Yesterday was a buzz saw day

Yesterday I was still on that road trip high, only now it was in reverse.
Suitcases were emptied and put away. Top priority wash was done and since much of the stuff
is hang dried, this morning was put away time. I can almost see my dining room table again. There are two huge piles of laundry to sort and do yet.But I am shifting into think mode, slow down, how do I handle what needs to be done.
I thought that I would involve my self in Judy's, at Patchwork Times, scrappy quilt, but I am not interested in making small stuff just to get rid of fabric. and the more I thought about it I knew that I was going to have to parcel the Celtic Soltice Quilt out to portions to finish each day. And really, I have to get my quilt room into a state that I can enjoy it, instead of the push, push mad dash that I have been doing to complete stuff. What I want is steady and sure progress without stress and hyperventilating.
So what are my goals now and how to go about them.
The quilt room is a horrific mess. I can work fine in chaos, but not for a long measure of time and the bottom line is I don't want to live like this.
So--
Rule 1. Wash my new fabric along with the laundry loads and put it away as I do the folding.
Rule 2. Think about what I want to change in the Quilt room to improve it.
           a. lets get the bits and pieces off the floor.
           b. lets think about scraps and how they need to be organized and how often do I do an update on this to keep things moving along well and be on top of it.
           c. Lets look at the quilt room and figure out how to utilize the space and store my scraps and still move around and not create bunches of dust bunny spaces.
Rule 3 Make a list of $ things that need done and insert them into the budget.
           a. get a plexiglass form for my new sized sewing machine. Budget for it.
           b. Get the Long Arm timing fixed. Budget for it.
           c. what and how do I want to store my scraps.What do I use for there storage? Do I need to buy anthing.

So, went to my computer and typed in Organizing quilting scraps and started reading. There are lots of quilters out there with good ideas. They all work different, think fabric differrent. A lot of things sound good, but some I have tried before, and some are not me. I am not the same person, with the same methods that I was and I need to think about that and adjust it.
1. I love working with 5" charms. So I need a box of my collections. Now they are just here and there. That idea of using photo boxes is a good one. Acid free is good. They are small enough so that hopefully I won't get carried away, They do not have dips and ridges to collect dust and can just be wiped off and if stacked. There is no where for dust to collect.
2. The 2.5" strips are very handy, just too contolled and bland. I like to mix all kinds of fabrics across time, form and color, so one box will do.Maybe one for uncuts or for 20" size by 2.5 and a box for 2.5" scraps any smaller size peices.
3. I have small stackers for leaders and enders, small squares of 1.5 ". Perhaps I need more of these plastic boxes that stack for triangles and such. Think about this one. We will call all these triangles, bricks and squares, Body Parts. And I need a place to put the body parts. By the cutting table.

Since I never know what direction I am going to take off next, I am not sure that a lot of planned body parts are a good thing, so I need a place for scraps. Less than 6" cuts of fabric should be thrown into the scraps, over 6" into the fat quarter area. But to sort my less than  6" or weird shapes,hey can just be tossed into a container and sorted by purples, reds, pastels, neutrals light, neutrals dark, greens and blues oranges and yellows. I do work by color to color. Do I want a pink bin? Pink is not usually my thing. Think about that. We are talking 9 or 10 bins. Lets find the space first and then decide.

I have my goal set for the Bonnie Hunter Celtic Solstice and some mind turning stuff going on. Thats good enough for today.

Still on the road

My husband does not understand me_

Here we are, traveling, eating out, spending time with Loved Ones, at the beach, down long untraveled roads and I am restless. Pathetic isn't it. But here is why.

First of all, my relax time with genealogy after everybody else went to bed, was messed up because of computer trouble. I had bought a new laptop to use for travel time and research and the company had put
their own web page on it that the  computer kept going back to. Scandle, Scutt, and yuck. So after that
first trip with it, I took it to  Aaron, my go to for computer man, and had him clean it up. He suggested that I bring it home and do an update that he hadn't had time to do for me in my "rush state". Thats part of my all time problem, I either live in a state of inertia, or a state of rush. Well, I did that and never opened it up again until we were in California.
It won't open. The password is wrong. I have only used this password for umpteen years for all of my computers. I just don't like to spend braintime on things like keys, passwords and tidying up.
So for the whole trip, if I wanted to unwind with genie I had to use my husbands laptop.
It really helped but I am seething still. Microsoft said that I could write them my problem and they would address it in 24 hrs. 32 Hours later, they got back to me. No Do. Not enough information.
Here is this specially purchased computer sitting still because I cannot even get into it! What an angry, frustrated ulcer this mess is.

