Giving Thanks

I was so thankful to have a full week off of work. What a nice change it was to spend hours playing with fabric and sorting through scraps! I finished up my last few assignments for graduate school this term, which means that I have a break until the second week of January. I plan to enjoy every single minute!

I played some more with some crumb strips to use as lattice strips. These would be fun to do with receipts. The crumbs are all in little color segregated baggies, so they are easy to play with in small doses. 

I have been sewing a lot with squares lately, and I thought it would be fun to use my strip bins for something different. So here are some 2 inch strip polka dot blocks. I sewed a few for fun ad then kitted up a bunch until drawer had some satisfying open space. Each block needs to strips that are 6.5 by 2 with two matching squares. Then a contrasting square comes out of the square drawer and they are ready to sew. 

Then I worked on the 2.5 inch strip drawers which were quite stuffed. I didn't have a pattern in mind yet when I decided to cut lots and lots of bricks which are 2.5 by 4.5. There were some vintage fabric strips buried in there, it was good to use them up. 

Then I slept on it and decided on simple stair step blocks which can be arranged like log cabin blocks. That led to some 2 inch bricks which are 2 by 3.5 which I tried out in a whirly gig layout. 

Then I set a few 1.5 inch postage stamps by the machine to use as leaders and enders. I just hate to end a seam without something sitting under the presser foot to hold the threads in place. 

That left just enough time to throw the hexie zipper case into the car and head out for Thanksgiving in North Carolina with Kurt's family. It didn't go quite as planned due to some unexpected health issues with Kurt's fathers wife, but she should be feeling better soon I hope. I am scheduling this to post early on Saturday, by then we should be on the road and headed home again! It was an unusually long drive up on Wednesday, but hopefully we will have better luck on the way back. There should be some time to put the prepped hexies together into blocks. After that I will take a turn to drive. Kurt and his brother had to drive his father and sister back home on Thursday, so they are a little bit done right now. It will be great to see home again. It was great to catch up with family, but being home is also nice. I hope you all had a lovely holiday.  Did you find some time to sew?

Thanksgiving!

I have been on a bit of an organizing binge lately. It started because the blue bin was overflowing. So now there is one bin for light blue and one for dark blue. If I had known ahead of time I was going to have two dark bins, the first one would have been darker, but now they are not overflowing. I still need black/grey and brown. 

I also pulled out strings, crumbs and triangles for their own sections. For fun, I started sewing these 2.5 inch strips out of crumbs. I might cut them down and use them around smaller squares. These were WOW layer cake squares that I got when Joann's was going out of business. They are too white and large, but I will still keep sewing some more crumb squares. They are small and simple to make a batch on a week night. 

In graduate school news for the week, my dissertation topic has been approved.  That means I am officially a doctoral candidate. I just need to wait for my committee members to be assigned. Now one of my two classes for this term is over. If I can power through a couple of assignments this weekend then I will have a nice long break for the holidays. 

I definitely have some plans to sew some more today. I have an entire week of for Thanksgiving! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I am looking forward to it. I have a few flimsies ready to quilt. That would be a fun way to spend a holiday. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Tangents

 I spent an evening this week catching up on you tube videos and taking the paper out of the string blocks that I brought back from Virginia. Some of these will be turned into circle blocks, but some will be cut down into 8 inch blocks with white sashing strips in a rail fence setting. I spent another evening sketching block ideas of graph paper. One extra evening was spent trimming down and sorting through more strings. At this point it is hard to walk through the sewing space, but it was still a fun week. I got my concept paper for my graduate school dissertation back as approved last night. So excited for that milestone! Today we are off to see the school play which is Beetlejuice, but there might still be some time to sew mixed in there. Perhaps a bit of a clean up and some hexie time? How is your weekend shaping up?

ScrapHappy Saturday - wrapping up and planning ahead

 

We are in Virginia right now on a weekend getaway instead of in Jamaica. We have resort credits and flight credits and can hopefully reschedule for spring break. I thought it would be good to bring some sewing with me. I've been thinking for a while about what I could bring here to have an ongoing sewing project that would be separate enough from everything else. And so I decided on strings, I had quite a few, and so that led to a bit of sorting out. 

That led to plans for what to do with strings, and this is one possibility. I stuffed in all the strings that would fit in my carry on along with a phonebook. I will see what I can make out of all of that. 

How is your end of year starting to wrap up?  Are you finishing up or starting to plan ahead?

ScrapHappy Saturday - November!

 

Welcome to a new month! There is no new color for November, instead it is time to collect and assemble.  My month needs to begin with a bit of a cleanup. I've got new scraps and partial collections and I am not sure what else all going on. Figuring that out is first on my list. 

Thursday trivia was Halloween themed. All the kids came to school in costumes yesterday which was festive if not educational. We will definitely not be headed to Jamaica next weekend. Our resort was spared the worst and hopes to welcome guests back before the end of the month. We might be able to reschedule for spring break. I hate to go to work when I have already taken time off, so maybe we will just head to Virginia instead. Kurt will already be there for work, so I could join him for some fall fun. I could chop some wood and do some projects. Not exactly the same as a beach vacation, but it could still be fun. 

Las night a palm tree cast a shadow on the side of a condo as we walked home from date night. How is your end of the year starting to shape up? There are two months left to assemble your blocks and think about what can still turn into a quilt before the new year begins. Misterlinky is below. Please share with us all.