Declutter Complete and a Rabbit Hole

 Well , January has come and gone along 

with the declutter challenge.  I had fairly good  success 

with it this year and definitely feel lighter for  the 

release of some possessions out into the cosmos. 

You can see in the sidebar , some are ongoing and are done as 

the items come into use.  The declutter mindset really flowed over 

into everyday and I now have a tidy pantry, mitten/hat 

drawer, kitchen snack drawer, cutlery drawer, baking tools

drawer,  cosmetic drawer and night stand! Yes, I have a lot 

of drawers! Decluttering is a very good habit to add to your 

daily activities. Just a bit of organization over time can 

really create a very beneficial and soothing environment. 

Now, back to stitching and fun !

I am organizing/choosing projects for the RSC year and have

three new projects so far!  

The planning really went down the rabbit hole!

I started with the green for the RSC 2024 challenge. 

Pulled out the bits from last year fiddle sticks and

 made some waffle blocks. 

Now I had a pile of green strips, soo..

snuck over to the stash busters challenge and made up a 

bunch of 5 x 5 blocks with 2 1/2" squares for the  Irish chain.

 Now I have more left over 2 1/2" squares and strips . I found this 

lovely pattern with 36 patches so more squares and strips went

into 12 of those! 

Still more strips and some pieces now so I started this pattern

from Pinterest. Drafted it into the RSC for the year since it uses

1 1/2" strips and will be a good scrap buster. 

However now I have a bunch of color family 1 1/2" strips so I 

stumbled on this pattern by Ellie Brown (America Loves Scrap Quilts 2008) during the magazine sort. 

If you are counting , that is now four new projects found on the 

way to finishing other things!  I love how that works!

There are also some just medium colored 25 patch I came across,

so they will go into pattern #5 without too much trouble.

Just alternate the 25 patch with light and dark hourglass

blocks in the same color family. 

 

 The endless possibility worm really took hold this week . 

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Monday Musings

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday 

Midweek Makers

Wait Loss Wednesday

Free Motion Mavericks

Needle and Thread Thursday

Put Your Foot Down

RSC 2024

Patchwork & Quilts

Oh Scrap!

Sunday Stitching Stuff

Design Wall Friday

OMG January Finishes?!

 January is almost ended and I 

still have so many projects!!

Absolutely no fabric added this week. 

That statement really makes it sounds 

like I am showing great self restraint but 

it is hard to trade or get fabric on zoom calls! 

There were no finishes either but a lot of projects

were started and progress made! 

The little Christmas trees are all 

on the stockings and all Christmas 

is in storage.  So the stockings are one complete item

this month.  I've managed to make up kits from 

4 of the block piles and have 2 finished 

log cabin tops, hurrah ! 

Here are my two finished tops. 

Each measures 64" x 72" so will make nice sized twin quilts.

 

I have plans for these nice strip crumb pieces, 

 

and the magic beauty of crumb color family blocks

never fails to amaze me. 

 Next month is vacation month so there will be no sewing goal s

but as always, I will constantly be planning new projects!

Stay safe and sew on, (or at least think about it!)

Linking up with :

OMG January Finish

Sunday Stash Report

15 Minutes to Stitch

Quilt Storage

 Holidays and visitors always find us rearranging a lot 

more than just our calendars. Extra beds, 

room for seasonal decorations, and lots of gifts and goodies,

all need space so the hanging and stacked quilts need shifting. 

We decorate the railings at our house and that means

all the quilt display spots are covered with greens or 

garlands at times so the quilts have to go somewhere!

The first and most obvious is, of course on the beds. 

One friend and extreme quilter I know, has an extra

bed layered with years of gorgeous quilts!  She does 

exquisite hand applique in both cotton and wool and 

the flat storage treats the applique the best.  

When her extended family visits, it also the best 

viewing possible for the gifting of these heirlooms. 

No, sadly, she wont adopt any of us!! She did do the 

applique row on a group quilt for me so I am indeed one 

of the lucky ones!!

    I keep about 3 quilts on my bed year round so that 

cannot  be considered storage, just use, but it does 

keep them off the railings. 

