Finally Putting Needle to Fabric Again!

It was so good to be home this weekend!  Although I did miss my sweet daughter (who still has not passed that @#$%^&$# stone!) and granddaughter, not to mention those cute little balls of fur!  (Click HERE if you missed the Kitten Cuteness Overload post =^..^=)

My Sunday was spent in the sewing room ALL DAY!!!  I cleaned up the clutter which had totally overtaken the room, and then I pulled out my AQUA/TEAL scrap basket.  There was not much there, but I managed to eke out my monthly Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks....

Aqua Fantasia

Hatchett blocks and leftover HST's

Lone Starburst blocks - fabrics picked and foundation papers printed & prepped

After so long away from home, my house was crying out for some attention, so I spent all day Saturday cleaning and rearranging some things in the upstairs bedrooms.  We've decided that our guest rooms look pretty sad - more like hotel rooms, and not very high-end ones at that!  There's a hodge-podge of furniture, and the wall decor is uninspiring, to say the least!  Not what one would expect in the home of a quilter, right?

So in the coming weeks, I will be redirecting my focus toward making these rooms more homey and comfortable.  Not much I can do about the furniture right now, but I can work on focusing the decor around some lovely quilts, both on the beds and the walls.  I have a variety of quilts that I use on these beds, but Moonglow is the one I want for the larger, queen-size bed.....

However, this top still needs to be quilted, so that will move up on my priority list :*)  Thanks to my friend Joanne, I sandwiched and basted this quilt on her longarm (see that post HERE), so it is ready to quilt and hopefully will get some love and attention soon!

First in the line of priorities however is our littlest granddaughter's baby quilt, and I hope to have pictures to share on next week's Design Wall Monday.

What's on your Design Wall?  

See what others have going on at Judy's Patchwork Times!
I'm also linking up with the always-fun Freemotion by the River Linky Party!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Cleaning up the Stash!

I have had a lot going on this past week, plus dealing with recovering from a sinus infection, so you haven't seen much of me here. I've been very busy though!

Here are my final blocks for the YELLOW Rainbow Scrap Challenge in June...

Hatchett blocks and resulting HST's

On the Needles, my Hibiscus Serenity socks have taken flight!  We traveled to Kentucky yesterday for a family gathering to honor my husband's father on his birthday.  Three hours there, and three hours back, so I took my knitting with me since I can knit in the car without getting carsick - Oh happy day!!!  The socks started out like this at the beginning of the trip....

All the increases were done in preparation for the heels and I had worked one heel.  On the trip, I finished up the second heel and got quite a bit done on the stockinette stitch for the leg on both socks - whoohoo!!!

I'm liking this method of Two-at-a-time, Toe-up, Magic Loop.  I would have made a stupid mistake and shorted the second heel if I had not had the first one on the needles to compare to.  And of course both socks will be the same length without worrying about counting rows or careful measuring.  You can click HERE to see the post where I show the pattern I'm using.

I really like this heel treatment called "Eye of the Partridge"!

I will be traveling all this week too - visiting with my sweet baby girl and granddaughter in Savannah TN for a few days and then in Murfreesboro for the TVQA Spring Seminar, where I am scheduled to take 4 classes in 3 days - I'm tired already just typing that!!!  But I figure I should be finished with these socks by the end of that trip and hopefully will be able to share a finish on next week's On the Needles!

In preparation for my classes, I have had to do quite a bit of unexpected work.  Pre-washing all the fabrics for the classes!!!  Why would I do that, you might ask?  I have been seeing a natural medicine practitioner to figure out some of my health issues, and we have determined that chemicals in my system are playing a huge part in my health woes.  That's really not surprising, is it?  Not in today's world.  But unfortunately, we have pinpointed the most likely culprit as overexposure to the chemicals in fabric.  Yikes!!!!  Since giving up quilting is not an option, I am now faced with having to rid my considerable stash of all those chemicals before I get to play with them :(  This is a lot of work my friends!!!!

I have to admit, I had been kinda wondering if this could be the problem for a while now, but I kept ignoring that warming voice because, well, for one thing, I am lazy!!!  Okay, that's probably the biggest reason :*D  But, the other reason is that I really don't like working with washed fabric that much.  I love the bright colors and sharp look of a crisp new piece of fabric!  I can't ever seem to get it as "sharp" and wrinkle free after washing.

See the wrinkles on the blue fabric on the right?  That's been ironed twice!!!

I'm using Best Press to put some starchiness back into it because it is supposedly chemical free.....

I'm not sure of that because I couldn't find the exact ingredients online, but that's what I'm told.  Not that I believe everything I'm told, but .... anyway.... you get the idea :*)  It helps, but I miss my crisp new fabrics!!!

