pinning is winning

these log cabin strips were looking very pretty in my sewing room where i had them hanging on blanket hangers, but i had a little more time to finish things and this was the fastest finish in the room. so i took them down, finished unpicking the misaligned strips, and got a flimsy put together.

remember how i always turn log cabin blocks the wrong way and mess them up but figured out how to work around that? well, these are all perfect and in sync. except one. just one. but that's real progress for me! i'll take it.

i didn't pin my strips the first time around, which did not work at all. the horizontal sashings didn't match up. not even close. so i decided to get my pins out and do it the longer, more tedious was. which was the correct choice.

my sashings now match across the vertical bars. yay! i was thinking as i slogged through all of this that the case for cornerstone pieces is strong. not only are the a nice design feature, they must make aligning sashings a lot more simple. but i like the look of no cornerstones on this quilt, so pinning was the right answer.

next up was the backing. i had two large pieces of wiltshire in red and strawberry thief in a deep green. i didn't use the strawberry thief on the front because it would have blended in with the dark green sashing. i have a lighter green version on the front. i think the dark looks good on the back. i included what was left of a maroon betsy and the christmas-y adelajda prints. i'm not likely to use them elsewhere and i wanted to keep some of the other two prints, so this gives me the wiggle room to have leftovers from them instead.

i had to look high and low for the strawberry thief, including going through every box in the liberty shelf that i just organized. i was certain i had a large piece in the dark green, but it was hiding. finally i remembered i started a project box for the liberty christmas quilt and found it in there. whew! that was a project. maybe i'm a tad too organized these days? or just need to adjust to being organized a little more.

pining part two - the quilt samich is put together and this is going in the handwork box for my trip.

confession - i'm not loving working with christmas colors in march. it feels wrong. we're far enough past christmas that it feels very outdated and too far away from next christmas to be exciting. what will feel good is having it done by christmas, so i'm going to take it with me anyway.

clementine appeal

i find myself with a few more days before departure than expected. so i decided to see what else i could get ready for handwork to take with me. "citrus season" was partway through quilting when i last set it aside. this is my march "stella grande" and i decided i wanted to complete it this march, finally, if possible.

every citrus season that comes and goes, i wish i had this quilt done. the blossoms are out right now, perfuming the night air and looking so pretty by day. i always hope to get a finish photo at this time of year. but, no. not this year.

what i can do this march is get it quilted and ready to handbind.

which is what i did. there was a lot more quilting to complete than i anticipated. i thought i was in for an hour of quilting and an hour to trim & bind. it was more like 3 hours quilting. thank goodness it's done.

i still have a ton of threads to bury, but that's handwork and can wait. i stopped all the diagonal lines at the border rather than running them through the piano key strips on the ends. maybe this was a bad choice. it's done, regardless.

i have lots of orange solids to choose from for the binding. i didn't want to use any already in the quilt so i could add an extra layer of citrus color. i thought about green for the leaves, but that didn't seem right. the top is supposed to be bright, but not too bold, with some softness to it, so the orange needed to be right. i had one that was on the salmon spectrum, but there wasn't enough of it. there were one or two other bright oranges that i didn't have enough of for binding either. the deep orange i tried looked red next to the other colors. drat. i even looked at some monotone orange prints, but none were the right shade.

i was getting a little desperate to have the project complete or i wouldn't be able to take it with me and binding would have to wait til next spring. but i also didn't want to just make-do with a mediocre selection i wasn't happy with. this quilt had to be right or there was no use doing it.

finally i pulled out the whole orange stack and went through it one by one. i settled on this mid-tone moda bella solid called "clementine," in part because it had a citrus name. 

it works. photographing it has been tricky. if i bump up the lighting, the orange comes through more intense than in person, so it's hard to see accurately here. if the orange is right, the other colors aren't. but it's done and i think is a good pick. or at least good enough. i know, i know. i wasn't going to just settle. but i kind of did. if i really don't like it once i get working on it, i can always take it off. let's hope it grows on me and looks good in the end.

the binding is all machine attached to the quilt sandwich now. i was looking at our citrus trees out the window and wishing the handbinding was done, too. i couldn't resist taking the quilt out for a few photos with the blossoms even though it's not complete.

next year, when these blossoms are fruit, this quilt will have it's finish photos with the new fruit and blossoms.

maybe the companion quilt will be, too. i still have all the hsts i didn't use in the border for "citrus season" and the leftovers from the backing that i want to make into a different quilt. i was a good girl and separated the backing cutoffs immediately after trimming the sandwich and added them to the project box. all i need to do now is make a new top. i love that it's ready and waiting for me here in one spot.

