Working on unfinished projects!

Recently, I spent some time cleaning my sewing area and during that time, I organized my unfinished projects in such a way that I'm able to get to them and work on them easily. I don't have oodles of things to complete, but I do want to get them done. As I was sewing today, I thought of several more projects to begin! It's never-ending, isn't it?

Today, I pulled out a lap quilt I started - Smurfs! I use junk jeans for a lot of things. One of the items in my box of fun things to finish is a Smurf lap quilt. I'm using 5" squares of Smurfs fabric (a vintage sheet I purchased on eBay) alternating with recycled denim. It's a nice look! I put together three rows today and attached them one to the other, for a total of four. The end result will be nine rows by eight squares, and the binding will be smurf fabric that I will piece together from bits of the sheet. I am backing this particular lap quilt with minkie that I have which was purchased for another project and not used. It will make for a wonderfully soft backing and warm too! I like to use fleece when I can with denim quilts because the denim is so heavy that it's often difficult to work with a traditional backing and batting.

It felt great getting this one to about the halfway stage. I'll be making at least one more row tomorrow and then it's time to cut more squares. Before I know it, my unfinished projects box will be empty!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

And

a

Happy

St. 

Patrick's 

Day

to you and yours!

Cleaning!

I took a day off from sewing and decided it was time to clean up all my sewing project mess. Every time I make something, I have a pile of fabric scraps, thread, and sundry other items on my sewing table. Recently, I've made Valentine's Day hearts for my tree, placemats for sale, and did some mending. That left behind fabric with hearts and flowers in various shades of red, the backing fabric and the strip quilting fabrics for the placemats, and the things I haven't mended yet.

It's amazing how much stuff you can collect! As I cleaned and organized, I also went through my spare buttons (some purchased wholesale for sale on line and which have seemed to collect en mass in a box under my sewing machine table) and project containers. I have containers with placemat projects in various states of completion; another one with potholder patterns, fabrics, and partially completed items; containers with like fabrics in shades of brown, rainbow Michael Miller Krystal fabrics; containers with batting and bags of polyfil next to those; and oh gosh, containers of all sorts of stuff. Even just talking about it makes me tired!

I had a couple pair of jeans that needed to be taken apart, so go that done and put the resultant fabric in its container along with the pockets. I might use them someday, right?

I "found" my container that I take with me to the theater to do mending on costumes and restocked that, putting away older items in the container that I may never use again. And next to this was a small metal container that I use for hand sewing items. So that's where all my hand sewing needles "went!" And under another pile of fabric was my bobbin winder. Darn, been wondering where that was. I also learned that the small screwdriver that goes with my trusty Bernina isn't in its container; I'll find that on the floor someday when I bend down to find a button that falls.

Overall, it was a great adventure in sewing land. I now have things all tidied up and ready to mess up once more. What's next?

St. Patrick's Day is coming!

Just a quick reminder that St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner.

I have my tree decorated and have some placemats planned to make (but not even close to made!). I'm using a strip quilted method to make shamrocks to applique onto denim patchwork placemats. I'll post photos as I get them started.

I know that everyone is Irish on SPD, but I really am. Or at least my father was. Will I drink a green beer? Probably not, but I will definitely enjoy my tree. I have some green stone ornaments to come, but other than that, it's about done for this season!

Are you sewing for St. Patrick's Day?

A couple of things

The artwork is changing, in case you haven't noticed. I've hired a kickass graphic artist to do a professional piece rather than the artwork I had one. Even the first iteration that you see here today is better than anything I could have ever done. She's going to work on it some more, so keep an eye out.

The second thing is that I'm resting my hands today. I've been sewing like a demon lately and today, my hands said "no mas, no mas!"  Therefore, today, I don't touch the thread. I don't touch the needle. I leave the hexagon quilt right where it is, in its own little bag, waiting for a time when my hands aren't on strike.

I did do some machine sewing yesterday to sort of make up for what I knew were soon-to-be sore hands. I sort of always know.

Tomorrow, I sew.

Thinking about cutting, sewing, and stuff

I have patterns galore. I have an overflowing stash. What I don't have is the desire to cut stuff out. The only motivation I can see for cutting is the sewing that will follow! But oh, how I hate to cut out a pattern.

I was cruising some blogs and saw this pattern, though:

 

It almost makes me want to break out the fabric and the scissors. I love the collar on the cardigan/top. I have similar patterns and could easily fashion a Peter Pan type collar for any of them. I just never thought of it before. Now there's some inspiration. I love the no collar look, but I really like view A here with the collar. My sewing fingers are just a'twitchin'. Could seeing this pattern be the catalyst I need? Might I set up the table and lay out some fabric? I might. If not today, maybe tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow.

A hexagon day

I chose to have a hexagon day today. I did have a little work to do, but did not let it interfere with my sewing.

I got up, made an interesting cup of coffee with my Keurig (Mudslide from Gloria Jean, to be specific) and warmed up a frozen spinach/mushroom quiche for breakfast. I watched the tail end of Rachael Ray and decided I did not want to make her super duper whateveritwas burger for dinner, then remembered I better take something out of the freezer or there would be no dinner!

Then, it was time to work. I finished up in short order and tackled my pile of denim that needed to be dissected. I started it yesterday and finished it today. As mentioned prior, I'll need to figure out what I want to do with it, but today was not the day to decide. Because today was what? A hexagon day!

I have wanted to complete my second of 10 x 13 hexagons panel, and I did. It's hard to describe, but essentially, I sewed. I put thread in the needle and hand sewed until it was done. In between times and in order to provide a short break for my hands, I washed dishes, fiddles with my other computer, and took a trip to the post office, but after each chore, I came back to the panel. By the time it was dinner prep time, I had two panels and started to stitch those two together. After that was started, I measured it on my lap and sitting on the loveseat and decided that the width of the completed quilt top will be three panels of 10 x 13 hexagons, or 390 hexagons. Whoa! I better start cutting some more because I'll need four rows of three panels to complete the top. That means the total number of hexagons will be 1560!  I will add a few more stitches before I go to bed, but there you go. I had a hexagon day and I'm happy as can be about it. Sometimes, you just need to take some time off and do something that makes you feel good about the world. And I did.