Hide and Seek

As I grew out of childhood and into my teens, I remember thinking how tedious this game was, especially as The Seeker.

Its allure continues to dim the older I get, logarithmically I'd venture to guess.

As I close out August staying inside and away from the punishing Texas heat, chipping away at several piles in an effort to get them from over- to merely whelming, I find myself seeking things that "just a minute ago" were right there at my fingertips.

That new dryer smell

The heating element came in Friday, just as The Loud and I were completing our Income Tax return (with a satisfactory bottom line). I had it installed by the afternoon, and it was a joy to behold not only a warm glow emanating from the back of the rotating drum, but three levels of warm glows!

Racking 'em up

For many years, due mainly to being away from my home for 2 months out of 3, most of my flimsies were hung 2- and 3-deep on seven over-burdened dowels.

As mentioned recently, most of the N1Cs had been finished and donated, the last one was the project at hand, and thus was exposed this Bright Hopes flimsy

which I put in this box

for Size Reduction Treatment. I then took some time to take a closer look at what was left on my storage rack.

Stash

As soon as I saw the donated partial bolt of fabric I knew exactly what flimsy it was meant for, so I took it home with me after one of the Community First! Quilters meetings. The sheer amount of fabric made it a good candidate for trying the folding-and-pinning method of washing/drying (works wonderfully, and well worth the effort).

(I know, you feel like you jumped in at the middle of the story, don't you? It'll resolve soon.)

Recently,  after washing/drying the last couple of quilts and measuring how much shrinkage resulted, I padded the raw flimsy guidelines to 74"x94" (for a Twin). Suddenly, that perfect piece of backing yardage was a smidge too small, and I'd have to embiggen it with some of my stash.

My stash isn't huge; I'm not sure I'd even categorize it as "large", but in it I found two perfect pieces.

I'll show the resulting back in a future post, once I've finished quilting everything together.

This serendipitous find led me to ponder a few things, such as 1) how great it is to have a place (or two) to donate my handiwork, 2) how great it is to have a definite size (limit, in some cases) to work within, 3) how lucky I continue to be to have just the right fabric on hand for making/finishing these tops, and 4) would anyone care what my stash looks like?

Happy Little Clouds

Quilting has begun. After pondering several designs that I could possibly accomplish without a stencil, I finally decided to just do wavy lines back and forth.

More movement

A Magpie friend popped in last week and took the boxes of her cousin's fabric (and a box residing in my bedroom containing a sewing machine, its extension table, and a few finished projects) that have been underfoot for several months. The fabric-filled boxes (one held blocks {accounted for here and here}, two were stuffed with chili and Dio de los Muertos fabrics) had a short residence under the ironing board.

The boxes left my house approximately 15 yards and one project (Lady of the Lake) lighter. Carla will insist on sharing!

MixierMatch Blocks

Nann recently posted about some MixMatch blocks she dis/uncovered. Both Nann's and Shelly's versions required sizes that didn't exactly fit the scraps I cut and save, using Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User System.

So I wondered (and commented about) what would happen if, instead of cutting strips down, I used bricks I'd already cut to size. In Nann's version, resulting in a 5" (finished) block, she started with three 1.5" squares sewn in a row resulting in a 3.5" strip. To the top and bottom of that strip she sewed 1.5"x3.5" rectangles.

Well, my scraps are cut to 2"x3.5" bricks. What would happen if I used those instead? The following round in Nann's version would need 1.5"x4.5" strips. But I've got bricks cut 2.5"x4.5". What would happen if I used those instead?

So I did, just to answer that question: what would happen?

Three 1.5" squares flanked by two 2"x3.5" bricks, topped and bottomed by two 2.5"x4.5" bricks.

Forward Motion

Pin basting--YAY!

This is what makes me feel as though I'm really making progress: getting out the binder clips, unrolling a hunk of batting, and pouring out the safety pins.

How's it hangin'?

I'm tall, so when I look around for additional storage space, I generally look up. Years ago I rigged up a couple of systems in my sewing room that allow me to store things up high, but access them easily without using a step ladder. It's evocative of the method of storing a quilt frame, decades ago, by raising it to the ceiling when the quilt wasn't being work on.

Flimsies & backs awaiting sandwiching then quilting

Upper left: canvas "sweater" storage system

Here's what I did:

in which (Mostly) Everything Goes Back

First, let it be known that I am a Wench with a Wrench. I own tools and I know how to use them. In fact, the literal last time Hubby bought jewelry for me, I returned it and bought a reciprocating saw and a table-top miter saw with the money. I mention this because getting this garage put back together wasn't simply a matter of rearranging pieces. Some adaptations were made, thanks to the plethora of saws and other tools I had at my fingertips.

Truly, the best kick in the butt I got to getting this garage into a workable condition was being forced to move nearly everything out of its place. From there, I could view that corner as a blank slate, a clean canvas, and fill it to suit our needs, not what had always been.

There were 2 non-workable and large items in the previous configuration: the work benches. One (on the left wall) served only as a horizontal surface on which to dump stuff, and took up valuable real estate in the process (as well as blocked off a portion of the main bench). It was moved to the back porch, which really did need another horizontal surface on which to store a large table saw. That's fodder enough for its own post!

Garage redux/redo, Part 1

When last we left our intrepid explorer, she was staring at a partially empty garage:

It hadn't always been so. In fact, the intervening years had not been kind. At some point I had taken a 270° series of shots so I could make plans in my comfy recliner of how I was going to fix this increasingly-unworkable room.

Shelves, cabinets, and pegboards abounded, but they only seemed to add surfaces on which to dump more crap.