I've decided on a plan of action.  All new fabrics will be washed before they go into the stash - period.  I plan to wash and dry them, then simply fold and put them on the stash shelves - I'll iron when I'm ready to use it.  Because I HATE ironing!  For my existing stash, I'll take a color at a time and wash them as I have time.  However, with FOUR classes coming up this week, I have a lot of fabric to get chemical free, fast!  One class project uses 30 different fabrics, and another uses mostly scraps - a ton of scraps!

I tried using a mesh lingerie bag to wash the smaller pieces, hoping to eliminate some of those dreaded strings....

..... but as you can see, that didn't work out so well...

These scraps....

Became this mess to untangle!!!

Here are some more pictures of my Washing the Stash Adventure for your viewing pleasure.... =^..^=

Stacks lined up by color family and waiting their turn to be washed....

Stacks of fabric for next week's classes to be ironed - YUK!!!

A huge basket of black scraps to be ironed for one class...

I'm using my Sizzix cutter to cut the strips for the class that calls for 30 fabrics, so all those have to be done before I leave on my trip.  The fabrics for the other classes are washed and will get ironed and cut while I'm at my daughter's house.  

So, I still have a lot of work to do today before I can get on the road.  I will probably not have a chance to blog between now and my return, so I will wish you all a wonderful week, filled with all that you love most!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

A BLUE Memorial Day Weekend!

I have had so much fun digging in the BLUE scraps this month!!!   My basket of scraps has been whittled down to this....

So, okay, it really doesn't look like it has gone down that much since I started making BLUE blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, does it?

But as I started digging through looking for pieces big enough to make my Hatchett blocks, I realized there are really not that many scraps left after all.  Here are the blocks I was able to make....

..... and here are the resulting HST's from the cut off corners....

A nice batch that will work well with all the other colors at the end of the year!!!

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As a reminder, here are my other BLUE blocks completed for the RSChallenge this month....

Fantasia

and Lone Starburst sections

It will be sad for me to say goodbye to the BLUES, but it's always fun to look forward to a new one each month!  Wonder what color Angela will pick for June?  Why not come join us and find out!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Polishing Off the Greens!

I managed to get in the sewing studio and whip out the rest of my GREEN blocks for the April Rainbow Scrap Challenge this past week.

Here is my Fantasia block in GREENS..... I pulled out the prettiest of the green scraps for this block - and believe me, there were not very many pretty ones to choose.  For some reason, the majority of my green scraps were either ugly or extremely dull and colorless.  Ugh!!!

And then I pulled out all the dark pieces that were at least 6-1/2" square and made Hatchett blocks out of them.  There are some real duds in here - I'm hoping they don't ugly up the quilt when I get ready to put it together!

And of course, I saved the leftover triangles and made 2-1/2" HST's .... also mostly pretty dull and so not gorgeous.

I'm telling you all, I was SO tempted to pull out the fat quarters because these scraps were not speaking to me!  Or maybe I was just blinded by the dull glare?  Many of these I got from a squares swap at my guild several years ago, and they are not what I would buy myself.  But I hate to just dump them, so I'm hoping they will play nicely in a rainbow scrap quilt - we'll see how that works out for me, right?

Bonnie says if a fabric is still ugly you just haven't cut it small enough.  

Maybe I need to get out my magnifying glass and start cutting some of these smaller LOL!!!!

Anyway, this is what I have left from the basket of scraps.......

 Some of these will be going back in the GREEN scrap bin, but I have to admit that a few will be going to The Great Scrap Bucket in the Sky ......  taking a respectful moment of silence.....

I thought I would leave you with a picture of my sewing studio because I got a new table this week!

We got the table on the left when I got my Janome 6600 - about six years ago.  It has been a great table and I love it!  It used to sit where the table on the right is in the picture.  But a couple of months ago, I decided I wanted to keep the 6600 set up for quilting and get another machine that I could keep set up for piecing at all times.  So I bought a little used Bernina 180 Artista from a girl in our guild, and last week I got a GREAT deal on a table for it!  And the insert even fit perfectly too because the previous owner had a Bernina 153 - yoohoo!!!

Originally I had a large folding table in the window cutout under the window with my extra large ironing surface on it.  We took that table out and moved the Janome table in there so the large back table would have the walls to corral large quilts, and then put the new Bernina table pretty much where the old one was.  Clear as mud?  Anyway....to make a long story even longer.....  We still have to get another floor mat, etc., but pretty much this is working out perfectly.  Believe it or not, I actually seem to have more room now after adding the new table - go figure!

Hopefully this means I will be getting some actual quilting done in the near future.....*pausing to take bets here*.....

Angela at SoScrappy announced this morning that the May color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge will be Sapphire Blues - WHOO-HOO!!!!
           We all know how much I love my blues, don't we?  
                  And especially sapphire blues, right?  :*D

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=