Finally found it!

I keep reading everyone's blog posts that talk about once you get all the quilts made that your family can ever use, and I've been wondering when you reach that point.

I've made my first Comfort Quilt already because I felt so blessed to be able to quilt and buy fabric and have a supportive husband, and, and, and.  But I've been searching for a quilt to make Twin B.  When they were born, my sons' bassinets were labeled Twin A and Twin B.  Kind of like Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Twin B actually helped me find a panel for Twin A's quilt.  We won't mention how many years ago that was or that I haven't made it yet.  I have 1 1/2 years to get it done now!

Twin B has stumped me for a long time though.  Last weekend I found his quilt at the Quilt Expo at the Rising Sun Casino in Indiana.  I didn't buy it even though I went back several times to look at it and then kicked myself after I got home.  I managed to figure out which shop showcased it though and bought it over the phone so they will send it out Monday or Tuesday.  Yay!  I have a year to make it before he gets home, but I've already learned not to bypass fabric thinking, "Maybe later."  Fabric doesn't keep getting reprinted.  Kind of like some books but Amazon Marketplace isn't as helpful when searching for fabric.

I can't exactly explain why this fits him but it does.  I've been searching for something to do with cars but everything felt wrong.  I have been watching him learning and growing (and some of it has been really, really hard for him) and this quilt captures his essence of slaying dragons (or new, difficult experiences) and his courage at continuing to battle the evil forces.

This was actually one of the first quilts I saw when I walked into the Expo hall.  Why I doubted and didn't get it right off the bat, I'll never know.  The important part is that I've bought it now.  When I get it in my hands, I'll be so relieved!

Getting real, part 2

My last post seriously bothered me because I made a green smoothie and went to work.  I'm sure there is room for improvement, but it sure feels better now!!!

The shelves:

This picture doesn't look super pretty, but it's a whole lot more functional!  The off-white Aldi bag has comfort quilts inside, the green one on the top shelf holds my Row-by-Rows I collected this summer, and the very top is full of smaller projects.

Each stack holds one type of fabric: Christmas, fleece and like soft fabrics on the top shelf; prints, solids and the comfort quilts on the second shelf; stripes, geometic, and random fat quarter stacks on the third shelf, and 2 stacks of dressmaker fabrics with the third stack on the bottom shelf being full of other holiday fabrics.  I don't have baskets on hand so that part will have to wait.

You can see the batting stack to the side of the shelves.  Here's another picture of that:

I have six bags of color-coded scraps, fat quarters, and larger (but not more than 1/2 yard) fabric on the floor, sewing notions and thread spools in the two boxes, and batting on top.  Quilting magazines and notebooks along with a scanner are on the side of the boxes.  Not sure why I'm keeping the scanner.  Goodwill maybe?

Last is the bag of committed quilt projects with all the fabrics required.  Two are almost done; I just need to screw up the courage to quilt them.  The Minecraft quilt really hurt my forearms near my wrist. Or I'll wait until my husband is employed again and hire someone else to do them.  The Christmas quilt back needs to be pieced together first too.


Filing is next.  Gag.  That requires decisions, not just sorting.

Oh--and I showed my daughter how the shelves are organized.  Very important because she pulls stuff out too!

Getting real, folks!

Has anyone else thought about doing Periscope or YouTube but thought, "Oh, I need to radically houseclean so my house looks fantastic no matter which way I point the camera!?"  For the record, I don't frantically houseclean when people come over so if you've been in my house, what you see is real.  It isn't terrible but it doesn't look like a Better Homes and Gardens cover.  Umm, I know people who live like that, and they intimidate me.

So I decided to show my sewing room but only part of it.  I'm not ready to be THAT real!

First of all, my sewing room is an all-purpose room.  It is also small.

We keep the family computer in there normally because it is visible from the kitchen.  No computers go into bedrooms.  Ever.

I have food shelves because in this era of minimalist kitchens, they forgot that some of us actually cook and want a bit extra on hand in case the bottle of paprika runs out.  Those of us who actually try to have something approaching a 3-12 month supply of food are simply out of luck.  So I have metal racks for food, and they're overflowing although not as much as I would like.