tackling selvages

my next organizational tackle was this bowl of selvages. i save all selvages for some future undetermined selvage project because i think they are so cute. they get dropped in this bowl close to my cutting table. after organizing all the scraps from my backing trimmings i decided it would look better and be more effective for future use if i folded and sorted these selvages.

after folding, i sort the selvages by color into these piles. once they're all folded, i'll layer them back in the bowl in rainbow order. 

all future selvage cuttings can be quickly and easily incorporated into the system.

i found this cute piece today and it made me smile because malibu is where i'll be going very shortly. more on that at some future point.

i spent a while working on the selvages, but didn't get all the way through the bowl yet. it's not urgent and is something i can come back to later. but any progress like this feels great!

 the room is looking so much better.

a clean room is much more inviting for working in.

it still has a lot going on, so much visual clutter because of all the open shelving. this is good for locating what i need easily, but doesn't make for a clean, calm-looking environment. 

i'm just glad to have it and to have it getting cleaner and clearer all the time.

party with the quilt back pieces

as i've been prepping my handwork to go, i've been entering my sewing room a lot more often than i have been the last several months. i mentioned it was a complete disaster because i haven't been using it and that i have been studying ideas for decluttering and organizing it. so as i've been in the room the last few days, i have been doing as much or more cleaning in it as i have been doing actual sewing.

each time i walk into the room to sew, i start with decluttering/organizing first. it's kind of addicting. i just want to clean it all! getting one space cleared motivates me to do the ones next to it or whatever else catches my eye.

saturday afternoon i walked in to do some machine quilting and my eyes fell on the mess of things stuffed under my pressing table. i got everything cleaned up spic and span in about 20 minutes, then i saw this basket on the floor next to it. when i'm done trimming the quilts, i grab all the trimmings of batting and backing and stuff them in this basket which is suppose to hold it until i can separate the parts and store them in their proper places.

only i don't ever get around to processing the pieces in this basket.

there are so many long strips of backing and batting all wadded up and stuffed in this basket. it's overflowing and looks a wreck. sort of like this photo does. it was supposed to be a picture of a big long strip of fabric and batting being separated from each other. that doesn't really come across with me using one hand for a photo and one to just hold, not separate, everything, does it?

i felt like doing this project next, so i started digging through the contents and separating the pieces. i considered immediately processing the fabric scraps for storage, but that would require pressing, because all the wadded fabric is wrinkled, and a lot of cutting, which could take hours or days. i only wanted to get the basket empty, so i opted to just separate and fold the pieces. pressing and cutting can wait for my next burst of cleaning mojo.

one of the helpful decluttering ladies i've been listening to, dana k. white, says to take a photo before you begin decluttering a space so you can see the progress you make. i wish i'd done that with the other spaces in the room i've recently cleared rather than just taking a finish photo when i have it looking nice. i decided to document this little project from the beginning for myself and to share. maybe it will encourage someone else to get moving.

i did not anticipate what a trip down memory lane going through these backing scraps would be! it was like revisiting the making of many of my quilts from the past nearly decade. (yes, it's been needing cleaning that long!) i'll add in some photos of the quilt backs so this isn't just a bunch of ugle scrap photos. there's a popular IG hashtag #partyinthequiltback celebrating all the fun things quilters do on the backs of their quilts. well, the hours i spent cleaning up my backing scraps felt a little like a party with my quilt back pieces. it's the kind of fun quilters have on a saturday night, right?

some pieces were skinny strings, some were massive pieces of backing, several inches wide and the full length or width of the whole quilt, which is several feet. i found this one (folded twice already) from my older son's "blue and orange wonky" quilt that will make a nice start on a different quilt back. i'm setting it aside to use on another boy quilt at some point, maybe for one of his kids someday.

sometimes when i trim quilt sandwiches, i don't cut the different sides apart from each other. i leave them joined at the corners, like i did here on "spare pennies."

these joined pieces don't fold nicely, so i had to decided where to make a cut now, then fold the individual pieces for storage. 

nicer for storing now. still so wrinkly! you can see why i decided to stick with the first step of separating and folding, leaving the pressing and cutting for later.

apparently when i trimmed "dreaming easy," i didn't even cut any of it apart. it was one big joined up piece still. 

 this is one of my favorite backs ever. i love a pieced backing, but i think my favorite pieced backs result from joining two large fabric panels with scraps or blocks from the front, like this. it feels more intentional and orderly, which my eye appreciates.

also, this quilt was completed in december 2015, by the way. i told you this basket has been doing duty and not been cleaned for a long time.

some pieces filled me with nostalgia and i literally cooed or exclaimed when i unearthed them, like these liberty scraps. i was like, "ahw, look! it's capel and mitsi valeria from 'liberty makes do!'"

