15 Minute Spiff Up #6

Are you ready to move on? Are you tired of working on batting?  Or did you go off to your own area and make progress where you needed it the most? I was lucky with the batting -- mine was mostly organized so it didn't take me all that long.  I can't say the same for this week's chore.  Are you ready? 

Our next assignment is: 

Straighten Up and Organize Your Fabric -- Yardage! 

You already know I keep smaller pieces -- fat quarters and left over bits and pieces in baskets on top of my shelves.  You saw how great they looked several weeks ago. Now I'm attacking my yardage of 1/2 yard or more. I have to admit this wasn't my favorite assignment.  In fact, I haven't finished it yet.  But, I must admit my yardage is not in horrible shape, just messy.  

Many years ago I changed how I stored my yardage. I used the book Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space by Lois Hillock when we moved into our previous house.This was a book, not a workbook. Before, I stored my yardage in clear plastic bins on open shelving.  The fabrics were organized by color in the bins.  It worked but I had to drag out the bins, pull the lids off and rifle through them when I was looking for fabric.  Not the best situation but usable.  After reading the book I decided I would try Lois's method of folding the fabric over a ruler and then folding it in half.  That year for Mother's Day my son gave me some time to do whatever I wanted him to do.  You got it.  He was folding fabric for me -- yard after yard of it.  And, my fabric became much easier to find and use.  Since then I've kept my fabric, by color on open shelves. 

Generally my fabric isn't all that messy.  It does get plowed through and moved around and the straight piles become crooked and disorganized.  Here's what it looked like when I started the Spiff Up 6 weeks ago.  Not looking all that great.  Of course, the top of the shelf was cleaned up when the fat quarters were straightened up. 

As I said, I haven't finished this project.  But here are the shelves that have been restacked and spiffed up! What I am not going todo is work on the leftover plastic bins.  They hold odd bits and pieces of fabric by color.  When I have room in one of the basket of fat quarters and small pieces I will sometimes drag out one of the bits from the plastic bins.  I should also straighten the fabric on the top of the bins.  Most of that fabric is owned by the quilt guild and I store it down there so I don't forget who it belongs to.  

Now when I bring new fabric into the house I wash it and then fold it over an 8 1/2" x 24" ruler. If it is more than 1/2 yard I also try to mark how much fabric is folded so I don't have to unfold it to see how much is available. (Does this look familiar to last week's plan?) 

Ok Spiffer Uppers!  That's your assignment -- clean up, organize, and neaten up your fabric stash.  Whatever way you choose to store your fabric make sure you've got it organized, easily accessible and neat! I'll finish spiffing up my yardage and then figure out what area we need to move on to.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the next areas I move into will take more than a week of work to get it easily accessible and looking decent.  Let me know how you do.  

How do you store your yardage?  Yardage to me is generally over 1/2 yard but some of my pieces in my color stacks are smaller.  Just like some of my pieces in my fat quarter baskets are bigger.  Give us your best ideas.  You never know when your method will spark interest in someone else. 

I'm slowly working on getting some of my sewing goals for the week worked on. This cold is still dragging me down enough that I went to the doctor today.  Well, good, it truly is a cold and hopefully, with medication, I'll start feeling better soon. 

Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday -- February 9. 2015

I got very little done this past week.  A cold has slowed me down big time.  I'm happy if I can get 3 hours in the studio each day. Hopefully I'm getting better but it doesn't feel that way this morning.  

Valentine's day is coming up at the end of the week.  I've finally finished 3 little Valentine's shirts that will be going in the mail to the grands.  Here are the shirts.  

Sophie is our tom boy so she's getting a Ninja this year.  When we were Face Timing last night she seemed to like it. 

Natalie, on the other hand, would love to be a princess.  Although, her shirt doesn't fit the "princess" theme it is full of bright colors and pink. I love the design but, oh my, it took a long time to do all those different colors and lay down all the fabric pieces. I don't think I got the fabrics as flat as they could have been.  But I'm pretty sure Natalie will like it no matter if it is wrinkled. 

Ellie is a bit too young for me to figure out what she really likes and dislikes.  Maybe her mom and dad have but I haven't thought to ask when I've spoken to them. But I do know she is Toadally Lovable! 

All of these designs are from Designs by JuJu.  If you like these, sign up for her emails as she has sales on a regular basis. 

I did get a quilt or two on and off Ruthie recently but nothing I can show pictures of yet. (Well, one I could but I'm not sure I got a photo of it. Oops!) 

What about the goals this past week? Not a particularly successful week. 

Week of February 2, 2015

Quilt charity quilt√ and another quilt (sorry, secret things happening here!)√ 

Get the borders on the Wild Dog Quilt

Do some embroidering√

Finish making backing for the red, white and blue pinwheel quilt, load it on Ruthie (ugh, see below! At least a few more seams are done) 

And, now what I hope to get done this week. 

