Scrappy Sewing

This week I actually got a ton of sewing time in! I was off early and home from work two days this week, which just happened to give me an extra hour or two of sewing time. Friday night I'd had it! I had too much crap laying around and didn't have room on the ironing board to iron! I started cleaning and just kept going. I ended up cleaning off the shelves, reorganizing the drawers, and tidying up the book shelf. This is the area I sew in, the cutting mat/ironing board on the left. Rulers on the ledge, file shelves with current stuff, drawers with notions, and a book shelf with small odds and ends/ Jennifer Chiaverini books, and my quilting books. My machine and Janome table with 3 drawer tote to left on the center bottom. Quilt frame to the right.


I guess this is a brighter picture. I have this thread rack of pretty rayon threads. I don't use them, but they look pretty on the rack. The pink large tote has my "current" projects in it. I made a list of the projects I'm working on... I have 20 on the list! Some are just binding, others I'm working on slowly, and yet others I can get done quickly. It helped to make the list and be able to check stuff off.

After I was done cleaning, Mikaela was in bed, and I felt like doing some sewing. I had used my lunch hour and cut out a few projects. One of them was Regina's block for the block swap. I was able to quickly and easily make this block using the Flying Geese x4 by Lazy Girl Designs. I fell in love with the ruler, using it for both Colleen and Regina's blocks.

Friday night I layed out the pink/brown/cream Buggy Barn HST's I had made. I wasn't real happy with my layout and I just didn't know if I'd made a mistake trying to use up my scraps.  I emailed a few friends and Jacque suggested I didn't like it because of the scrappiness of it. I let it sit overnight and went back to it Sat. morning. I realized I needed the pink in the corners and to keep the diamond creams. I had to rework it a bit since I was short of some of the colors and I had to purchase another couple yards of the cream. Paul and I picked it up on Sat. and I was able to spend most of the afternoon/evening working on this thanks to Paul and his mom. They took Mikaela to the pet store and then fixed supper and watched her. I felt like I was in heaven getting a few hours of non interrupted sewing time. The squares were inspired by a post on Lily Quilts and I made the small block with my 2" Friendship swap HST's. The big ones are 3.5" HST's and the blocks are 24".


I'm still debating about putting them all together or making several small wall hangings. I think I'll do one big one with the 4 blocks and then make something else with the other leftover HST's. I love the secondary pattern this made.

Friday night when I couldn't get the scrappy blocks to work, I made some hexi blocks. I have them laying out ready to sew when I need some mindless sewing. I got 8 done in a matter of half an hour or so. These are Blush jellyroll blocks made into 60* triangles and sewn into hexi's. I don't have a pattern, so we'll see how big it gets.


Today I worked on a minkee/charm square ribbon blanket for Mikaela. I had purchased the kit for the pattern since I had some minkee squares I wanted to use and didn't want to figure it out on my own, though I knew I could have. I opened it up and the pattern is printed from Moda Bake Shop, but the way they packaged it, it appeared to be their own pattern! Oh boy was I hot. I just feel like they were trying to deceive me. I got the top sewn together, but didn't finish it because the Bachelorette was on. I ended up hand sewing the binding on my cowboys quilt and got it finished, so I didn't waste any sewing time!  It was nice to spend time with my family too since they watched it with me.
It's been a productive weekend and I look forward to another great week. July has provided me a lot of sewing time, so I'll have to write my review this week.