organization

Prep work......again..........

While I had the big roll of batting out I did some pairing of tops, batting and backing.  I am going to quilt this one on my straight stitch Babylock machine.  Here is the full view of it in my monthly recap for November 2014.  You can click on the photo for a closer look.  Here is the book that has the quilt that inspired me.




 All I have to do is piece the backs and then I can proceed to finishing all of these.












Bugs have munched on most of the blooms on the Rose of Sharon but here is one that is pretty much intact.

We ended up with 3.85" of rain in 12 hours starting on Friday night.  We got through the rest of the day yesterday without any rain.  My granddaughter was happy because they had a thank you party for all of us that helped with cleaning and painting their house so they could move back from North Dakota a year ago.  The kids were happy outside but it was too hot and sticky for me so I stayed inside with many others.

31..........which one?.........

I have 31 quilt tops hanging on this rack.  The last 2 tops I finished aren't here yet, so 33 to choose from.  I'm still waiting for one to jump out and say "finish me next".  It isn't for lack of backings or batting that I haven't finished them.  I will probably take the easy way out and choose one that will take the least quilting and a machine finished binding.

The weather has been so gorgeous, low humidity and in the 70s for several days.  I got some more weed pulling and planting done yesterday afternoon.  Now storms are coming off and on over 2 days so I should be able to get something quilted.

Moving things........

My friends helped me move my AccuQuilt Studio cutter to a new location on Monday.  It had been in a cramped location without good lighting.  The folding table under the other table will be the storage surface for the other steel tray and also a place to lay the cutting plastic pieces when I remove them after cutting. I have one die storage box with wheels under the table and another that I haven't brought down there yet.


These 2 groups of partially designed colorwash pieces were on the table that I had to clean off for the cutter.  I need to get the smaller one (the squares) up on the design wall and finish it this week.  I think it just needs one more row around it.  The other one (the rectangles) will take awhile to finish so I may wait until later in the month to work on it.

When cleaning off 2 shelves of the bookcase to make room for the small dies I came across these 2 things.  The one on the left is half of a project.  I have no idea where the bag is with the rest of the pieces so it may become a table runner.  On the right is 20 blocks that will finish at 6".  It would only be 24" x 30" if I sew them together.  I guess that is big enough for a quilt to use with a baby carrier or a car seat.  There are 2 piles of "stuff" to put away yet too.

Organizing for a program.........

This has been a very social week so I have only had bits of time here and there to sew.  Yesterday I visited my brother and sister-in-law in their new residence.

I decided I needed to start organizing my quilts and tops for the trunk show program that I will be giving in about 10 days.
I group similar things together so if I'm talking about star quilts, I'll show all of the star quilts at that time. 

I need to decide which ones will hang on backdrop stands.  I have 2 stands that I take and there will be at least one more available if I want it.
 
I have a lot more piles to make so I'll keep working on it over the weekend.  Then I need to decide the order that they will be shown in the program.  I try to alternate quilted ones with quilt tops so the ladies holding them up have a break.  Their arms get tired after awhile.  After that comes the packing of a couple large bags and rolling the rest on swim noodles and tying the roll with strips of fabric.

Miscellany day.....

I trimmed the spiky border sections that I pieced Friday night.  I still need to cut a few more and get all of the rest sewn.







I played with my Kaffe orphan blocks on a double design wall.








I think these 3 orphan blocks would make a good table runner.



I was looking through my huge bins of batting pieces.  I decided to sort them into 2 groups, under 22" wide and over 23" wide.  The boxes are lightweight so I can put them up on top of 2 shelf units.

This is how I label the pieces.  I just staple it onto a corner.













I also pieced the back for this quilt and got it loaded on the longarm.  Since it is small it should only take about an hour to quilt and hopefully that will happen today.




 

Still organizing.............

I'm trying to do it right this time, all the way, not just half way done.  The left side of the fruit cellar is done.  You can see that it is a narrow room and 14' long.  This is approximately 6' of it.  I put the batting rolls up on 2 cement blocks that were in there.  My son stopped by and I sent a bunch of stuff home with him that had been stored here.  I still have a little work to do on the right end of the room.


While everything was still out where I could see it I decided to choose some backings to pair with tops.  This is the first one.  I have had that backing fabric for probably 30 years and I think it looks great with that top.
This Jane Sassaman print looks great with the X and+ quilt top.








I'm not positive about this one but I think it will work.








I'm undecided if I should put a floral backing on this one.  I don't want all of my quilts to only be matches for women.  This top could be masculine too so I might keep looking.



I had a regular quilting cotton chosen for the back of this 16 patch but since the top is all batik, I would rather have a batik backing. The 2 darker blues would have to be used together since there isn't enough of either one for the whole back.

This one is navy and white and I think it brightens the quilt.  Also there is enough of it for the whole back.  I think I will use it.

Hopefully I'll actually sew something tonight while I watch TV.

Cleaning, sorting, cutting trees.......

My daughter is coming to visit next week so I needed to move the piles of quilts off the guest bed.  I'm also giving a program for a guild at the end of June so I'm sorting the quilts into traveling and staying home piles.
There are more piled on the coffee table and couch.  I have shown all of these quilts on my blog before so there is nothing new here.  I think I have shown more than 250 quilts so far in the almost 7 years that I have had my blog.  Some day maybe I'll go back and count them.
In the late afternoon I went out to the backyard and cut down volunteer trees again getting ready for brush pick up next week.  I didn't know what this bush was that has been growing by a redbud tree for about 3 years.  This year it bloomed and now I know it is Honeysuckle, the non fragrant variety, so I cut it down and put it out in the brush pile.
 The peonies are really blooming now.  This is one of the early bushes.








 I love the pink ones most of all.










 The native plant Heliotrope is in bloom and very fragrant.  Right now my Korean Lilac bush is in bloom, also fragrant and with the peonies and Heliotrope added, the backyard smells wonderful.




The REAL Studio Tour

Vicki Welsh is hosting a REAL Studio tour, this is week 2, and we are showing storage solutions.  There is a button on the right side bar that will take you to the link up on Vicki's blog to see other storage ideas.  This little DMC 6 strand embroidery floss cabinet fits on the bottom shelf of one of my bookcases and holds my regular sewing thread.  I had a quilt shop back in the 1980s and I sold DMC embroidery floss and cross stitch supplies in addition to fabric. I kept 3 of these when I closed the store. 

I bought drawer divider trays to help keep the thread separated into color groups for the small spools.  Another one of these has scissors and rotary cutter blades and other small items in it.  The third one is really miscellaneous.
Last week I got 2 small shelf units on wheels.  They fit perfectly under the extensions of the cutting table.  All of the thread on the bottom four shelves is embroidery thread for my embroidery machine.  The other shelf unit has fabric in all of the boxes.









I just got this on Friday.  I have looked at them in the past and the price has always held me back ($89.99).  Even at half price I just couldn't buy it but Friday it was 70% off so I got it.  It is short enough to use the top as an ironing surface by my sewing machine too.  One size of the cut and press boards fits perfectly on top of it.  I just put it together yesterday so I haven't filled the drawers yet.
Snapware stack units are my favorite portable storage for small pieces of fabric.  Since I have two studios on different levels of my house this makes it convenient to transport pieces from one to the other.  I have several sizes of the containers.

Next week we will be showing our studios, as they are when we are working in them, not pristine clean.