Happy Friday - Keeping track of Progress on a Large Quilt

 I hope you have had a good week - the weather has definitely turned for the better around here, and I think it's time to put aside my heavy jacket when I go for my morning walks!  I don't think I'll put it away for the season yet, but I am sure happy to have some warmer weather to go with the sunshine.

I spent the weekend working on my UFO for this month - the Super Saturday project taught by me and a friend at Threads That Bind several years ago.  I had 8 blocks finished, so just had to do this last block.  I figured out what was holding me up - I was out of the light gold fabric that I planned to use where the green is.  All I had to do was decide to use the green, and it was easy to finish up the last block!

The second hurdle was the fabric for the sashing.  I didn't have enough to do an outside border as well.  Keeping in mind that a) I want to finish this quilt and b) I have loads of fabric in my stash that I want to use up, I quickly decided to use what I had for the inside sashing and fine a similar brown for the outer border.  That wasn't so hard!

I love how the sashing defines these blocks and brings them together as a group!  Now, I just have to add the borders.  I had yards of this fabric, which is used in many of these blocks as well.  I'll also be using it on the back of the finished quilt when I get there!

So now, all I have to do is piece the backing and get it quilted - yay!  In the process I emptied out the project bin this project was in and worked on cutting out the pieces for my OMG project this month.  Last year I used my UFO challenge as my One Monthly Goal, so I was doubly sure to finish.  This year I am stretching myself most months and using the OMG to finish a different project.  This month I may have bitten off more than I can chew!

I decided to keep track of the hours spent on this top.  It took about 4 hours to cut all these fabrics into squares and triangles.  Hundreds of them....plus that gray fabric!  Well, that had to be fussy cut on the diagonal.  40 6 1/8 inch squares.  The right side of the fabric was pretty square, but the left side was so cattywampus.  I sprayed with best press, stretched and pressed it into a pretty good approximation of square.  I spent 2 hours yesterday sewing them into square in a square units with the directional background.  To make these come out right you need to cut half the triangles in one direction and the other half in the opposite.  Since I cut the squares from fabric folded right sides together, I just left them as is and it worked out perfectly.

I cut and sewed in sets of five to avoid wasting fabric.  I have five left to sew and then I can go on to the next step, which will be sew and flip green squares on the corner of these units.  I'm guessing this project will take about 25 hours to complete.  So far I am 6 hours in.  That means if I want to finish this by the end of the month, I should work for about an hour and a half every day on it.  That's a pretty good chunk of time, so I may not make it to my finish this month.  I guess we'll see!  I found that it took 15 minutes to make 5 square in a square units, including pressing and trimming, so it was easy to keep track of my progress this way, and I was able to fit short bursts of sewing in throughout the day to get nearly done with this step yesterday.

If you are having fitting time for sewing into your day, you might want to try this!  I think it's great for large repetitive projects, you can break it down and you don't have to feel like you are chained to your sewing machine doing the same thing over and over without making much progress.

I've started keeping better track of how long it takes me to do lots of different tasks, so I don't overwhelm myself.  Did you know it only takes about 15 minutes to fold and stack a load of laundry?  Once I figured that out I didn't dread it as much, so I figure the same trick will help with my sewing and quilting! 

Oh, and don't forget it's dress season!  Weddings are being planned for summer, so the dresses are starting to pile in.  I guess it's good that I love to spend time in my sewing room!  This method works well for this type of sewing as well.  When I have a short amount of time to spend sewing I work on a quicker project, and save the longer stretches of time for the more involved projects so I don't have to be interrupted.  Plus, I can make sure and schedule enough time for the urgent tasks if I know approximately how long I need to complete them. 

Now that I've written this post, I guess I need to put my words into action and go do some sewing :)

Sewing Room Clean Up - Day 5

I finished up my final day by cleaning out the basket I keep by the door of the sewing room. This is usually where I put the mending projects and items that need to be picked up after mending.  It gets pretty messy, so I usually try to clean it out once a month, but I'm behind on that.  At any rate here is the before shot:

Yep, it's pretty full!  The top item is a pair of sweat pants that need the seat patched up a bit - I'll take care of that over the weekend.  There was also a big pile of batting scraps to be sorted through and put away or tossed.  A couple bags of pants that need to be picked up.  A sweater that I pulled off on a warm day and left, as well as one with a hole that I need to mend so I can wear it next winter.

It only took about 15 minutes to put things away and then I had a nice after to enjoy before I left for work:

Much better!

The next area I need to tackle is my way overflowing scrap bin, but that's going to be a longer term project.  I think I'll try to dig it out in increments over the rest of the month.  I've pulled out a couple patterns for scrappy quilts and plan to cut some 2 1/2 strips to sew up and some squares as well.

For the weekend, my goal is to get a couple of those UFO projects off my list.  I have a sample quilt for the quilt shop to quilt and bind as well as a small panel quilt that I can quilt and add to my Etsy shop.  Then I can plan out my week - that Baby clothes quilt is ready for working on and several wedding gowns have arrived and are ready to be bustled!  Always something to do, but at least now I feel like I have tamed the mess in my sewing room and am ready to be productive.

Frugal Quilting - Binding from Scraps

Have you ever noticed that binding is one of those things that just never comes out even? For every project I complete I almost always have a length of binding left over. Sometimes it's only a few inches, but often it can be much more. For the past year I have been collecting my leftover binding pieces in a shoe box along with other small scraps. My box has recently started to overflow with bits and pieces so I decided it was time to sew the binding scraps together to make a lenght of binding ready for scrap quilts.

