This Week Was Fun

And what a week it was! 

First and foremost, my youngest DS told us he got a job. His formation was on Friday (yesterday) and he's starting next Tuesday. It's a contract for 6 weeks and I am SO happy for him. (Six weeks is better than nothing.)

DH finally got back to work (after two weeks at home, nursing a nasty cut on his thumb) with his sore thumb but he managed to tough each and every day out. Yay! 

Some of you asked about MY work at the office. If I start later in the morning, do I work later in the afternoon?  No. My work hours were cut at both ends. (ouch, says my budget.) From 8:30 to 4:30 (lots of weeks until 5pm), I now work from 10am to 2pm. Or at least that's the plan. I still work until 3:30 - 4pm when there are many meetings to help Danika with the clients. Yes, I know, I used to do it all by myself but she doesn't have an ADHD brain (firing on all 8 cylinders) and the load of experience in customer service I have (she's 19, I'm 63, enough said). (There are ways to shut a customer up politely.) I have good hopes for her. 

Also at work this week, I received my own laptop. My email signature now says Administrative Assistant instead of Reception. My new tasks have also been received. Fun! So, this being said: 

let's sew!

 

Some crumb blocks in whatever-comes-out-of-the-bag and more in aqua. (4.5" and 6.5")

Two 18-Bricks blocks. One in Aqua and the other one in Seafoam Green. Is Seafoam part of Aqua, Turquoise, Teal? Well, I thought it was so I made a block. I know! The butterfly print is in both blocks but I had to use what's on hand, right? 

When sewing crumb blocks, I work on a few blocks at a time (like any true ADHD person would do, lol). Some might be sewn together to reach the perfect size, whether it's for 4.5" or 6.5" or a 8.5 X 6.5" block. The pink one, on the right side, might be big enough for a 6.5" square. I'll iron, measure and trim that one today. 

The chair at my sewing desk is now empty. That big pile has been dealt with. (see last post)

Friday night (yesterday), I challenged myself again. 

The Challenge 

I have (at least) three bags and a drawer of rainbow-coloured strings. I have a drawer (like the one in the photo) for neutral (full) and another one of black (half-full). This rainbow one has been overflowing for years, hence the three bags. Obviously, I still can't close the drawer. It is time to stop stuffing bags and to REALLY tackle the problem. So I did.  

The mess 

One bag down, two to go. 

The progress

Once the three bags were done, I went to bed. My legs were so numb from sitting on the floor. So, this morning (Saturday), the sorting continued. 

Empty, at last

Two cups of coffee and one and a half hour later!! 

The result

Plastic bags are hard to photograph. I didn't pay much attention to the size of these strings. I was watching Project Runway on TV. I did remove some bits and bobs that can't be call "strings" by any definitions. I'm sure more can be remove but won't make much of a difference. The black and greys are together. Other groups include whites, beige, dark whites, yellow, light green, dark green, light blue, dark blue, pink, purple, red, orange, brown, multi-coloured and a jelly roll. I haven't bought that jelly roll so it must have come in a gifted bag or was free with a purchase I did at some point. Can't remember. Guess what colour the jelly roll is? Pastel! So, Angela!  I am ready for Pastel month next year. Lol. 

What prompt this challenge: Terry! Have you seen her string quilt? Click on the link. You won't regret it. 

Early in the mornings, now that I start work later, what do I do? Have coffee on the deck with the cats, do stretches and then I'm suppose to be cleaning the sewing room but Friends' Favourite keeps calling me.

It is set in the loft (the game room), not the sewing room

I timed myself and it takes 20 minutes to do one square including stitching the neutral frame around the square. Like this: 

(Little kitty watching you from the upper left corner. )

The quilting in the coloured sashing is another 15-20 minutes. I'm sewing straight (trying to keep it straight) down the middle of the frames and sashing. So, instead of sewing 1/4 inch in the square, I decided to go with 1/2 inch there too. I thought of doing fancy flowers and butterflies, but then thought if I want to finish this soon, better keep it simple. 

I calculated that if I sew one block a day, it would be done by March 18, 2027. That's not counting the sashing part. I wonder if I can finish it before that. Dare to bet?  Lol. 

So, that's what happened this past week. Hopefully, I can sew some more this weekend. How about you? Hope you find time to sew something too. 

Take care. ;^)

And I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there.
Angela at So Scrappy
Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts
Alycia for Finished or Not Friday
Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching
Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Galactic Project

At work, some of my tasks have changed. The one I'm really happy about is starting at 10am instead of 8:30. It gives me more time to do things in the house while I have the energy to do it. So . . . 