Now I resign myself to eating, chatting, smiling and having fun. How long can you do that?
Patience is not my middle name!

so----on our 6th day of this trip I spied a quilt shop in the beach town we were staying in. On the 7th day I wrangled a "few minutes" to stop there. "nonquilters waiting in the car " my friends! So I did a flyby check, pulling a few fat quarter colors that I needed for the staht but being selective. And then I heard the girl say to another customer" Our sale room is to the right and around the corner. So eventually I headed that way.

It was assorted fabric, but good grades of Moda and Michael Miller types,stacks of it. I rummaaged and sorted and stacked. It was on sale for 3 dollars a yard, so of course I am looking for things for quilt backs. This is not stuff to die for, but still lots of interesting things, two color things or bold stripes mixed with white, Aunty  Back porch types and crazy directionals, and all of it could be used so well for quilt backs. Even so, I gasped to myself when I paid the bill and mind soaring headed to the car with my two bags of fabric, my back bending alittle from the weight..
Did I mention that we were traveling, 3 adults and two energetic grandsons in a small Volvo?

We lingered another day and then packed up to head home. We had decided not to backtrack, so parted with our loved ones there and headed inland to find a fast highway north. But DH, who really is a dear, offered to find me a quilt shop on the way out. Always semi prepared for shopping I pulled out my list of addresses and we stopped at the Quilt Cupboard in Atascadero.

It looked simple and innocent enough but when I stepped down the first aisle, I was lost in a sea of color, form, direction and desire. Ohh MY GOODNESS! Just a little country girl presented with so many selections of color! Civil War and Kaffee Kassett, and everything inbetween. I went crazy, Way Crazy!
When I paid the bill, I had to juggle two credit cards and empty my wallet.

Now I am living with a goodly supply of guilt and embarrassment. How could I have succumbed to all the heady lure. Naturally, I needed to stockup on some really interesting neutrals, some power backed color candy, a roll of Kaffee Kassett, a pack of civil war and a few mingling prints that were soo delicious, and
I had just utterly lost every bit of control that I had ever gained.

Now I have to limp home,counting my pesos and dreaming of washing, drying, sorting and admiring my new color box and to live with, the guilt!!! I remember the state of the quilt room, the tons of fabric that I have but oh it is so sweet, the urge to cut into this new candy. And let me tell you, it was not easy to find space for two more shopping bagsin that little car that is virtually nearly sitting on the ground!. Oh but the heart sings, the mind hums and when oh when, will this vacation end???

I am supposed to be packing for California

As usual, I am procrastinating. To tell you how much I like packing, well I have been cleaning under my kitchen sink!

Then I had an idea.
Taking my trusty camera, I toured my house taking pictures. There were 81 shots taken.
Here are a couple of samples in my quilt room.

The first picture is of the cutting table area. It is such a mess, that i have been cutting on the ironing board. The second picture is taken just inside the room, across the work station and beyond the long arm to the back wall.

The whole idea is that I took 81 pictures all around my house including views from the back doo, which is usually the entry door instead of making New Years Resolutions. As I improve, change or eridicate, I plan to take a new picture as proof to me that I can do it.

Lets see, 81 pic's divided into 52 weeks????

Back to prepping for packing--

Just Checking

How On Earth, I signed for ads on my Blog I will never know!
So this post is just to see if my attempts to eradicate it worked. So Hang on there folks- but this I do not like.

Whew I am exhausted

I had promised that I would get something off to put in a quilt to be raffled off.

My vision was wonderful. I cut and sewed and cut and sewed, Tossed and started over. Lots of trial and error and moving and changing color design. Then a friend came down that needed to work on it too , and she tossed some stuff, too dark. This needs so color, This needs a border and so on. She tossed me fabric,
and left to take her daughter somewhere.
I sewed. I sewed. I forgot about the mitered corners and sewed on squares. I put on an applique. Not perfect, but still in the direction that I wanted. Then I added a vine on the tree and used fray check on it as I always do. But something happened. The fray Check turned milky and plastic like. Was It too old? What?

Hmmm

That wasn't ok. I couldn't use this one. Sooo==

Go to bed and see what the marrow brought.

Tomarrow, came and I drug out my fabric and cut 5 "Right Hand of Friendship Blocks" and sewed and seam ripped and sewed, and seamripped. Isn't that the way it goes when you have to do something!

Anything!! But you are so tired, forget to stop and eat and walk around, and so it goes.

