of her arrival. I really liked how the quilt turned out and want to give it to someone special. The backing will be a little bit of Australia for her.


How have you gone with your WIPs this week. Have you had time to work on them or has the holiday season proved as disruptive to your schedule as it has to mine.

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WIP Wednesday

This time of year is so busy for many of us. So much has happened in the last week that trying to pull things out from my crowded memories to recall what I have accomplished sewing wise is proving VERY difficult.

I had managed to get a heap done the previous week but with Christmas preparations underway and our daughter here for a couple of weeks, sewing at the machine wasn't a priority!

For some reason my scrap basket was calling to me. It was absolutely overflowing everywhere and one of my 2016 resolutions had been to keep it under control and empty it every month. Believe me when I say that didn't happen. Maybe 2 or 3 months I got it emptied but not for the last 6 months anyway. I had managed to keep it a little tamed this last month or so by digging through it to cut scraps up rather than going to my drawers of already cut up scraps. However I decided to try to make a major assault on it and see how much I could reduce it.

My first step in this process is to iron the contents. This makes them easier to cut up. Pressing seemed to take AGES - several evenings as least. I sorted them as I went into smaller squatter pieces - ones that would fit into a container I had on my ironing board (about 8" x10") These would make squares and bricks as Bonnie Hunter calls them. Then I had a pile (draped over the back of the recliner lounge near my ironing board) of strips - longer pieces of varying widths up to about 6". And then I had a pile for wider pieces. It was all a bit haphazard but helped me get a bit of order.

Then it took a couple of evenings watching various tv specials to get the container of small pieces cut into useful units. I have started on the narrower strips and am perhaps half way through it. Still a lot of cutting to go.

 My cutting table is located behind the big couch in our big room downstairs that used to be the kids toy room and then became the tv room and which I now claim to be my sewing studio that just happens to have the tv and lounges in it. (My claim on the room is disputed when the family is all home). The position of the cutting table means that I can stand and cut and watch tv and not interfere with anyone else's viewing. The ironing board is located behind the recliners so I can stand there and again not interfere with anyone else's viewing.

En Provence, the Bonnie Hunter 2016 Mystery quilt has seen progress. Clue 5 came out sometime on Friday. Usually its 9PM Australian time but this week I think it may have come out a little earlier. Anyway - I looked at it Friday evening and said "Right HST" and didn't do anything more about it till yesterday. I got the 64 made (I blogged about it yesterday here)

Have you managed to get any sewing done this week?

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Mid month goal review

1. Set up my fabric tracker for 2016 DONE
2. Empty my scrap basket. Started. The basket is empty... but all the fabric is sitting on my ironing board, pressed, ready to be trimmed to size. Not all of it actually. Some of it has already been sorted by being thrown out or by being put in the drawer for strips under 1.5". I also found 4 panels that I had been given in there and they are now in the box with other panels and orphan blocks etc 

This is what the scrap basket looked like at the beginning of the month

This is what it looks like now.

But this is what my ironing board looks like :)

3 Review my WIPs and UFOs list. DONE
4. Work on backing for my POD quilt DONE. I have finished the backing and now have to parcel it up to send off to my friend Kym (From Professional Quilting Service) to quilt for me. The centre strip is Harry Potter inspired fabric and owls and some hand dyed fabric. The strips either side are made up of Harry Potter blocks and fabric, some female super hero blocks and more hand dyes. The wider strips are interspersed with piano key strips. Not sure what they were made for originally but they were in my orphan block container. Surprisingly I have yet more left over. The outside strips were assorted left over fabric - some was the background from the front of the quilt and some - old sheet from my mother in law's I think! I like how it came out.
  

5 Complete the last of the hexies for the Hexagon quilt. I have stitched a few more of these but I seem to have lost my mojo. I want to work out the design for it as well. Haven't done that either.
6 Make the label for the quilt I have made for my new great niece Chanel Grace born on New Year's Day. I had left the quilt in Sydney with my sister at Christmas time. As the baby hadn't been born it had no label on it. The baby was born the day we left for home. The quilt was made by me using embroideries my now 93 year old mother made. When I got home I posted the label to my sister (The baby's grandma) who stitched it on for me and the baby received the quilt this morning and my nephew put a photo of Chanel on the quilt on Facebook. Isn't she just gorgeous. My nephew wrote 

Chanel chilling out on her new quilt, which was made by her great grandmother and great aunt. A beautiful quilt made by two beautiful people!

How are you going this month? Did you set yourself some goals?