Count Me in, 8s & 10s

 Woohoo! It's turning out to be a good 

morning here in the sewing room.

The bottom of a rabbit hole,

8s x10s are coming along nicely.

The real name for this pattern

is something like 6 and 8s.

I'm using an 8" and 10" variation of my own,

solely because it worked with what I have.

Strings of various widths are edged

 by black on  two opposing sides.

Here is my progress.

I have enough for about 1 1/2 twin

sized quilts.  I'm aiming for 2 twins. 

Here is my source.

A bin of string/scraps and other 

hidden treasures.  Look what I found!

A project ready to go:

A dazzling pile of chunks:

(look at this one!)

and a raft of light/low volume strips

I'm going to be stitching up the blocks into tops 

as soon as I get the dividing

black strip on the last few edges.

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

SrSPS

To Do Tuesday

Needle & Thread Thursday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Patchwork & Quilts

RSC 2025

Oh Scrap!

Stitching Stuff

Let's Get Some Stitching Done!

 I am just really itching to get stitching

My month-long holiday,

recovery time from the month of holiday, 

and catching up with family 

has kept me out of my sewing room way too long.

First up is some mending.

Redoing the bottom of some snow pants for next winter,

and putting some flaps on coverall pockets.

Finishing up a couple chores will let me get back into

quilting some tops.

In the meantime though, I found quite a few

new projects to fill my time.

I came across a quilter at Heartstrings doing a bunch

of different colour rail fences.

They would be good for a late night

stitching marathon, to get me back in the groove.

I did manage to finish up two charity tops.

I'm fast becoming a binding Queen!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up to :

To Do Tuesday

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings

Thread, thread , what to do , what to do!

 Since my recent inheritance of a quantity of thread,

(not really inheritance but it sounds so cool),

I'm having a bit of trouble deciding 

how to store it, display it, sort it etc.

It's currently in about four places in the sewing workroom,

Since there's an OCD individual residing inside of every  quilter,

I'm having a great time figuring 

out what to do and playing with it all.

So, in a little break between stitching the Irish chain tops, 

 I sorted out all the spools that were still in their new packaging.

Then I pulled out everything that I have currently

 been storing in Ziploc baggies.

I saw this being done by a fellow quilter 

at a retreat and thought it was a great idea.

All the shades of the color can be seen at a glance.

It makes sourcing that perfect match much speedier.

You can also tell where you're lacking in variety.

Then I took a cruise of the drawers where I gently placed

(crammed) a bunch of the Legacy thread

Can you see the Little Treasures here?

Ten wooden spools. 

My BB collects these and saves them in antique jars.

I think I may be overwhelming her if I give her all I'm finding.

Some of the more interesting colors,

 I wind onto bobbins to save for my use.

Leaving a bit of color on the spool makes a wonderful display.

I do the old "take a big piece between your hands and yank" test,

to see if the thread is still viable.

It's certainly not an engineering tensile 

test but it seems to work for me. If it is at all

weak, fragile, excessively linty, it goes off to

the crafty bin for use in kid's pictures.

I also pulled out and reviewed

my travel case of smaller spools.

 One small sewing room Bandit,

likes to organize these by color every time 

he visits and wants to play downstairs.

This little case goes to retreats 

and sewing days to provide backup for my 

main color selection.

Some quilters find certain machines 

only perform well with specific threads.

So far, the mishmash of thread I 

use has worked well. I find difficulty 

only with thicker threads. Usually a 

needle change does the trick. 

My new sewing room buddy is calling me!

Stay safe and sew on !!

Set the Timer!

This week will be a catch up 

week, recovering from a fantastic 

train trip thru the Rocky mountains.

 A recent influx of scraps has 

made me very happy but a bit overwhelmed. 

Never fear tho, the blog verse will provide. 

I have a good friend and we chat every morning 

and go thru  a few blogs to see news and new ideas. 

We ran into ... SCRAP VORTEX ! 

 This should come with a bit of an echo. 

It may really help with my scrap load!

It is basically crumb quilting but uses only right angles. 

The lack of other angles definitely creates a different look!

The original post came from 2015, and although the maker

has retired from blogging, there is still lots of info on her site. 

My plan is to work on this project every day I am sewing!!

 I am going to try  crumb blocks using on triangles also

since I seem to accumulate cut offs at an alarming rate!

An ambitious idea but I can do it!  A fifteen minute 

goal will help get me started. Once it is moving along , 

I will try to incorporate it into my Stop and Gos.  A bit 

under the needle at each beginning and ending will certainly 

cut down on rethreading! 

 My little singer only has a human needle threader! 

I've pulled out a shoe box of scraps to cut 

and the remainder will be the start of the vortex.

I started this morning with a 15 minute sort.

The job is not done tho, until the bits sorted are 

sewn or in proper storage , almost there!

I do have 2 stacks of pieces to use as starters 

for some wonky log cabins or crumbs. 

They are small but too many to discard. 

I am finishing up the greens too! 

I am doing some zen quilting so I don't always count

how many blocks I need. A bit more sewing for 

the bottom row, some mixing to get good variety

and this round can be finished! One more to go!

June's RSC is blue so I did up bunch of blue

string blocks for my in progress family quilt.

Figured out that a lot of my design boards are 

9 inches so I can lay out my squares without a 

ruler underneath for a guide. To make the job even 

easier, I used tape as a guide on my larger boards. 

We are always learning aren't we!

To top everything off, another young

friend is engaged so there is another wedding

quilt to work on! 

I am moving up to the summer sewing room!

The trees are all blossoming and the air smells

delightful. Happy sewing as we move into summer

and on to the blues!

A quickie stash and sew report is due. 

Let's see how I did! 

So the total for April for stitching is:

First up , my sewing time.

Jan  23/31

Feb 19/28

Mar 27/31

Apr 15/30

May 23/31

70% success so far!

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:           0 m

Used year to date:     55 m

   Added last week:            0.0 m

Added year to date:      57 m

Net added in 2022      2 m 

 I am trying to get moving forward with lots of projects and 

I certainly have a lot to choose from.

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

RSC 2022

Oh Scrap 

15 minutes to stitch

Monday Makers 

Design wall Monday

To Do Tuesday!

Midweek Makers

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foor Down!

Finished or not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Friday Foto Fun