Rulers, Gadgets and Stuff

As quilter's we are always getting new rulers, gadgets and Stuff.  Then comes the problem of how to organized it so we know what we have and where.

I've gotten a few rulers over the years and I had been keeping them in a fabric bin on a bookshelf.  But I've gotten rulers that come with instructions and patterns.  Where to keep those?

I came up with this idea for now.  A two pocket notebook.  

It all fits on my bookshelf.  The pattern stays with the ruler and I don't have to shuffle through it all to find the ruler I want.  We'll see how this system works.  I may be changing it if I see something else.

Weekend Fun

It's been a busy weekend.  The weather has been so beautiful and warm that everything that we normally do in the Spring has been pushed up to now.  Chores that I do in April and May are needing done now.  But that's OK, I'm loving the weather.  Saturday we went to a Master Gardener Conference and we always come away inspired and full of ideas of things we want to try and do.  Went to a lecture by one of the owners of Loess Hills Lavender Farm.  We're thinking of adding lavender to the butterfly garden as they seem to love the plants. I currently have it in my herb garden.

Today I've been working on winged triangles for the Orca Bay Mystery quilt and tracing and cutting out hexies.  Not sure why I was in the mood to press fabric and get the hexies ready, but it was very relaxing.

I love 1930's reproduction fabrics.

I bought this case at Joann Fabrics years ago.  

The top of the case is vinyl and it's great to see all of your fabrics.  I'm putting what's leftover of the fat quarters in here and the bigger pieces are being wrapped on the comic boards and going on the shelf.  I think the desire to cut hexies may have been related to organizing my quilting room.  It's still a big mess of fabric everywhere.    

Add It Up and Box Number Three

Here it is, Wednesday!  Time for add it up.  Loving the progress I'm making.


Step 1  228 quarter square triangles - DONE
Step 2   72 blue string blocks - DONE
Step 3  350 half square triangles - DONE
Step 4    64 red string blocks -DONE
Step 5  700 black triangles -600 are cut out
Step 6  112  2.5 inch black squares -DONE
            112  2.5 inch light squares - DONE
              52 2.5 inch red squares - DONE
              26 light Ohio Star blocks - DONE
              26 dark Ohio Star blocks - DONE
Step 7  sew the 700 black triangles to the 350 half square triangles (2 on each side) - zero
Step 8  127 red string triangles combined with the 254 half square winged triangles - zero
            100 half square winged triangles set with 100 light triangles - zero
Step 9  The big finish  put all of the blocks together in rows and sew rows together. -zero
Step 10  Make borders using 100 blocks made in Step 8. - zero

 Now for box number 3.

These are leftover from the Craft Fair days.  I have 7 half towels and the tops are made for all of them.  The paper pattern in the upper left belonged to my mother.  I made a plastic template to use when I made them. I'm going to finish these off and keep them.  They need to be sewn together, a button hole made and a button sewn on.  May take a while, as I'm going to squeeze it in while working on Orca Bay.

Box Number Two

Box number 2 has come off the shelf to reveal it's contents.  Here it is:

The date on the back of the pattern is 1989.  The 2 yards of beige cotton and the seed packet fabric is going into the stash and the pattern will be given away.  We moved into our house in 1997, so this was almost 10 years old at the time of the move.  Time for it to move off the shelf.  How bad is that????

I also spent time cutting out triangles for the Orca Bay Mystery quilt.  It's still moving forward, I haven't stalled out yet. :-)

Multitude

I have a multitude of projects, like any good quilter has.  I was looking for something in my quilt room closet and thought differently about this:

I have all these nice little white boxes of projects on the shelf.  The problem is they have become a "decoration" in my closet. (Read I haven't touch them since I placed them there when we moved into the house 13 years ago.)  I decided that I'm going to start taking one project box at a time and decide if I'm truly going to finish it or should I just put the fabric back in the stash.  If I'm going to finish it, I need to work on it NOW.  My goal is to clean those off so I can put fabric there. I want it to look like this.

The first box held this:

 Which were made into these pins.
I took them to Quilt Day for Quilts From The Bluffs and we will use them for extra name tags.  A silver sharpie works great for writing your name.  So I got a UFO done, 1st one for the year!!  WOO WHOO!  And I decluttered another item!

Organization

It's been all about organization recently.  I feel the need, as do many other people, to have some organization in my sewing space.  If you follow Quilting Gallery, you know that  they have been doing weekly spots on organization.  Plus, seeing all the wonderful sewing rooms and quilt studios on Pinterest and other blogs, makes me want my room to be more like that.

So tonight on my way home from work I stopped at the Comic book store and picked up magazine boards to use for fabric.

My sister, Deb, at Cluttered Quilter did this and she has a little tutorial on folding fabric.  So I'm going to give it a try. Just need to keep taking the baby steps to getting to an organized state.  

Progress

I have one row all sewn together.  I love the orange added to this, it's the pop it needs. (In my opinion.)

I'm still cleaning and decluttering.  I wanted to share another blog that has given me so many great ideas.  It's called Ask Anna and she has so many solutions to things that at times I think to myself, "Now why didn't I think of that?"  Hope you enjoy the site.

Organization

As you know I've been cleaning my sewing space and I've been very inspired by a blog: The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking .   She has wonderful ideas and I want to do that to my home.  The past month has been 31 days of Organizing with lots of ideas.  I cleaned my bathroom yesterday and am doing over some  drawers.

My sister, Deb at Cluttered Quilter talks about a new site she has found which is also very inspiring to me.  (Can you guess that my sister and I have the same problem? Organization and lots of clutter?) Check it out at her blog.  I love the ideas.

By the way, I made some more string blocks.

 And worked on the quilt blocks I started at the Retreat.