March 1!?! Time Marches on - indeed!

Life is getting back to normal, Heaven help us all!! I'm back at TaiChi and in the pool too. (Transpore tape was approved to wear in the pool)

I have a mission this year.  (I know, I have a mission every year, but it's usually forgotten about by now!!)  And this year I'm still working on it!!  The mission is to FIT in my SEWING SPACE!

Now I'm the first to admit I'm a wee bit spoiled by DH.  When I'm cranky he sends me to my room.  - The sewing room!  And our dining space has 3 Ikea cubby-book cases with 22 bins chock full of stash. (I magnanimously gave him TWO whole bins for paperwork!!)  Most visitors don't notice the horizontal bookcases and never suspect they hold fabric until a blabbermouth (me) tells them.

But I'm not talking about that space!!!  I'm talking about the 10x12 'spare' bedroom (we only have 2!) that is the designated sewing space.  Or as I like to call it "The Staging Area"!  It is so crowded in there that I have to move things from one flat surface to another to come up with room to sew.  Then I have to clear anything off the twin bed in there every night in case beloved insomniac DH wants to sleep in there during the wee morning hours. And yes, fabric overflow, any that doesn't fit into the 22 bins, is in there too.

Here's the problem:  Stuff - I have too much!!

Here's the other problems:  1) I am QOV chair in my guild.  That means I collect the QOV tops, send them to the long-armers, receive them back, give them back to the guild members.  This involves shipping boxes; piles going out, piles coming back.  And keeping track of paperwork!!!  I need a designated area for this category.

2) We try to see our grandchildren every month or so.  But my DIL is a school teacher with 5 and 3 year old boys.  Yep, they are busy.   My DD lives 6 hours away and her 8 and 10 year olds are in music and sports teams ... also busy.  So during winter months between the flu, the mountain pass, and trying to merge our schedules, we see them less.  So I start stockpiling things that need to go to both families.  I need a designated spot to stockpile those things so I don't forget any.  At Christmas I forgot the whole box!!!  (sigh)

So my plan of attack is to 'fix' the stuff in plain sight first!  Last fall, I was doing the great stash clean out.  I actually cut 30 some pillowcase kits for the DGKs and the Million Pillowcase for Kids charity project.  Then I got sick, busy, bored (who knows) ... and didn't actually make them.  I have been moving that box here, there and yonder in that room for months!  Monday, during Guild Fun Day I started sewing them.  My friend U helped and I turned in 12 pillowcases that night at meeting.  I have 12 more ready to finish and I actually sent the sad, floppy box that they were in to the recycling bin!

Monday was also the box raffle at guild.  I made 4!  (1) A little black tray-like box with 3 spools of quilting thread; 1 spool of dark thread, the Christmas pin cushion I made this year for the PotLuck, a clear bobbin box, and a crochet-chain summer necklace.  (2) A small round red basket with  dark red FQs from my stash stuffed into it.  (3) A square cardboard box from $1 Tree filled with embroidery floss on the the little flat cardboard 'spools', another pincushion and embroidery needles. AND (4)a clear project bag filled with extra notions: a pin box of old buttons, needles, scissors case, tape measure, etc.  Felt good but did not noticeably help the problem!!  Must remember to take pix of these before given away!!!

This week I have to finish the Finishing School pin cushions.  But I have no wool roving to stuff them with!  I'm going to get them ready to stuff and pick up some roving on the way to FS and stuff them there!!  It simply isn't worth the 4 hour round trip drive to get the stuffing!  And having it mailed?? Small town to small town?? That's a whole 'nother crap shoot!  So-o they'll 'get what they get and don't have a fit'!!

I really wasn't going to make these fiddle-ly little things - but they begged me!! LOL! One week from today we retreat!  Nine crazy quilters headed for a retreat center above a quilt store!  Yep, it's heaven!!  We'll be there for FIVE days! (counting the travel day on both ends) It's going to be great.

I was busy last weekend trying to keep up the finishing of baby quilts.

Beach Ball baby is an UFO that I started after finishing my Pies & Tarts quilt.  It's quilted now and ready to make it's debut on my daughter's Etsy store! Pictures show front and the quilting from the back.

 "Mom, I need some fabric projects to show off the brass collections!"  That's how you get into this situation!

 

Jungle Babies is also completely finished.  5pointed stars in the large squares and simple diagonal lines through the 4patches. Front and pieced back shown above.

I also worked on the pastels Magic Numbers - including drawing up my own 'block' to incorporate the additional sizes I cut.  It still needs to be quilted. So stay tuned.

I machine quilted the squares and sashing baby quilt - waiting to be bound.

And  I machine quilted one of the Christmas log cabin table runners.  I love it, it still needs binding.

Add a 15" square Modern Design "Lines" assignment for ModSquad and I'm going to be busy this weekend too.

Ladies - time to party in the sewing room!!  Let the wild rumpus begin!!

Guess what! I found the missing iron!! Woohoo!

We babysat Miss P Friday thru Sun. She's SO-O cute right now. She sounds like a little Amish woman - she says "thank yee"!! But Sunday I drug us away from her and we went to IKEA. R complained all the way there - how he hated them - and then we got there and bought 2 'Expedit' bookcases for the sewing room! They are like cubes - and we thought they would do well with the stash! They do - but we need about 4 more!!! - for a start!!! Lord - forgive me!

Brought home the bookcases and a few boxes from L's last night -- "another load of crap" in R's words! Our garage is about 30 feet and 10 stair steps away from our front door. So to make it easier to carry everything in, we propped our front door open - never noticing there were two birds sitting on top of the outside light RIGHT BY THE DOOR! Thank goodness they just sat there and pooped - they didn't fly into the condo. Our condo was empty for a few months before we came - I assumed the bird poop was from that time - didn't know the stupid little things were still living there! This morning I removed bird poop (ick) and we fashioned a bird repellent doo-hickie from a milk jug. I'll let you know if it works.

We put together the 2 bookcases this morning and this afternoon I unloaded ALOT of sewing room boxes into them. It felt good to see "my favorite things" again. And just as I was afraid of - the fabric in the boxes felt a little damp. It's so humid here - I'll have to double check everything to be sure there's no pins in anything to rust.

In the 200th box (LOL!) I found a magazine holder that I had tucked the iron and the spray bottle in. When we were searching the boxes - we didn't look inside magazine boxes! Yeah! Now all I have to do is find the receipt for the cheap Walmart iron! Wish me luck!!