I sewed the strips together using a diagonal seam to join the strips and ended up with a very long piece of binding. After pressing all the seams open and making sure my fabric was nice and smooth with a good fold in the center I rolled it all up around a small notebook. This will allow me to place the roll around my wrist as I sew the binding on, keeping it clean and untangled! I think this roll will bind at least two queen size quilts. Pretty good for just using pieces leftover from other projects!

For this set of strips I sewed them together in an "anything goes" kind of a way, but I think I might try saving my bits in a different way next round. I could do a bag of pastels, a bag of earth tones and a bag of brights. That way I would have some more coordinated binding sets. It also might be a nice idea to sew them together as I gather them. Though it did only take me an hour to sew all my bits together and press them. Either way, it's lovely to have some pre-made binding at my disposal for various projects.

Scrappy binding is a great way to save money - to bind a queen size quilt I would buy at least 3/4 of a yard of fabric, so this lenth of binding saved me about $15.00 at current quilt shop prices, and it will look great around the string quilt blocks I am working on. Let me know if you try this - and I'd love to see pictures of quilts with scrappy bindings!

And - my new listing for the day - Pastel Floral Checkbook Cover and Wallet

Have a wonderful Easter weekend. A friend summed it up well. The saddest day ever on earth came 3 days before the happiest one.

It's a good idea to...

Check your e-mail before you go to bed! I almost didn't, but now am really glad I did because otherwise, I might have missed my day in the spotlight at HandmadeFuzion! So, I ended up staying awake until after midnight because then I just had to add a few more listings that I have been meaning to get done, and double check my listings for typos (which I probably missed anyway because it was after midnight!)

I have to say nice things about Handmade Fuzion because even though I haven't had any sales there yet, I think it is an awesome site to buy and sell handmade. It is juried, so you know that the product you get will indeed by handmade by the artist - which is the point of buying handmade, right? The administrators of the site are awesome, prompt replies to questions, and they added a special subcategory in the quilt section just for me! Isn't that great? I was very happy! I am excited to be included on the website, and hope for great things for it - it's very exciting to get in on the ground floor of a new venture and I can't wait to see how it goes.

My current project is a sample for the shop (we are getting ready for Quilt Run 101 which means lots of new samples and things to catch the eye of all those quilters!). Here are a couple of very bad pictures. Which you will see a lot of in the near future because the rain is back on the Oregon Coast. That high pressure system that was giving us glorious weather has moved on, but we need the rain, so no complaining!

The fabric in this quilt is Natural Garden by Holly Taylor, and for some reason it has not sparked a lot of interest, yet. We are hoping a sample will show everyone how lovely this line is and will help sell the remaining jelly rolls we have. I love the rich reds in this, and added a similar red as a narrow inner border, then the brown with green birds as the outer border. I got it basted yesterday, and halfway quilted! I am quilting it with a soft green on the top and off-white on the back. I'm simply doing a large meander to get it done quick, most of the samples do quite well with a simple desing, but for my own quilts I like to go a little crazy and quilt them more.

This picture also shows how messy my sewing room is at this moment. Yes, I did start cleaning then I started sewing and accumulating new projects. Time to start spending more time in the sewing room actually sewing, instead of time in the sewing room on the internet! I also need to finish a lot of half done projects, and get rid of a lot of extraneous stuff. I think you will be seeing some e-bay auctions coming up for some books and magazines, and who knows what I will do with all the extra fabric! Yes, I have my work cut out for me, but when I put my mind to it, I can really accomplish a lot in a short time. Time to put my mind (and body!) to it!

Messy or Creative?

Looks lovely, doesn't it? Excuse my mess, and actually this is the cleaned up version of the mess! I don't know if I could even function in a fully clean and organized situation, but it is one of those things I might like to try someday!

This is my cutting table. It is covered with things that I need to work on this week. My plan for the day is to sew my way through these piles and have them gone by evening. Then I will organize the left-over piles and deal with them, leaving a clear space to do some quilting work on for the rest of the week. I really need to do something with that overflowing box of fabric that was given to me that is resting on the floor also! At least the garbage bin has been emptied recently!

Ironing board, and notions area. Not too bad, I worked on that over the weekend. There is a stack of magazines on the dresser that needs to be sorted and put away, or at least moved to another area! The balloon sculpture is from a clown that I recently did some sewing for. I suppose I ought to take a picture of it and then give it to someone. It is already starting to get floppy and not as cute as it was! In the back corner is my strip bucket which is absolutely overflowing. Time to start some string blocks to make some more quilts from.

My sewing table, which looks much better than it did earlier this week. I have found some fabric to finish the quilt hanging on the wall, so want to work on that. I even have some backing fabric for it, so it is ready to work on. Also there is a stack of t-shirts that I really need to work on finishing for a t-shirt quilt. I have about half of them fused, but it's such tedious work I have a hard time pushing myself to get it done! Right next to the machine is fabric I bought to make some placemats and napkins that I want to get done this week also. So, as you can tell I don't have a lack of projects to work on, just a lack of initiative to get them done! That's why I did all my shopping yesterday, and planned menus for the week, so I can actually get a ton of sewing done this week and break out of the doldrums. Wish me luck!