Week of February 9, 2015

Mail embroidered shirts to the grands

Finish the backing for the r, w, and b quilt and get it loaded and quilted

Get the borders on the Wild Dog Quilt

Pick another UFO quilt to work on and get to it!
Send a quote regarding a couple of older quilts to be finished for some friends

Have you ever finished a quilt from old blocks?  I have both a quilt top and some old blocks along with miscellaneous fabrics some friends passed on to me in hopes I could finish them for their parents.  I'm sure I can do it but I've never actually done it.  It appears the two I've focused on are from the thirties.  One is already a top but the piecer wasn't too interested in accuracy.  When it is quilted it will definitely have puckers and folds in it. I doubt anyone will mind if it can just get to a usable state.  Have you ever done this type of work?  I'd love to hear your ideas and any suggestions on pricing.  

That's it for me today.  I'm heading to the studio to actually finish the r, w, and blue backing.  Late yesterday afternoon I figured out how to get it to the right size.  Yea.  I'm am definitely looking to get something of mine finished soon! 

I'm linking with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday. 

Happy Quilting All! 

15 Minute Studio Spiff Up #5

I have to admit I am avoiding certain areas of my studio because, um, er, because I can't do do a 15 minute clean up/organize on them.   It will be more involved and I have to commit to a much longer time frame.  Pretty soon I'll pull up the big girl pants and do at least one of them.  But NOT today. 

Today's assignment is: 

Organize and Straighten Up Your Batting Collection

Not everyone will really need to do this, but as a long arm quilter, I do. Luckily I'm pretty organized with my batting already.  So here's the organized part although I did spiff it up just a bit.  All unopened packages went to the bottom shelf, the top shelf has remnants of batting.  It looks so much better when I've got mostly new, unopened batting packages, especially if I buy the rectangle versions rather than a rolled version.  

Here's what I do.  I tend to buy batting from Jo-Ann Stores when it goes on sale and I have a 15% off all purchases coupon.  It can be darn right inexpensive that way.  So that is mostly what you see on the botton shelf.  I use a permanent large tip Sharpie to write what batt it is, the size, fiber content and what I paid for it on the side of the plastic bag.  As I use it, I measure and mark how much is left on the outside bag and stash it on the top shelf. (Ok, I confess, I really did move the used ones up just this week but it looks so nice to have that row of unopened bags ready to go.)  I tend to look at the used bags before I consider the new ones unless it is a big quilt.  

Once pieces get smaller they move from the plastic bags to a clear storage bin usually stored under the long arm.  You can't see it here and I failed to take a picture of one, but every one of the pieces of batting until that hot pink paper, has a note pinned on it saying what type of batting it is, whether it is washed and the size. I've been doing this for years and it does help when I need to find a smaller piece of batting or if this tub is getting too full and I need to use some up.  Since I make smaller quilts too this is a good place to find littler pieces without cutting into a bigger,more useable piece. 

This time, I decided it made a LOT of sense to list these on a spread sheet on the laptop.  Hey, I wouldn't have to go through each piece to find something that might be usable.  So that's what I did.  I'm sorry to report that I didn't even THINK of adding the new batting packages and the somewhat used batting packages that I store under the cutting table.  That would be great too. 

I also have a bag in the closet that I stash smaller pieces of batting.  Sometimes I do throw stuff away, but I try to find a use for all of it.  One thing I've been doing for years and really like is cutting the cotton battings into smaller pieces so when I clean out a bobbin area or oil a machine I have something close at hand to wipe off the lint and oil.  So I cut 3 x 3" pieces or so and store a pile of them by my two major machines.  I don't go through them quickly but I do put them to use.  (Feels great to use this before throwing these pieces in the trash can. Did I ever mention I'm from California and I really try to recycle, compost, reuse stuff?) 

This wasn't a very time consuming job for me because I do keep up with my batting pieces.  It has proven very worthwhile and helpful. Hopefully you can organize your batting and measure and mark it so you can find usable batting more easily.  I love my system but think about what would work for you.  And, if you don't want to tackle batting this week, pick an area you want to work on.  We don't have to be in lock step.  I've got to decide on my next area and get on it.  

With all the great spiffing up happening around here I've had a set back of sorts.  Someone has brought me some fabric that had been their mother's and grandmothers'.  There are quilt tops, blocks, cut pieces and just fabric.  I've agreed to make or finish a few quilts for them. Several of the boxes went back as the fabric was for dressmaking.  Here's a pile of what is left.  I need to organize it and restore it in the boxes and bins it arrived in.  Some will be going back to the mom because she has a hard time letting go.  The fun part is that several of the blocks and pieces are wonderful 30's fabric.  It will be time consuming but I think it will be fun to work on. 

I was so excited to finish quilting and binding one of my UFOs this past week. I am definitely motivated by drawing lines through lists.  I went to my spreadsheet of UFOs ready to mark something finished and realized I didn't have it listed.  WHAT! NOT LISTED?  But, it was a UFO.  What happened to my hands on every UFO event? It finally dawned on me that this was a top (and had been a top for 6+ months.) I have most of my tops sitting in my closet either with a backing or in need of a backing.  Can you imagine how disappointed I was because I couldn't mark it off as finished  Yea, silly but what can a girl say? I do need to start a spreadsheet for finished projects so I can easily see what has been done this year. 

Now, it's off to a haircut, lunch with friends and a little quilt store shopping.  

Happy Quilting All!