Sewing!

Yes indeed. Yesterday sewing happened here. I've been sick, The Tramp is still hobbling around, but I finally got enough focus to just sit down and accomplish something. *happy dance* Of course there were the usual interruptions, but it was still good. :-)

Cell phone photos, so they aren't the best, but you get the idea. My bee is (was) doing a block swap. Twice a month during 2010 we swapped a 6" half-square triangle block and 6" four-patch block made from a medium/dark and a neutral. The idea is you can easily cut down both those blocks to any size you need. Because of the house move I'm six months behind so this is one of the items I really want to check off my 2011 Sandbox List. I've been observing all the lists of finishes coming up on other blogs and I think doing the same will give me the motivational push I need this year. We shall see.

I decided to put my swap blocks towards making Bonnie Hunter's Patches & Pinwheels quilt. This means however, I have to cut all my blocks down to 3 1/2". Ouch! That means cutting down almost 400 blocks. And I'll still have to make plenty more to make the large quilt. Arrggghhh. :-) So yesterday I sewed about half of what I owe to hand out at the next bee meeting and then got down to the cutting. I was very happy to have a little revolving mat!

I know this is scrap quilting, but I can be pretty OCD about the placement of my scraps. So I set aside a pile of untrimmed blocks to take apart and sew back together in different configurations. The contrast was bugging me. And actually, the quilt doesn't require nice neat four-patches, but twelve-patches. So some of the high contrast four-patches will probably stick out like sore thumbs in those twelve-patch blocks. That blue and white one up above is probably one I should have taken apart, but.....I'm darned if I'm going to be that OCD. I am not crazy enough to take apart all 200 four-patches. Really! (says me while sitting on my hands) :-)

This was also an opportunity to get back to my "leaders and enders" quilt. Blue Ridge Beauty, also by Bonnie Hunter.
I keep the pieces sorted in gift bags in a basket next to my sewing chair. Progress is slow but it's so fun to watch it grow.

The dogs spent most of the day either getting in my way, or barking at neighborhood sounds, of which there seemed to be an awful lot. Sigh.

Ivy lay with her nose helpfully between my chair wheels.
Ngaire gracefully commandeered the open space in front of my ironing table.
And after sitting and peering one-eyed up at me through the clear acrylic part of my sewing table, Maisy finally settled down underneath.....
which is why there is pipe insulation covering my most important and expensive wired connections!
Interruptions included bread baking. Yum!

And calls from the always needy laundry equipment. At least it seems very needy. The machines are always plaintively beeping for attention! It's a recurring theme here. The stove beeps, the microwave beeps, the timers beep, the cell phones beep, the computers beep, the weather radio beeps, the UPSs beep, and now even the new dishwasher beeps. Sigh.

I'm really liking the laundry on the second floor. Between the bedrooms and the sewing room. What could be better? Right away we had a proper laundry valve installed to lessen the likelihood of a flood. When I paint the upstairs we'll finish closing in the hole in the wall. But for now....it works just fine!


We also had the dryer re-vented with proper solid ducting rather than the old fashioned vinyl spiral stuff. It was completely jammed with lint and the dryer wasn't drying anything. Scary. We were doing fine with the new ducting then a joint pulled apart on Tuesday. Urg. A real pain because we had to haul both machines out again and add a connector, but it works fine now and I'm thrilled. It's the small things that make life comfortable. :-) Of course, with modern machines there is no chance we could leave up the bi-fold doors, but I found a retro looking shower curtain at Target and I think it looks just fine.


A little bit of clearance fabric buying today for finishing the swap blocks, and tomorrow I'm going to Sanford with a quilty friend to The Quilting and Fiber Art Marketplace. I can't wait! It's so nice to be sewing again.