Shelves, Backings, Organization, and a Finish!

After a few years of waiting, Kathy finally had the time to make me a huge shelf on wheels!  I painted it turquoise.  You can see it is in a little nook that opens into my quilting studio (loft) and directly across from it is the guest bathroom(which the catbox is in since it is rarely used--thus the baby gate so the dogs can't get in it).  Next to it (covered by quilts) is a door that opens into the AC return.  I have to be able to get in that door to clean now and then (dust and dog hair) and when the AC folks come out.  So that whole nook area was wasted space and I tended to pile things up in there which was a pain if we did need to get in the door!  So now I have a shelf on wheels that I can roll out when we need to get in the AC door!  I wasted no time in reorganizing and filling the shelves either!  I used a dry erase marker to mark some of my bins (the others have post it notes inside the bins).  My modern fabrics fill an entire shelf and now I can actually see what I have!

Last Tuesday was the Nimble Thimbles meeting and we all turned in our star blocks.  Two gals won them..they really turned out great.  This month is red, white, and blue--will be fun to see how they turn out.  Would love to win so I have another QOV to donate so cross your fingers!

 We had a swap and sale meeting--I tried really hard to not even really look at anything because after my reorganization I discovered that I truly don't need anything!  I have full shelves all around.  However, one of the gals let me know that someone was selling six Happy Scrappy Houses from our Bonnie Hunter workshop.  At least I think they are from that day but in any event I had to save them!  Kathy and I did Halloween houses (and I actually need to decide if I am going to add to it or border it, would love to have it done for Halloween this year) so these won't go into that quilt, but maybe I will put them in the back or do another little quilt.  For two bucks they were a steal.

 I did get a chance to sew during the week this week too!  I made a backing for Classic Meets Modern (when I was reorganizing my shelves I picked out some bigger chunks of fabric that would make good backings--I think that is my least favorite part--making the backings!).

 I also made a GIGANTIC backing for Grand Illusion.  It is mostly teal but one strip of flaming fabric to make it big enough.  I need this quilt done before November when we do our next Kickoff party!

See what I mean about full shelves?  Many of those lights were in a bin and now that all my boxes are off the fabric shelf I got to folding them and getting them out where I can use them!
I got some outdoor pictures of Moth in the Window for Coleman and was very excited when an editor from Quiltmaker Magazine contacted me to put it on their facebook page!

Whoot whoot!

I also am still working on the weight.  I had a bad week last week and worked much harder this week to make up for it.  So 3.4 pound loss for a total of 92.8 pounds.  I did my first advanced Pilates jump class (15 minutes after a regular Pilates class) and I was able to get through it!  Really sore the next day but I went hiking (alone even) and did Pilates again the next day.  Today I rest and tomorrow Jump again.  :)

At Long Last--Sewing Again!

 I haven't sewn a stitch since I had to abruptly leave quilt camp over two weeks ago due to the gallstone in my bile duct.  When Becky brought my stuff back it got dumped all over the place in my quilting studio....so today after Jump Pilates I spent close to two hours cleaning and this space was included!

 Then the fun started and I laid out Orange Crush.  My floor just wasn't big enough and I couldn't figure out the middle.  I suck at these diagonal layouts!

 

 Becky came over to sew (and we ate healthy meatloaf, potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner).  She was working on her string spider web.  That is still on my list!  After she left I finally got to the middle and realized somehow I was two star blocks short...luckily I had plenty of four patches left so I made up the hst's and then the blocks.

 And viola!  The top is a flimsy.  I did get the borders sewn too, but wasn't up to the math involved in making all the borders fit.

 

Tomorrow we are planning to go hiking and then to my brother's house for a going away party for Coleman.  He is moving back to Wisconsin to be with his girlfriend Chelsea.  I am a bit worried about this since Coleman really requires lots of supervision and assistance, (with both his diabetes and his autism, etc.) but he is 28 and so I am letting him try it and crossing my fingers he is more capable than we believe.  While we are looking forward to the break;  I have always thought he would live with me forever so this is an interesting endeavor.
On the weight front--I have really not lost anything in the last six weeks.  The week of my surgery I gained 5.6 and the following week I lost 11 pounds.  Since that time, I am up one pound despite really getting back to the exercise (10 days later) and eating right.  They have adjusted some meds and I am hoping that will help and I am not giving up but seriously I am doing Pilates twice a week, jump Pilates once a week, hiking twice a week and now I have added back in the elliptical and bike several times a week.  I am at 87 pounds down at this point so trying to look at the bright side..but really frustrating that I have plateaued again!  :)

Ironing Board Redo!