I gave myself a little goal : cleaning the disaster in my sewing room. A little goal, lolll. It's more of a galactic proportion but if I keep at it, a little every morning, it will get done, right?

Because of my super power, (see last post) the top of these boxes was piled high, full of *stuff*. I grabbed all and dumped it on my chair. This is what I have to do this week. And on the sewing machine table, yes, you are right. 

I don't know exactly what's in there but there are flannel backings for the baby quilts and a whole lot of *miscellaneous* fabric. Surprise! 

So, I sorted, cut and/or folded and put away. 

Here’s an example of what’s in the pile. These scraps (maybe 25 pieces) are left over from the fabric we cut for the baby quilt' tops. I didn’t have the time or the energy to trim them and put them away properly when they returned to me. They were just *piled* (stacked). Now, it's time to cut them into useable sizes. 

The end result : (4) 5" triangles, (2) 2.5" triangles, (2) 2.5 X 4.5 rectangles, (8) 3" squares, (8) 2.5" squares, (2) 2" squares, (3) 2' strips of different length, (3) 1.5 X 2.5", (3) 1.5" strip of different length and (1) 1.5' square. I was so happy about this little "clean up" that I grabbed another one and cut some more. 

It's a leftover too but I really don't like this fabric. The teddy bears behind the white grid do something to me and blur my vision. It's worst in person. The camera lens kind of lessen the effect somehow but I think you can see what I mean. Anywho! I was still determined to cut it up. Started with the bigger chunks and worked my way down. 

 

The end result : cut strips at 2.5" for binding; there was enough for 228" long binding. Whoohoo! Then (3) 5" squares, (3) 4.5" squares, (1) 3.5 square, (1) 3" square, (2) 2.5 X 4.5", (4) 2.5" triangles, (3) 2" strips and (2) 2" squares, (2) 1.5" squares and (2) 1.5 X 2.5" rectangles. I'm glad this one is behind me. Phew! 

Needless to say that these cutting sessions are adding bits and bobs in the bag I want to empty. Scraps of fabric will exist as long as the sun rises from the East. Haha.

The chair is still full of stuff. I will continue to work on it this weekend. 

I found this box. Thinking it was leftover fabric again, I thought I could put the fabric away and get rid of the box but, wait! It's a project. 

I had to look it up because I couldn't remember the name of this mystery by Bonnie Hunter back 2016. It's *En Provence*. 

So many pieces cut and sewn but not much put together yet. I gathered everything in a plastic bag with more instructions and set it aside. 

It prompted me to have a place for my "started" projects. It will be easier for me to know what I have and mostly where it is. When I leave for a sewing retreat, I'll just dive into this milk crate and get a few projects out to bring along. As you can see, En Provence didn't stay alone in there for long. Lol. 

A quick scan around the sewing room has revealed more PiGs. I'm sure more will join these one as I continue to declutter.

It brings me to show what I did sew last weekend. (nothing got sewn this past week. Too much cutting! Ha!) 

The purple crumb block you see on my sewing machine in the last post now measures 6.5" square (untrimmed). I added an orange one and a little 4.5" square for the Crumb Star project. I also added the points to this centre to have a second aqua star. This one has dusty rose fabrics from light to very dark. 

I was also able to find enough of these "in-between" reds to finish an 18 Bricks block. 

From dusty rose to bloody orange along with watermelon, salmon, coral pink and tomato reds. All the fun ones are in there. 

Lastly, I got Friends' Favourite on the frame (FINALLY!) and hand-quilted one square. Only 255 to go, lol. 

It's raining here this weekend. More time in the sewing room for me. Hope you get to add a few stitches to whatever project you are working on. 

;^)

And I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

It's a Top!

Another week has gone by and look what I did. I'm SO happy!!

Friends' Favourite was missing a border (?), sashing part (?), whatever, it was missing a few little bits of scraps. As I sew the quadrants together, these little bits were added. And then . . . 

TA-DAH! 

I couldn't take a picture outside as it was raining here last week. This morning, before I thought of taking more photos of it, I started (and finished) setting it up on the quilting frame. It is way too big for my little domestic machine so it will get the hand quilting treatment. Lucky one! 

It's 100 X 100 inches and it was quite a workout to get it all straight (not even sure about that) and on the frame. 

