I'm finished now with a huge load of Henry Glass projects, which will get shared in a couple of weeks, so I'm back to my normal priority and break-work routines.
The priority is Devon and Kyle's wedding quilt. I have a good start on the initial stitch-in-the-ditch work. All the white ribbons are outlined, and all but 3 pair of the birds. My thread order arrived for the colors I didn't already have on hand, so I can attack the rings any time now.
Devon liked the motif that's traced into the centers of the rings, so I bought the digital set. The really fun part is that I could draw out her engagement ring's pattern to fit the melons very nicely, and it plays right along with the professional set. When I'm working on those parts and you can see better what I'm talking about, I'll look up the name and link for you. All the outer blue will be an organic blend of feathers, breezes, and motif uses from the digital set. That's still several weeks away, though, so I don't have to face that intimidation just yet.
I'm not giving as much priority time to this right now as I usually do for priority finishes, though. That's because on Sunday I got working on that week's Block of the Month focus, which is the DOD Americana quilt-along that I'm using for Scott's Air Force retirement quilt for next summer. I'm using only scraps and stash, which means this happens once a month when I work on this project:
The scrap bin gets pawed through and dumped out, three McKenna Ryan left-overs boxes get opened, and potentially relevant FQs and yardages from stash get pulled into the work area. Usually it lasts only one day. This time, it stayed out because I didn't want a third row sitting around partially finished. (The last row really intimidated me when it came time to trace out those military settings for the fusible pieces and then having to find fabrics that will work for each thing. So it sat, incomplete, all this time.)
This. Drives. Me. NUTS!!!!! I am far from a great housekeeper, preferring greatly to work on quilts than to do dishes or mop floors. And I am comfortable in a certain level of daily lived-in, yet organized "mess". This, however, is pure chaos. So I can't focus for more than an hour in a day on the wedding quilt until this project is caught up and everything is re-binned and tucked nicely into my storage room again.
Here is what I accomplished the last two days. It's 11 x 62 inches finished size, and was a super fun row to put together:
If you're familiar with this QAL, you'll see that I changed it up a bit, and I showed that in my last post.
Here are the two previous rows that still need attention:
The birdhouses will be simple. That row just needs some door holes, a few birds. and an Uncle Sam hat or two. The military row - oh, boy. That one is going to be challenging and demanding. I'm going to ask Scott for a Scrap-Attack date tonight and have him help me pull out pieces that will work for the various vignettes from Bosnia, Korea, Oman, and Afghanistan. The central office one I should be able to handle on my own. By week's end I want this finished and scraps squared away! I need my peace of mind back for the FMQ intensity! Also - other family members would be really happy to be able to use the pool table again! Can we just say: #800dollarquiltstagingtable #kindacrazy
I've finished enough older UFOs now that my scrap bin is cram-packed. So I finally started sorting the mess into divisions as I was working on the church last night. So far there's "Brown-and-Such" and "Black-and-Gray" pulled out of the main mess. I'll divide the rest into maybe 4 more sub-bins as Scott and I pull things out for his personal row. I guess I need to swing by Home Depot to get a bunch of storage bins that will work for this system, since I know I'll continue working with scraps periodically.
I hope your week is going well and your work space is happier than mine right now!! :D
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Oh my! Your scrappy piles are really getting a workout, Lynette. And the results are astounding! All your rows and blocks look fabulous!
ReplyDeletethose dumped out scrap piles look all too familiar! but you're putting them to good use. way to go!
ReplyDeletegirl! Your sewing room looks like mine...nope mine is still worse. You'll prbably clean yours up too...lol. Just sayin' mine has been a mess for a while now.
ReplyDeleteLeeAnna
Oh my. I'm like you I don't mind a creative mess but sometimes too much is just too much. I'm lucky I have a sewing room so can just close the door when it's too messy xxx
ReplyDeleteHa, everyone is reacting to your creative mess, I think it's making us all feel better about ours. :)
ReplyDeleteThose rows are amazing, I love the horses! My room tends to look like that while I'm in the middle of something, but I can't stand it too much between projects so there's usually a big clear-up right after or I find I just can't think straight.
ReplyDeleteI like to see the scrappy mess. Makes me feel better about the times I have to do the same. Like this summer, when I spent a few weeks piecing my Scrap Vortex quilt. What a fun way to use scraps! I had a blast, and really didn't want to stop. The quilt is 81" X 92" and I'm quilting it now... and still have scraps leftover, though the bins have more room now. I keep my scraps sorted by colors in canvas bins slid onto shelves, all purchased from Home Depot. I printed labels for the front of each pretty aqua bin, so they're handy to pull out when I'm looking for just one color. Wish I had room for another whole unit as eight bins isn't enough! Have fun getting organized. Perhaps you need to make a Scrap Vortex quilt too?!
ReplyDelete