The View of My Cutting Table

More specifically, the view of my cutting table right now.

Here's the process.

Open a batik drawer, grab out a handful of fat quarters, half yards, or whatever sizes pieces are hanging around in there.

 Take them to the cutting table and and start slicing off strips.

Every piece gets a 2 inch strip or two cut off.  And one of the 2 inch strip gets two squares cut off for the Red Tin.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat!

By working in sections on each drawer/color, the cutting is manageable.  It's something I can work on in the 'In Between Moments'.  Then it's not such an overwhelming huge project. Because, let's face it - cutting every piece of batik I own is going to take some time.  I'd just not rather it suck up all my dedicated sewing time.

However, while the Red Tin may have the capacity to hold all the 2 inch squares, the dedicated strip bin is getting rather full.

I relocated the 2 inch strips to another container. 

They'll need to be sorted by color family too, while I'm at it.  Wonder if the DH would mind helping with that project down the road?

Stitching the Rainbow!

Rainbow Pony Pad, that is.

Meet Dudley.

Dudley - Dressed up for youth day camp fun show

Isn't he the cutest little pony?  He's a small Shetland pony up at the barn and his color (all the critters are assigned a color for their individual equipment - halters, saddle pads, grooming boxes) is rainbow!  But his small size causes some fitting issues. 

Sempstress to the rescue - ANYTHING can be made over with a bit of stitching.  In this case, we found a gently used rainbow saddle pad that needs some serious shortening. Like 5 inches taken off the back length. 

Binding half sewn back on.

The bad thing - and it really on a minor issue - is that it has to be handsewn back together.  Even trimming the inner cell cushion back from the edge leaves canvas and a thick fleecing to be sewn.  The singer workhorse machine took one look at it, made an attempt using upholstery thread and said "No way. Not going through that!"  So it's back to me, hand stitching the layers together and then sewing the binding back on.  The problem is I am really short on utility needles around here and I've already broken one in half.  Have to be really careful to get the rest of the rainbow sewn with the remaining needle I have so as not to have to even go near a store.  Maybe I can put them on the shopping list for the DH.

And speaking of rainbows - more of the daylillies are blooming. A darker rose red and a double peach.

I need to find a pretty lemon yellow one to add to the collection.  And I need to split and replant them next spring. Right along with the monster hostas that have overrun the shade garden this year. You can just barely see the fern and the astilbe back there.

Stash Enhancement

Right - I'm the one who just said last week that I need to go through my stash and start cutting some of it down in to the most used strip sizes so that more of the fabric becomes something, not just hanging around looking pretty and taking up space.

I was innocently driving home from a midday meeting and decided to take some of my lunchtime break at LQS... or two. I know many quilters are enjoying the Row by Row experience during their summer travels.  I hadn't given it much thought and I'm not really inclined to take on another  quilt project right now BUT I like the fun fabric license plates.

And then a few fat quarters followed me home. It was too humid outside to dry these on the line, so I had to settle for the downstairs bathroom - the lighting is not great for pictures so image these brighter - purple, red, orange and blue.

And then more neutrals followed the fat quarters.

Colors are a little richer in person

The only good thing I can say it that these pieces have already had strips cut off of them and added to the scrap strip bin.  I even cut down 2 inch squares from the new fabric and added them to the Red Tin.

The process of cutting squares from the batik stash and adding them to the Red Tin has begun. Going forward, I am trying to continue to 'Shop the Stash'.  Just need to stop driving past quilt shops!

A Semi-Squishy Package in the Post

I LOVE packages in the Post.  This one was beautifully packaged and arrived quickly from April's 1930 Featherweight Shoppe.

Look at the orange rick rack!

Not only was it pretty but everything was carefully padded and protected, especially the light bulbs.

New bulbs, new needles, extra bobbins, replacement screws, more oil and motor lube.  The Featherweight Girls are going to be soooo happy tomorrow - Machine Spa Day!

New Tin Box of...

FABRIC, of course!

Yep - this is the beginning of a new project.  

It all started back on July 1, when Bonnie Hunter announced that her Leader and Ender Challenge for 2015 would be - Tumblers.   I personally don't care all that much for tumblers - not enough to invest the time for even a lap quilt, at the least.  But I have scraps. 

More specifically I have strip scraps.  And I recently added to them from Patriotic Twirl.  What's a quilter to do.  I have a LARGE stash, I have a small strip scrap bin.  Hmmmmm....

I came up with the brilliant idea to go through the 2 inch strip scraps and cut what I some of each down to squares. Square can be sewn together even easier than tumblers (no figuring out of the required slight offset). 

Just look at what was in the strip bin.  These are just big enough to be 2 inch squares and should have been cut down *before* going into the strip bin. 

Zip with the rotary cutter and they are now squares, ready for the new 2 inch square tin. I worked on this during part of my lunch break today. This is the pile of scraps from the scraps. 

I also decided that it would be a good idea to go into the stash and cut some strips of my most used widths from every piece of batik I own and move them to the strip bin - to be used! 

This is going to take awhile. But I'm thinking it might make a really interesting postage stamp lap quilt.  Or, given my stash size, maybe king size. This will definitely be a long term project as I'll sew them in between other projects.

Cherry Fabric and Salmon Lillies

I don't have a new quilting project underway yet to a point to have any pictures to share.

But I did want to share a new fabric acquisition.

And this salmon day lily is blooming out back. Love this color! 

And the orange day lily is so vibrant!

Hopefully, I'll have a new project to share soon.  The other day, I had a great idea for some beautiful new orange batik I got.  I didn't stop, sketch or make any notes.  Since then, I can't for the life of me remember what the project idea was! 

sigh......

Cross your fingers the idea decides to return to my brain!

Pink is Finally Finished, too!

Okay, so I've been dragging my feet getting the binding hand stitched but I finally sat down on Sunday and got her done!

She still needs a name though...

It's not like binding is all that hard, for Pete's sake. The rest of Sunday found me puttering around the house - laundry, cooking, on the interweb, etc.

I did do some easy rolled hemming on some scarves. Which led to me cleaning out & oiling Wild Cherry.  She was a bit linty after machine quilting Patriotic Twirl.  I did have two Featherweight learning moments, too.

1. If the set screw on the belt pulley is loose, the pulley shaft will migrate out of the motor.  Ask me how I know! 

YIKES!! Not good!

 Fortunately, I was able to reach out to some experts, confirm the problem, what I needed to do and now everything is working perfectly.

2.  There has been a lot of talk of LED replacement light bulbs for the FW, and how they don't get ridiculously hot.  I figured I'd wait until my regular incandescent light bulb burned out before I replaced it.  As I usually just piece on the FW, I thought it wasn't a big deal.  When it gets hot, I turn off the light and use my gooseneck Ikea light. Then this happened last week (it's already mostly healed - it was worse!).

OW!!  Since I chose to machine quilt Patriotic Twirl on the FW, I had to wrestle it a bit in the smaller throat space.  Which means my hand ended up getting burned.  I'll be ordering the LED bulb later this week.