this was the only bits of liberty in the basket. i think i'm generally good about processing the liberty right away because i'm either using it again soon or just because they're so precious and i make a point of saving every usable bit. i probably thought these strips were too small, but there was an inch there, so i did immediately trim these and add them to the scrap drawers.

and to my credit, there were a lot of quilt backs i've trimmed over the last decade that weren't present in this basket. sometimes i do actually put that stuff away. sometimes. but not all. in future, i hope to do all processing when i'm done trimming the quilt sandwiches.

some of the quilts had loads of leftover pieces, like grandma s's "groovy summer lover letters." 

big quilt, lots of scraps from those long quilt sides.

look, we're getting somewhere on this mess:

i'd say this basket is half empty, which is the optimistic view when you're talking about cleaning out something. half empty, not half full, is more encouraging in this situation.

one hour later: the batting scrap pile is getting bigger and the basket is slowly emptying. the stuff at the bottom was compacted (from being at the bottom), so halfway wasn't really halfway. but it's progress.

these two little pieces are very well attached to the batting and not worth unpicking. however, i can make them into small needle minders that are useful for my various handstitching cases. so i'll put them aside for now.

oh, the pieces from marmee's quilt - "penny patch 2.0, school pennies." the quilt i was making for myself, then gave to my mother to love her through her cancer, and got back in the end. very sentimental, lots of memories in these scraps. 

i found trimmings from each of my kids' stella grande quilts, all except for d3's "radiant suzy." there is a vague memory just out of reach of me processing those scraps for something i needed them for. or maybe for once i was good about separating the pieces and putting away scraps. if i find them in the scrap basket (which still needs to be processed), then i'll know.

there's a nice tidy pile of scraps from almost all of them. these could definitely be the starts for another quilt each. i like the idea of incorporating them in quilts for my children's children someday.

so much has changed since these quilts were made and this picture was taken eight years ago. another eight years and there could be a whole lot more people with more me-made quilts wrapped around them. so far i have 2.5 grandchildren, 1 grandchild quilt complete. what will happen in the next eight years? my children could have one each at least. it's a little mindboggling to consider.

i kept finding little pieces of d3's "star cookie" i made when she was four. as i found them i kept texting her photos. she was so thrilled. there are plenty of ideas we're floating for how to use these.

mainly she's just interested in having them for herself. fifteen years later she's still quite attached!

these scraps are actually a mystery because i used the exact same side strip on two different quilts. 

it could be from "star of the circus" . . .

. . . or from "valoe." 

hard to say since i used this strip on both of them. actually, thinking it through as i type, i bet it's from "valoe" because the reason i had it to use on "valoe" was that there was a large piece still left over from "star of the circus." ha! mystery solved. i definitely used the trimmings from "circus" on the back of "valoe," so anything further left would be cut from "valoe." in the end, it came from both of them, didn't it?

this is another type of quilt back i like to make: a large strip down one vertical side and several coordinating cuts stacked horizontally to fill out the rest of the backing. it's another pieced backing that has some order and polish to it.

some strips i found were quite narrow. for these, i lay them out on the cutting mat and cut off anything narrower than 1" wide. then i folded the strings up and put them in the 1" scrap drawer. in this case, processing is quick and makes sense to do promptly.

oh heavens, look at these gems i found at the bottom of the basket, haha. one of my girls must have made these totes out of plastic shopping bags with fabric scrap string handles. how fun. the clear one has all the scraps from "love all around" rolled up inside.

two hours later and i have the whole basket emptied, all the fabric scraps folded and semi sorted into piles by size.

there is so much fabric here! i did not anticipating it ending up this big. i could make a couple more quilt backs from these scraps alone.

in fact, while i was working on this project, i thought of a fun quilt idea: a scrappy top with all my solid scraps and a backing from all these backing scraps. wouldn't that be fun? i need to come up with a plan for how to make it not just a great big, jumbled, hot mess, but i have some ideas for that already. let's add it to the wip list!

just looking at the batting pile. the large pieces i folded up and put back in the basket. the smaller ones i bagged to use for stuffing.

the fabric pieces filled up a whole basket. these can now be processed for scraps when i'm ready. it's a lot more organized, accessible, and neat looking than the mess that was stuffed in and spilling over that round wicker basket.

the pressing table corner of my room is looking so much better! i can see floor and no crummy mess. everything is contained and neat. there is still a ton of visual clutter in the room because it's all open shelves storing a bajillion different items, many of them small. but when everything is stacked neatly, it looks a whole lot better.

what's next for my declutter/organization spree? i'm looking at this basket under my sewing table that has more fabric scraps in it. i've got my eye on you basket. i'm coming.