I have some older utility quilts and working

quilts in linen closets, just everyday working type 

quilts and bedding.  

These two simple quillows stay with the sheets.

I made them in my early days as a quilter and they are polycotton

 print with pre-quilted backing and a topstitched pocket. 

They are incredibly durable and now get hauled about by 

the next generation. 

 This thrifted repurposed item, 2 sheets quilted over

a flannel blanket with a large pink border, gets called into 

use for everything from a picnic blanket, fort builder to a 

moving pad. It has even been a guest dog bed!

Some small hangings stay with the linens too! 

My quilts and good gifted items, (from best buddies) 

get stored differently.  The smaller items live in my 

blanket box and get rotated out seasonally so 

they see some good use and get enjoyed often. 

Great-grandfather's wing chair is a great place for 

round table toppers to be visible all year round.

Middle sized items get the quilt stack on an out of use chair. 

Great grandpas broken chair is now a beautiful accent

item holding quilts. 

The railing quilts are all stacked in a dry closet, out 

of harms way and sunlight. I say dry closet as I am from 

east-central US and any lower level closet is bound to be damp. 

My end game is to have a set of 12 quilts for our bed, 

one for each month.  Some of these are my Cozy Collection.  

So far I have 6 that qualify. The stack in the closet also has 

2 wedding quilts in that are awaiting the big day 

so the stack will decrease slightly. One will also go 

off to Saskatchewan and most of the rest will go 

back on the railing after the winter garlands come down. 

It is quite fun to revisit the quilts when they get moved 

around.  I had been planning a reversible log cabin for the 

cozy collection , but during the quilt shuffle 

I realized there are already 2 log cabins in the pile!

Many more quilts to make and lots of quilts to view. 

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Monday Musings

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday

Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

Needle& Thread Thursday

Free Motion Mavericks

Put Your Foot Down

Friday Nite Sew In 

Whoop Whoop

Finished or Not Friday

Design Wall Friday

Foto Friday

RSC 2024

Patchwork & Quilts

 

Declutter , Marie Kondo all together now!

 Well the declutter challenge has gotten under 

my skin and I found my self stuck  in the closet,

rummaging thru some candy and 

playing with sharp pointy things!!

Thank you Marie ( Kondo) and Karen ( Brown, just 

get it done quilting)!

So far I've done the first four declutter  tasks. 

Then I got side tracked by, gasp, sewing.

I have been managing to do some sewing every 

day and kept the buying to a zero!!

Then, getting ready for a trip, I had to inventory 

the deep freeze, and the kitchen freezer. Since 

the pantry needed a check too, 

I found some things for 

the drawer with the family chocolate/candy 

stash, and I  started straightening that out. The 

drawer bottom was looking ragged so I got out some 

paint and freshened up the bottom! 

 Some things were

from the drawer next door so that got the same treatment!

Barbeque skewers and turkey lifters are very sharp!

The drawers look good but I am way off task!!

The adventure isn't over and I got a bit back on the rails 

by needing my tweezers and sorted out my snips while looking!

Thirteen snips and counting, 

who knew they were such desirable items!

It looks good so now let's get stitching!!

Green squares are calling me and the chevron will not 

be finished up by sewing elves!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with :

Oh Scrap

Stitching Stuff

Sunday Stash Report

Keep on Stitching

 

The new year is well underway and I am getting lots

of stitching done this year!! We'd better use up all 

our new year style jokes while the year is young!

I'm also busy planning my stitching year ( loosely). 

All these square bits will be going together. 

This big stack of log cabins will make up 

two twin quilts and a crib sized quilt. 

The cute little stars ( 6 1/2" unfinished) will make 

great sparkle in some small quilts bordered with 

crumb strips from the block bank. 

Larger crumb blocks will also get small crumb borders. 

They may be too busy together so some solids or solid-look

fabric will be added to the mix . They are going together

in a nine patch pattern. 

These waffle blocks will have some fellows made and 

get finished up.  A basket by the sewing machine is 

full of little ends to make the pieced portions. This is a 

bit of an ongoing project.

The RSC 2024 is also in the mix.

There are three blocks in the mix with 

last year's finishing to do too. 

Here is the first RSC block of the year!