 In the past seven months or so I have worn out my lime green ironing board cover!  It has been in need of a redo for at least two months or so and I Jo's challenge finally got me on it!  Thanks Jo!  We decided to put this lovely 80's blue stuff on it that we found at the estate sale last May.  I have several chunks of it and the first one I grabbed was already the perfect size!

 It only took about ten minutes to pull off the old and remove the screws that hold my ironing board to the shelves underneath, staple the new fabric on and rescrew the screws.  Of course Kathy did most of the work--with her power drill.

 One of the light bulbs burnt out in here today (and of course we don't have any the right size here) so it was either too bright or too dark for the picture, but you can see my ironing board looks like new again!

Linking up to Jo of Jo's Country Junction!  Go on over and see everyone else's ironing board makeovers and maybe do one yourself!

Wild and Goosey Sunday :)

 I did some cleaning in my quilting studio this weekend because it really needed it!  I like to be organized, I work better that way!  Shark week on the TV (I did finish listening to "Secrets of Eden" yesterday then back to the TV).  I sew on the left and Kathy on the right.

Here you can see my design wall--yes that modern medallion is still percolating!

My beautiful newly recovered ironing board.  80's blue this time around.

My fabric shelf.  I always take a picture of two of it this time of year so that I will have it on shop hop.  Then while shopping if I am unsure if I really need to buy something I can look at the picture and say--umm no you do not need any BLUE fabric, etc.  Looks like I need orange and aqua and purple.

Here is the 80's blue ironing board cover and the latest Wild and Goosey block!  The pattern is at Quiltmaker if you feel the need to start one of these babies.  The paper piecing is fun--takes me a good hour to make each block and the blocks are small!  One more block and I will add the most recent row.  It really helps to have a goal each week (one block a week) because it is growing!

A Sideways Bookshelf

This picture is saved correctly but only will load on my blog sideways...ugh!  Anyway while I am working away today Kathy was busy painting my bookshelf!  Anyways, you get the idea..this is my shelf Kathy built for me about two years ago.  I love the grey/sort of purple paint we picked out.  Can't wait til it is dry enough to load my stuff on.  We may (she may) paint my other shelf this color too because that one needs a coat of paint too!
Back to work!

Super Sunday!

 Started out my Sunday by checking out Sherri and Sinta's Schnibbles Parade!  I was the lead "float" in one of them, whoot whoot.  This month we can pick out our own Schnibbles...so I dug through my patterns and these eight are the ones I haven't made yet (I am amassing quite a collection!) so I picked one of these.  Any guesses on which one?  Hint, I bought it in a kit more than a  year ago at the quilt show and even barely started cutting it out but that was as far as it got.  Not telling you yet...soon it should see some progress.

 I am happy to say that I FINALLY--PAH made up the backing for Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll.  That is one HUGE quilt, and I hate piecing huge backings.  I decided to send a few quilts off to JoAnne if she has time to quilt them....she did one for me a few years ago and I kind of forgot about her til I was reading on her blog that she is looking for more quilting.  Ros has a few of mine now and one more on the way, so I thought I would spread them out some.  I also decided to see if she can do my three memory wallhangings (even though they are already prepped for quilting) because I am too afraid to ruin them with my quilting!

 Any guesses what all this good color is for?  We made a little trip to Home Depot and went a little nuts.  It just sort of happened.  Kathy was looking for a project (or two, or three) and I found her some.

 Can you guess what is coming together here?  I was happily doing some sorting while she was doing this...

 Recovered my old ironing board with some wild orange fabric that was June's (thanks June!) and then flipped it over and attached it to the shelves/cubes.  (Home Depot Martha Stewart, there is a 6 cube and a 9 cube...idea came from http://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-big-board-and-storage.html Alycia!  Thanks for helping me figure out how to do this!

 Here we are almost done with the recover.  Doesn't it look fabulous?  I am in love.  I never want to leave the room again, lol!

All those colors turned into this!  I have already sorted all my 2.5 strips into the front of the bins of that color and some of the 1.5 inch strips are bagged up in the back of the bin.  I have a few other odd sizes that are all in the extra bins in bags, not yet sorted by color.  This is a huge amount of storage and so much neater than what I had going on.  CJ was happy to take my plastic three drawer thing for his closet and it feels bigger and more colorful and fun in here.  We also picked out a grey/slightly light purple paint to paint my other shelf or shelves which we will get to soon.  (and paint for the kitchen too, stay tuned, lol!)

