Oh, Sigh

Linking up to WIP Wedneday...

I'm so happy with this quilt top, finished it last night, very proud of myself as this is the most complicated quilt I've attempted yet and it came out gorgeous! Took a picture to post, and looked closely...

And then I noticed my humility block. It shouldn't be hard to spot. It seems I have a date with my seam ripper after Bible Study tonight. *sigh*... Just glad I caught it before I put the borders on.

I think my new rule will be to leave a completed flimsie on the design wall for a few days to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Small Victory Sunday

Things always get worse before they get better, yes? I spent an entire day yesterday (and will probably spend most of today) NOT SEWING because I was organizing and cleaning. Oh it feels like a waste of a weekend. But I do have something to show for it:

Tucked away in the corner of my closet is 90% of my fabric. I'm calling this major victory, even though everything that was in that corner is now spread all over my sewing room, meaning what? The mess is worse that when I started.  Oh well, one thing at a time.

Which actually got me thinking. Major victories are great, but no one really seems to celebrate the small victories. Those little accomplishments that seem to get you through the week. The good habits you are trying to form that you seem to forget most of the time, but there is that one day when you remember to take your vitamins, or find time to read the Bible, that really shines. For example, every time I manage to cook a meal at home or pack a lunch for work is a small victory.

 Which brings us to Small Victory Sunday! What was your small victory today or this week? Celebrate it in the comments, I'd love to hear what you accomplished that made you feel better.

DP9 - Daisy Garden?

Got frustrated with Nana's quilt the other night and needed a distraction. I wanted to try a disappearing nine patch quilt, so into the scrap box I dug. I have a box of squares of various sizes from 6 in to 11 inch and I thought they might work okay. So we're talking scrappy DP9.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this since I don't have enough of any one fabric to make a large quilt. I guess we'll see.

Excessive Messiness and Other Things

Warning 

This post contains excessive messiness, which may be unsuitable for delicate audiences.

After  this...

which upon the acquisition of new fabric stash builders coupled with the advent of a few projects turned into this...

 and this...

I finally had enough. Now generally, I don't believe in keeping up with housework. Its usually a waste of time for two reasons:

1. Its stressful

2. It takes time that is often better spent doing fun things.

3. When you die, your primary regret will not be "Gee, I wish I'd spent more time cleaning"

Did I say two reasons? I meant dozens but for the sake of brevity I will only list three. (Reminds me of that old joke... you know, the one that goes "There are only 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't...")

However, when the mess begins to hamper the fun, its time to take a step back and temporarily reassess my priorities. So today, instead of sewing, I focused on organizing. I needed a solution that would stay organized, more or less, after I dug through my stash looking for the EXACT RIGHT fabric I needed to finish a project. That is when I delved into the world of comic boards, which are relative sturdy but lightweight specially coated cardboard pieces designed to protect comic books.

And now I have this:

Shiny!

Which took all afternoon and is only a partial rendition of my total stash. But now putting fabric away is as easy as shelving a book.  My books are still on my bookshelf, if you can find the bookshelf.

On this plus side, its turns out that a bookshelf that sat vacant for a long time due to the awkwardly sized shelving is just the right size for my comic boards! WIN!!!!

One of the reasons I've been working so much on Nana's Quilt is because it is on my cutting table, i.e. in the way of other projects (the rest of which can be found in those piles pictured above).  Here is the latest.

Only five more blocks to go, one of which is half done. This is also a stash-buster!

And I did also complete the block for my block swap, and I hope to mail it tomorrow.

Gosh I love purple.

April Block Swap - Purple Bear's Paw

I joined a block swap this month! Its hosted over at www.quiltingboard.com. Every month you are paired with another quilter. You make them a quilt block and they make you one. My swap partner this month has the theme "Bear's Paw" blocks. I asked if they had any preference about color choices but they said anything goes! After some internal debate and examination of my stash, I decided to go with this color scheme:

My other option was browns/golds/fall colors, which would of course look incredibly cool but its spring. Or at least, it should be spring. Did you hear that Mother Nature? ITS SPRING! And it seemed like kind of a dreary color scheme for spring. So, purple it is! My sometimes-favorite color. This particular version of the Bear's Paw block can be found over at Quilter's Cache along with instructions for making the block.

And a quick update on Nana's Quilt... its coming along quite nicely and I still love my design wall.

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story - please see my sidebar for a permanent link. And check out some of the other great projects on that linky party!