A  zipper block and a snow flake block will 

make great scrapbusters!

Linking up with a varity of bloggers really keeps me 

in touch and is a great inspriation for me. Try to 

visit them when you see a linking up with note, 

it is rewarding for them and fun for you!

Here is my record for stitching this year. 

1 

15 minujte days/week = 7/7 days

15 minute days/Jan = 13/15 days

15 minute days /20224  = 13/15

Sucess rate = 87%

I'm just going to report with a current total as I always miss the

 posting day. It is a reirement thing, sometimes 

the day of the week is just incidental.

 

Our tasks are what keep us on track. 

Here's looking forward to a wonderful stitching year!

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Stitching Stuff

Planning Party 

RSC 2024

Oh Scrap!

Sew & Tell 

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Midweek Makers

Put Your Foot Down

Finished or Not Friday

Whoop Whoop

Design Wall Friday 

Patchwork & Quilts

RSC 2024

When it's winter in Alberta, it's 40 below!

Well we're still in a deep freeze here,

when it's cold, quilter's quilt!

This zigzag's chevron quilt really took a nice

chunk out of my two and a half in strip box.

 The low volume, a fabric pile got a good hit too with

all the low volume alternate strips.

I chose to work on all eight columns at a time.

It was very easy and speedy

when the columns were shorter.

Once they got longer, they started to

hang over the back of the machine and

pull on the stitching.
Creative piling prevented that from being

an issue,and the end result is as you see here.

Today's temperatures are once again down,

hovering around −30.

It will another day for finishing up the chevron

quilt and possibly working on some

more outstanding projects.

Trimming up and then back on the wall.

Each column will finish at 61/2" wide,

but overall, it is a little bit narrowand

a little too short for a twin. I'll add one whole

column and put another section on each row

to finish the size around 58" wide and about 70' long.

This is not the final arrangement. There are

an odd and even rows so here is the new layout.

One row has a mind of its own, so it is

going to be the last row on the left.

Did you see it in the mix?

There is alway room for an odd fellow in my quilts!

I did find 2 really nice quickie quilts

to do while visiting my favorite blogs yesterday ,

so I will try to avoid those squirrels until later today.

I do love a chevron!
Stay safe and so on.

Linking up with :

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing

Handmade Monday

Declutter Challenge

 Jumping on the declutter challenge with 

Karen Brown at Just Get it Done Quilting,

I am making very good progress.  

Take out the trash was day 1, easy and 

fast. Day 2 not so good, but cleaned out the 

squatters.  The cutest is the little gnome. 

It was supposed to hold reading glasses 

but didn't work as well as planned. 

Then a large and empty water bottle and 

an empty photo /window frame.There was 

even an extra monitor lurking. I decided to 

cast to the television if I want a really 

large picture. The monitor was also too old 

to do anything but mirror my screen. 

I'm still working on day 3 & 4, magazines

and books.  I have so many books that 

I have to spread them out on my wall of 

shelves to keep the wood from bending!

A big stack is tucked by my bed for night 

reading and purging.

Still working on books and magazines. 

This challenge may turn into 

weekly instead of daily. 

There just isn't enough hours in the day. 

Here is my progress so far. 

A goodly pile of books and magazines

 for donation or sharing.

A very good gleaning from the start of the sort.

I did "rediscover" some really good finds here.  

Since I can't keep up with the daily sort, 

I'll be putting a check list on the side bar

with the list and tick it off as I go. 

There were a few categories I sorted 

out during some rainy days this summer! 

I did bags, (not one of KB's categories), 

scissors & cutters, (I didn't do snips tho, I have a 

weakness there), and quite a few household 

categories! Spices, toiletry extras, and a cleaning closet. 

Now I am going to get back to sewing and planning some

Rainbow scrapping for the year!  The next few

days will be stay home days since we are in a 

deep freeze here. Got down to 43 below last nite. 

The display on my car actually told me to 

plug in a heater , too cold!

Stay frosty and sew on!

Linking up with :

Finished or Not Friday

Friday Nite with Friends

Patchwork & Quilts

RSC 2024

Whoop Whoop!

Free Motion Mavericks