So in today's sewing news I managed to get a few more bow tie blocks done so I could add anther row to this quilt.  It looks bigger than it is here...each bow is like 3 inches so I should keep adding to this.  Still trying not to double up on any fabrics...this means I have to search the quilt to see if I already used something when I cut from my scraps.  Kind of a pain, but I guess that is what I get when I don't cut all at once!  I had a Super Sunday.  Yippee!

Feeling Blue

 In November of 2008 I made "A is for Adaminaby" as my first mini quilt.  It got me hooked on little quilts and I can remember how happy I was making it (I actually made two) since it wasn't long after we moved here and got into my quilting studio.  Today I cleaned through the bookshelf above and got rid of a ton of quilting magazines...see the space I made on the shelf?  LOL.  While doing so I ran across the magazine that had this little quilt in it and decided I should make it in blues and try to remember how happy I once was.  In the end I named it "Feeling Blue" since I am still blue though it makes me smile anyway.

 It is a super simple little quilt to make--twelve strips sewn together and cut apart again (1.5 inches) and then some unsewing and resewing and viola you have a cute little quilt.

 Here is is with one of the originals.

 I hung it up (other minis behind it) so I can look at it while I sew.  When I get the motivation I will hand tack it like I did the other one.

 The only other productive thing I did today (besides making spaghetti and trying to get some old frozen bread to rise) was help Kathy hang this pegboard and arrange my rulers.  I have wanted one of these in this exact spot since we moved here almost four years ago.  It will be so much easier to find my rulers and I was pleasantly surprised to find most of them had a hole for the hooks!  You can also see the little yellow pinwheels I made the other night on the design wall.

 

Tomorrow is another day, hoping it will be less blue :)

Finally Some Sewing Time!

June has been in the process of moving for a bit now...yesterday she had movers come take what we had packed and get it over to her new place in Paradise Valley.  I am excited for her to get a new start but bummed she will be so far from me.  We have lots more work to do over there, but I am amazed at what all we pulled off!

My new bedroom floor is in and I love it!  It sounds different in the room and we can hear every step the dogs make on it at night, but it is clean and looks good!  We also finally got our garage roof redone so it doesn't leak.  We have fixed it three different times (three different people) with absolutely no luck.  Can't wait for the rain to see if the professionals did better than we did.  

I also took some pictures of the reorganization of my quilting studio after the great fabric purchase.  All my modern fabrics are on the top shelf here with yarn and knitting and crochet stuff next to it.  To the far right which you can't really see is the stack of drawers that some of my smaller chunks of fabric are in.  They are stuffed full.

Here is the new (old) shelf that I added to the room.  All the bigger chunks of fabric are arranged by color or type and are easy to see (the old shelf is wider and the fabric was two deep so I couldn't see it all) which I really like.  We moved the microwave cart down to the kitchen and it is already filling up there too.

Close up of the fabric on the shelf.

Today Angela over at SoScrappy posted that yellow is this month's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I am happy to say I made my two yellow Jack in the Box blocks.  My bonus pinwheels were actually made a month or two ago from leftover scraps.  I will make more from the leftover bits of these blocks.

Here are all the blocks I have so far (I got bored one day and whipped up an orange one but we haven't had orange yet, lol!) and I am loving this scrappy quilt.  

My Stitch kitty is finally cooperating and is hanging out in the quilting studio.  She likes to be in the middle of whatever action is going and so as to slow us down!  

And the UFO of the month pick is number two which is my sister's crown quilt.  I have been really dreading getting going on this.  I am using a pattern but the color placement I have (based on another online quilt) doesn't work with any of my patterns so I had to figure some stuff out myself.  Add to that that I didn't realize there are actually FOUR different blocks in each of these big blocks (I thought there were two for some reason) I really struggled to get the first block together correctly.  Today I finally managed it and of course getting the second one made was much easier.  Kathy picked up cutting the Crown Royal bags where DJ left off and I made more hsts, so I may have hope of completing this top this month.  In any event it is seeing some progress which it would not have if not for the UFO pick!

Going to go to bingo tonight with Kathy and a few new friends.  We haven't gone in a long time so it should be fun!