Sunday for the Slowdown

It was a long week back at school. It is cold which is unusual for here. Getting back into the flow of things again will take a bit longer I think. I am thankful to have a weekend, even a cold and rainy one. My slow stitching time today will be devoted to hand stitching the binding on my first ever quilt. If I get energetic, I might even try a bit more hand quilting. Hand quilting is not easy through high loft polyester batting, but we live and learn as we evolve in our quilting. I am enjoying the idea of turning my first attempt at quilting into a finished project. It only took a bit more than 25 years. 

If you have more than one RSC25 project in the works, or have a few ongoing projects from years past, these tracking sheets are a great way to keep track. Stephanie makes them for us each year and there are several formats available depending on whether you want to use them electronically or print them and go analog. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in word

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in PDF

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in pages

I randomly drew the powder room as the next project on the "To Do" list. Honestly I thought it was in pretty good shape. It is just a half bath on the main floor that doesn't get used much. I keep some extra guest towels on the back of the potty. 

Then there is a little corner shelf for sunglasses, sunscreen and TP. Kurt has decided to turn old TP rolls into fire starters and so I will donate these to his new craft project. 

It was quick work to sort through the sunglasses and sunscreen. I am not sure who thought that bug spray, aloe and lotion should all start living in there, but they got moved out. There were some sad and broken sunglasses that have gone away. I really need a few matching containers that are slightly larger to hold those, so I will keep my eyes open. I am not much of a shopper, but maybe something will turn up. 

Then it was just a quick scrub, wipe down and polish to make everything all shiny. It was a quick one today, which is good because my first assignment for statistics is an essay that needs a bit more work. There is a group chat for the class and the professor seems to be fairly strict in her grading. Honestly, I thought I would be doing some math, but so far it is not that at all. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Pink is a Promise

 

I woke up bright and early this morning to put the binding on this quilt. It is the first that I ever started and it is a bit embarrassing to admit that it is still unfinished after more than 25 years. There was a lot that I didn't know back then and the blocks are poorly constructed by hand because I didn't have a sewing machine. I used puffy high loft polyester binding because I thought that quilts were supposed to be fluffy. That made hand quilting really difficult and binding was incomprehensible to be at that point in time. So in it went to a bag to be carted around from our first condo in Chicago through two Florida houses and finally to our beach condo here. I used walking foot straight line quilting in the muslin sashing and border areas to try to smush everything a bit flatter. The quilt blocks will still need some hand quilting, but I can do that during cold winter nights at the cabin in Virginia. For now I will sew the binding to the back tomorrow during slow stitching Sunday and it will be finished enough to use. Do you still have the first quilt that you ever started? It is fun to look back and appreciate how much more I know now than I did back then.

I think that I added a few more blocks to the pink cross and dots leaders and enders project for this year and I've got a few hexies along to the top of the diamond hexie quilt to straighten out the tip. I think it just needs some half hexies all along the outside to be done. What pink scraps have come out to play in your sewing room? Misterlinky is below. Please share

Friday - for the Finish

 I am fairly amazed that I made it through the first full week of back to school while still managing to cross more organizations tasks off of the list. 

This tiny bookshelf used to live in my sewing room and somehow through the years it ended up in Ryan's closet. I would like to take it to the cabin to keep a stack of games and puzzles. Most of what is there is honestly trash. 

I sorted through and picked out office supplies that should live at school, saving out a few books and magazines along with phone books and my quilting notebooks. Those will all move into the sewing room and the bookshelf will be free to move to the cabin. 

We had an evening event at school last night and I am dragging this morning. Thankfully the weekend is in sight! I didn't manage to do much that was quilting related other than distributing my donated fabric scraps into the appropriate colored bins. I hope you are finding time to fondle some fabric today as well, it is good for the soul!

Thursday - Sorting Out

 

I got the nicest text from my next door neighbor yesterday reminding me that she was bringing me some fabric scraps to play with. It looked like a pile of random until I sorted it by color. Now I can see lots of fun possibilities to add to my collection. I will start with pink of course. The beauty of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is that I know each color will get its turn and I don't have to do all of this right now. 

I used a random number generator to choose closet drawer 1 from the 2025 To Do List as my tiny organization project for today. I need a tiny project right now as I adjust to being back at school again. I seem to be hungry and cold all the time! Too much snuggling up under a cozy blanket with tea during the break I suppose. 

When I opened this drawer I had trouble figuring out what was supposed to live there. We got new bedroom furniture not too long ago and went from two dressers to one. That is when we put a couple of extra drawers into the closet. I guess that I never made a decision about what would go where. How else could I end up with a drawer of unmatched socks, slips, swimsuits and bras?  

I robbed some drawer dividers that don't work all that well in the new dresser and decided that this space would be for bras, nighties and silky things. Everything else went somewhere else to be a later problem. Tada. 10 minutes and a nice tidy space to enjoy. My two graduate classes for the new term have started and I have some reading to do for statistics along with a paper to right for standards based instruction. I think I will just enjoy my break for a few more minutes first. I pared down shoes while i was in there, but I think that now I need to add purses to the list. Those are also a mess.  

Wednesday - My First Quilt is a UFO

With the cleaning and organizing that comes with a new year, I unearthed my very first quilt. I started it before we moved to Florida which was in 1998.  I did not have a sewing machine or a rotary cutter at that time. I had a pattern book from the library book sale that had sampler blocks labelled with 1 through 3 thimbles to represent difficulty level. As I look back at how I started, I am pretty proud of how far I have come. The seams are not straight and do not lie flat.  They are loose and show on the front in some places. I chose puffy polyester batting that made quilting difficult which is how it ended up as a UFO. I did some straight link walking foot quilting in the borders and sashing to help everything stay together and now I will throw on some binding so that I can take it to the cabin and add some hand quilting to the blocks. 