Then I have my filing cabinet with everything that hasn't actually made it into a file folder because my file is full.  It's time to eliminate stuff.  I'm no longer homeschooling so I probably don't need science lesson plans anymore (most of which I never used but compulsively collected).  I gave away two 2-drawer file cabinets when we moved here, leaving me with 4 file drawers.  I haven't gotten around to cleaning it out mostly because I'm dreading it.

Here is my sewing machine with my latest quilt-in-making on top.

The best part is the sewing machine itself and the view out the window!

When I actually quilt a whole quilt, I do it on the dining room table because I need more space!  The ironing board is right behind me so it's fairly convenient.  I have to get up to go around the ironing board, which isn't as efficient as turning my chair around, but I prefer to move around anyway.

This quilt is probably going to be going back into a bag because I have a couple of other projects taking precedence.  I also think I'm going to get a couple of plastic bins to separate fabric that is already committed into known projects so I don't pull something that's already committed for a quick project.

You can see the edges of two quilt blocks I've begun for Amy Gibson's 2012 BOM quilt on the wall that I'm trying to figure out how to bring together into the same quilt.  That's another post!

To the right you can see my messy stash.  Let's bring that into sharper focus.

Umm, yeah.  It's a mess.  Once upon a time, this was all very neat.  Then I started pulling this fabric and that out and sticking them back in.  There's no order to it now.  The mess on the floor is filled with fat quarters and scraps and a few finished projects looking for new homes.  The fat quarters and scraps are actually color coded in large 2-gallon plastic bags.  So there's some organization but that's why I'm wondering if it would be better to use bins or at least baskets to contain the fabric so at least it doesn't fall over.  You know--Christmas fabrics (I have lots) in one, dressmaking fabrics in another, fleece in another.  My goal is to use up this stash in about a year.

So there's hope!  It's my goal to minimize this so hopefully I'll be able to put up another post sometime soon (Christmastime?) with a much neater after shot.  It has gotten to that point that my peacefulness is disappearing in there.  Time to clean out!

A bug has bitten me! A quilting bug!

So last night after finishing the Minecraft quilt, I couldn't resist putting up another quilt.  I bought the fabric a long time ago, and I've been itching to do it.

The layup I did last night:

This morning I finished laying up the rest of the print rectangles on the floor because the design wall was full.  Then I started sewing the ones on the floor together:

That is the bottom quarter of the quilt.

Easy.  I bought the background and the prints as jellyroll precuts so I just had to cut them down to 8" and 10" lengths.  The directions are in the Summer BLOCK magazine and the video is here.  After the last quilt, an easier one is really nice to do.

Finished!!!

It's finished!!!  100% pieced and quilted and bound by me!  Design input from Jim!  We make a great team, I think!

Almost done!

I want to show you my progress on the Minecraft quilt.  Originally I wanted to finish it today, but that didn't happen.  Next up, the binding!

Machine quilting on my sewing machine.  My right wrist got very sore from holding the fabric!

My husband held up the quilt after I finished quilting it.

Trimming off the excess from the sides to get ready for the binding.

Clipping threads from the back.  I matched thread on the front according to each block so I had lots of starts and stops.  Not the perfect way to do it, but Martha Stewart isn't coming over!!!

New ongoing project

I have found that my days feel much more complete and my worry levels drop when I create something every day.

Creating a new block fills the need so I've begun the Craftsy 2012 BOM quilt by Amy Gibson, author of Stitchery, Dickory, Dock on my sidebar.  I haven't ever tried modern quilting so I was pleasantly surprised to find I have enjoyed making the first two blocks that she teaches.  (She is doing another BOM this year, but I fell in love with this first block in her 2012 BOM.)

The asterisk block:

I LOVE these two fabrics together with the green dots on blue with the green asterisk.  This is my favorite shade of green.  Originally I planned to make this green the background color tying the whole quilt together.  I changed my mind when I realized I'm going to make a Crosswalk quilt with green as the predominant color so while all of these blocks will work together and I will use green in many of the blocks, I'll probably sash it with a different background color.  

The following block is a leading reason I decided not to stay with green in every block.  I really, really love the boldness of these fabrics together!

So somehow or other, these two blocks will look good together!  Orange and green will both play prominently in the other blocks.  I think.