Luckily I found some yardage in my stash. Yards and yards of this rainbow dot print was given to me a long time ago. At the time, I thought I could get 2 or 3 backings out of it but nope. It mostly all went in this one. 

Notice anything peculiar in this photo? Nothing is the right answer. There's nothing at all in the selvage. No company name, no designer name, not even "100% cotton", etc. just the colours and they aren't even aligned properly. Ever seen this before? 

I'm happy to be using it because there's a big empty space on the shelf now. 😁

While putting away all the fabric needed to make a scrap quilt like Friends' Favourite, I found these bits. 

It's a dizzying print in person. They weren't cut in any size I could used, so I trimmed them all down to 2.5" squares. They were joined to dark green scraps and grew into this. 

I found the same print in brown and chopped it too and used dark brown this time. It's easier in the brown colourway to see how dizzying this print really is. 

I have to admit that the polka-dot one is not my favourite. It might go to OR this weekend to have a "face lift", lol. I have no idea yet where these blocks are heading. Time will tell. 

Reply to comments from previous post: 

Thank you all for your lovely comments. 

Nann suggested to continue sewing the pastel blues together then applique colourful flowers. I SO love this idea, Nann that I will get on it this weekend. I'm thinking a nice little placemat for lovely self. Thank you for the inspiration, Nann. 

Cathy wrote about my issues with comments not coming to my email: 

As far as comment notifications to email...I go into the blogger settings and under the EMAIL heading there is a "comment notification subscribers" section. In the box under there enter the email where you want to receive the notification. That's what works for me. - that way I am a subscriber to comment notifications! Also, I don't know if it makes a difference but I don't moderate comments.

Well, paint me yellow and call me shameful!  I have to be a subscriber to MY OWN blog now? Everything is by subscriptions or with cookies now a days. Sigh!  Anywho! I went straight to the settings and subscribed to my own blog. Fingers crossed (again) that it works.  

Cathy also said that some of those pastel blues look like TriRec Ruler cuttings. 

You are right and I'm thinking of just adding the missing triangle in the middle. They could be use as a border for something, right? They are now in the spare-parts box. 😊

That's all I have for this week, friends. Hope you stay cool (this week, we almost hit 40 Celsius because of the humidity and it's only June!!) hydrated, and able to sew. 

Take care. 

;^)

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

What's in the Bag?

Angela announced June as Pastel month. I don't do pastel much. Whatever I have is stashed away with its own colour. (The blue with the blue.) Then, I found this bag given to me a while back (probably longer than I remember) with metal blue, icy blue, grey, etc.

So, I opened it. 

This is what came out. I'm not very good with Y seams and all these pieces are triangles and angular trapezoid shapes. I'm stuck. 

It would be easy to use this piece in a crazy quilt or in a pieced backing but 

what about this one? 😦

Maybe if I add more pieces to shape it into a rectangle it could be used in the same backing as the first one. 😶 ?? There are lots of pieces left. 

These are in pairs. They can be easily sewn into blocks. . . 

or together, into rectangles. 

Decluttering continues! The centres for Friends' Favourite last rows weren't framed in white. Last weekend I worked on that and then put all the white leftovers away. 

Oh look! a clean place. Wow! 

All the blocks are done and assembled into quadrants formation. This weekend, I shall get this space behind the sewing machine cleared so I can sew the long rows of Friends' Favourite without pushing everything off the desk. 

It will be nice to have this one turned into a complete top. 

Good news: next week, at work, I am going back to my regular hours of 8:30 to 4:30. It will be nice to have a regular schedule again. And some energy left for some sewing in the evenings. 😀

On the other hand, your comments are not good news. I still don't receive them in my email inbox even with Joy's help. Here's what I'm thinking: I'm in Canada and Joy is in the States. We all know that Google (producer of Blogger) is International but each country has it's own Google Motherboard (lol). Even more, I believe that Canada and the States have more than one each. I'm pretty sure Joy and I don't have updates at the same time nor for the same issues/reasons, nor are the updates coming from the same main office. I'm sure what she has suggested works for some of you. Lucky you. Just not for me. So, I shall continue to reply to you here. 

There were many comments about the new blocks. Thank you. 

- Frédérique asked if the newest block is made with a partial seam. Yes, it is. The long rectangles are sew to the little yellow square in the middle, starting with a partial seam. 

Do you know what I'm thinking now? Only 11 more blocks to do for a baby quilt for my quilt drive. Lol. 