Today I chose the laundry room to organize. It has become a dumping ground for everything that is homeless. A lot of it just needed to go away, but there is a stack for the cabin and several things that are back where they belong. 

It is certainly more functional now. Hopefully it will stay clear for at least a little while. I will add some cabinet organization to THE LIST which has now gone digital after my little bucket of paper slips fell onto the floor while I was quilting my UFO. The list keeps getting longer as each project reveals a deeper layer of chaos. 

Tuesday - A Rainbow Quilt

I found bin of random 16 patches while clearing out the ongoing project closet. This isn't all of them, but there were plenty to put together a quick twin sized rainbow flimsy that can go and live on one of the bunk beds at the cabin. No rush on this one, but a flimsy is nicer than a bin of blocks. 

The quilt rack was the project of the day. That meant sorting trough the ongoing projects and extra bags of randomness. 

I have four empty project bins now and a better idea of which projects are ongoing from last year. 

 

Monday - T-Shirt Quilt Progress

 It is back to school today, but I have a few projects still from the break. 

The t-shirt quilt top is ready to go. I got backing fabric and restocked my batting supply, so all that it needs is a few hours of time. 

Sheets came up in the task list. I got these nifty organizers, but there were a lot of extra bits that needed to go away. I had an entire basket full of old pillowcases that were sadly the worse for wear. 

So now all that is left is complete sets, two for here and two to go to live at the cabin. The last one is for the fold out sofa in the study. Those can go away now. It isn't exactly a makeover, but bit by bit things are getting tidy. How is your Monday? Massive snowstorms seem to be the big story of the day. Kurt was supposed to be flying to DC this morning, but he left yesterday to get ahead of the snow. Hopefully he will be patient enough to sit tight until the roads clear. Patient is not his strength.  

Slow Stitching Sunday - A Finish!

 

I took the last stitches in the Leap Year quilt last night and ran it through the wash. I use Crayola washables to mark the quilting lines. Those are all gone now and all the wear and tear from being carted around for years and years is gone now.  I started this quilt in 2016, appliquéing a circle in each block to represent whatever was going on in the sewing room on that day. For the most part it represents the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors of each month. 

The quilting was done with perle cotton in a rainbow of colors. Diagonal lines form crosses through each block and then a scalloped half circle form the border. I love the way the quilting crinkles up after the wash. Even if it does take me years to finish a hand quilted project, it looks great when it is done.  I am going to link up with Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts today, so be sure to head over and see the lovely hand sewing projects that are in the works

I started an organization project for the new year. I brainstormed a list of all the projects that need to be done in house - areas of chaos, backlogged clutter, messes galore. Rather than trying to tackle them all at once, I wrote each on a piece of paper. The idea is that I will pick a random task when the urge strikes and then do that thing. Yesterday, the job was the downstairs bathroom. It is connected to my sewing room and doesn't get used very often. We redid it a couple of years ago, but never fully finished it off. So first I cleared out all the randomness before giving everything a good scrub. 

I found some bathmats that used to live in a different bathroom and made a plan for towel holders and a tile backsplash. 

Kurt is going to do the backsplash for me and hang the towel bars, but it all looks a lot better and should be more useable now that it isn't a dumping ground. I also added two more jobs for me to the stack, the door needs to be painted and the walls need a second coat of paint. Today's project is sheets. That is another dumping ground that needs a good clear out. Wish me luck! 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Starting Fresh

A new year is always such a great chance to think about finishing off old things and starting something new. This will not be a big year of new starts for me as I focus instead on paring down the list on long ongoing projects. First up is Leap Year. This is a block a day quilt that has been hand quilted over a very long period of time. Hand quilting is a long and slow process and it feels good to finally be stitching the binding on to this one. It is ready for a trip through a washing machine after that as it has seen a lot of love while being carted around from place to place. You can see the ongoing t-shirt quilt in the background, that will be next on the list of projects to move along today. 

I am up bright and early this morning thanks to the renourishment machinery that is beeping up and down the beach. We are usually up early, even on weekends, but I do feel badly for the people that came for a nice relaxing beach vacation only to be greeted by giant piles of sand on a closed beach. 

Here is my one new project for now, a set of two blocks to be done as leaders and enders. The plus blocks are sashed 2.5 inch squares while the dot blocks are framed 2 inch four patches. Together they make a nice and easy background project while I find the next thing to cross off my list. A bit of organization is sure to reveal a fun ongoing project in need of a little bit of attention.

What new schemes and plans are in the works for your new year? Pink is the color for January and I hope that you have some scraps to play with this month. Whether you are new this year, returning or ongoing, it is always great to see what beautiful projects and plans come from the simple idea of using up scraps, one color at a time. 

2024 Wrap Up

It didn't feel like I had much time to sew in 2024. Starting graduate school has been a lot, and work has been busy. The usual things seem to take up a lot of time. There were hurricanes and trips to the mountains. If you had asked, I would have said I finished a couple of quilts. That is why it is good to take a look back and get an overview of the year. I did more than I thought! I did more finishing of what I started last year, but if that means that this year I will finish off what I started last year again, then that isn't a bad cycle to follow. When I retire then I will be able to have more quality sewing time, but I am still managing to squeeze in enough for now. I used Canva to make a photo collage for this year. So much cuter than what I could have come up with on my own. 

1. Hen and Chicks - Rainbow Scrap Challenge Quilt for 2024 (flimsy)
2. Plus blocks - leaders and enders (flimsy)
3. Chaos tiny nine patch
4. Dancing Blue Crumbs
5. Carpenter Star - RSC22
6. Postage Stamps
7. Diamonds
8. Wonky Stars
9. Blackford's Beauty - RSC22