There were also comments about my garden in containers. So far so good. It's still growing and green, not brown like dead weeds, lol. We have rain today that will continue for the next few days. I shall bring my garden indoor so it doesn't drown. Gardening is so much work! 😁

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

I've Had It! Enough! (photo heavy)

Yep! I got enough! I'm done! Throwing the towel in . . . the kitchen sink and all too. 

I'm not trying to "fix" Blogger once again just so it messes it all up again in a few months. 

Once again your comments on my previous posts are NOT coming to my email inbox like it is supposed to. Like it is programmed to do!

Every time there's an update, there's an issue. How many more emails do I need to send to Blogger to make them understand the problem. They're the techies! They should know the problem. I . . . we don't need this frustration. So I give up.

My solution : (might not be the best but here it is) From now on, I will answer your comments, questions, suggestions, etc. in the following post. Might not be very practical but it is the best I can think of for now. Is that agreeable with you? 

Let's move on to more enjoyable things, like baby quilts. I've received a few more so let's start the parade. 

This is my own County Clare quilt (sew along from Bonnie Hunter) which I quilted and Françoise bind for me. I don't understand why it's always showing with a blue tint. It's more white in person. And so is the backing too. 

The Potato Chip quilt that I was very slowly working on turned into a baby quilt. 

I added the green and grey checker to make it big enough. I might make another one. It's so scrappy. The backing is scrappy too. Love it. 

The following 2 quilts were surprises. I prepare kits (as you might know) baby quilts in a bag and the volunteers are to take the bag home and sew the top. Then the volunteer brings back the top so I can pair with a batting, backing and binding. This new lady to the group thought she had to do the entire quilt. So, I gave her two kit bags to take home and she brought me back a finished (well, two) finished quilts. Just wonderfully done. 

All quilted and bound, even though there was no binding in the kit bag. She used flannel for the backing like we do for all the baby quilts. Thank you again, sweet Francine. 

She did a little heart embroidery on the back. Too cute!! (I hope you can see it.)

Some of you might remember this one. I finished the hand-quilting that someone had started on this one and again Françoise bind it for me. I told her to use the border for the binding by folding it to the back. It was wide enough as I didn't quilt it to the edge but she found the perfectly matching pink in her stash. Thanks, Françoise. 

I didn't do much sewing but I was invited to a Tea Party of the real kind. So much fun: laughed until the tears came running down my inner tights, if you get my drift, lol. 

Some of the ladies who organized this wonderful afternoon for us. 

We brought our own tea cup and saucer. Most of us (if not all of us) had a story to tell about the cup. 

You didn't have a cup? It's okay, there were some spares.  All different. All beautiful and dainty. 

Every table had a different table runner and the "tea master" assigned to the table had an apron made with the same print. 

This was my table. Yes, the big mug with the Eiffel tower on it is my cup. I am so French even during an English Tea Party, lol. 

My dear friends, Françoise and Lucie. 

and with moi! 

I hope the Artisanat will do this again next year. It's so much fun to dress up and be a little snob for a few hours, lol. 

Reply to comments from previous posts: 

- Thank you all who have commented on the multi projects I have in production mode. I got many comments about the stripe binding. So many of you also use stripe fabric for binding. It always looks great. 

- Thank you for all the wonderful comments regarding the bake sale and craft show. 

- Lin asked how many baby quilts so far. Well, at that time, there were 25 quilts. With the 8 shown in this post, the total is 33 quilts. And more to come.😊

- A special hello to LuAnn. So good to hear from you. LuAnn likes the Framed 9-Patch that is my header at the moment. Thanks, LuAnn. And yes, copy it. I want to see yours. ;^)

- Thank you all for the encouraging words regarding the decluttering. Yes, around here it's like dirty dishes. I need to do it daily otherwise . . . 😱

- To Viola: your comment made me laugh. Thanks for the giggles. 

- Time4Stitchn asked where will the magazines be send. That's a good question: I don't know, lol. I will bring them to the craft group I belong to (The Artisanat). I'm sure some ladies will pick some up (at least I hope so). Then, the magazines will be dropped to another quilter's guild by a friend of mine in the hope that more magazines will be adopted. This cycle might happen once or twice more (through different ladies and guilds) before the last (few) magazines are brought to a thrift store. I always try to give items to people I know before bringing them to a thrift store. 

Well, if you made it this far, I thank you. 💓

If you are wondering about Friends' Favourite progress, well it's not going very fast lately but still some more blocks happened. 

Ten more blocks to go. Sigh! 

Hope you find time to sew because it's good for the soul. ;^) 

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!