This is what I came up with--

Not enough steady contrast here. Mushy areas. But now that is not my problem. I Hand it over and the scraps, some poss usable fabrics and wave it out the door. 

Mush!!

Moving right along.

Celtic Solstice Part 5

My orange and yellow squares are all made and hanging together on strings like speggeti.

My Blue triangles are all cut and counted also.

My meutral triangles are not done. But I cut 10 or 12 out and borrowed a few to make sample blocks with.

And that is it folks. The sewing room is absolutely thrashed and then thrashed. Time is flying. Tonight and towmarros I wash, pack and clean what I can and do some odd chores. Wednesday is New Years. My momma always told me, do what you want to do on New Years and that is what you will do all year.

Well, I hope that I don't travel all year, but I can stand with doing what I want to do. We are heading to Portland, and then Eugene and then to Central California and then to the California Beach. Sweet!

You all have a great New Year!.

John Gould says "You should start sooner"

Good idea. I gave myself one day to produce a pieced quilt block for a raffle quilt. No one else of our group had time to spare right now and the quilt top needs done, before the end of January so it can be shipped to another group for quilting.
No problem. just one block right?
I started with a Tree of Life pattern and cut several pieces and pieced.. This was a week ago. I didn't get very far when I knew that I needed to scrap that one and put it together with a total new color scheme and fabric plan. BUT I had also realized that I wanted to do that one for myself. A KEEPER.

So checking around my quilt stash, I found some batiks that had the feeling that I wanted, though Batiks can be difficult to use. If you are not careful, Batiks will bind you down to a limited scheme of what you can use

. Over the last couple of years and with some experimentation, I have been able to break out of that mold. I really do not like quilts with --oh, lets say, less than 20 fabrics in them, and I don't like pinned down to what fabric that I want to use. I don't think that people that plan and match their fabrics so carefully do bad work, after all, its really all in the finished product. Does it please YO?. That is about all that is really important unless you are giving it away as a gift or planning it for somebodys decor, taste,  or new house.

That said, several years ago, I started refusing to even thinking of  making quilts for people, for requests, for their taste etc. I told my kids, when I am gone you can pick and choose and do what you will, but life is too short for me to make "decor" for someone else. I want to be free, and you can be free to keep and toss as you will. And likewise, I do not want fabric and materials to tell me what I have to do either. Not all fabrics fit together, of course, but mostly that is dictated by How you use them and WHERE.

Hmm, back tot ht Tree of Life pattern. For me I want something funky, mystical, and  "unseen medievial forest feel with a little Disney thrown in for fun.
 For this group quilt, I wanted strength, bright light, mixed fabrics with moving light and spiritual integrity. I do get carried away-don't I?

I scrapped the first two and half rows of the second effort and then it started coming together. Only now, I am hogging to much of the quilt. Where do I stop? So I first talked to my daughter so that she could counsel me ( how that I knew she would) and try to curb my impulses. Then I called a comrade to give me her slant on what I have and what I can do to it to lift it up, but also to let it rest on its on merit and be released for someone else's endeaver.

Today I ordered another yard of a fabric designed by Angela Walter for Art Gallery Fabrics. It looks almost antique, it looks almost modern. It is a transitional blue that looks slightly greyed but in daylight, it is not greyed at all. Of course, I told :The Fabric Patch  quilt shop that I needed the fabric yesterday- which I did. And please rush.

My battery is dead on my camera so I am using my husbands super camera and I am not a technology whiz, more a technology neanderthal!

These are auditions for a framing fabric.Which brings up another note.

I am in the process of changing my lighting in my sewing room to LED DAYLIGHT Bulbs.

So right now it is a combination of Obama's edict and an upgrade to LED. At 9$ and up apiece it will take a few for me to get it all changed over. The light directly over this set here is 2 LED lights in a ceiling fan and one of those nasty florescent screw in types  with the nightmare taffy  wrap look. Yuck. But, you know, it takes time. Tomorrow when  my artistic eye arrives, hopefully we can have some daylight. But-its 95% humidity out there and mass fogg at 23 degrees right now ---.

Ahh! But there are piles and piles of unironed fabric to  root through. Oh JOY! I do like fondling fabric!

Maybe we will find something in the stash! A treasure hunt!

Countdown

The gifts are all wrapped-- but two.
I can see the floor in my bedroom again and get into my jammie drawer and so theres still HOPE for another several months that life will proceed more orderly.
What happening in the QUILTROOM?
I have been cutting and sewing like crazy. ALL the neutral tri-recs are cut and sewn. Over half of the orange and blue tri-recs are done and all are cut out.
I still have to cut the green squares for the chevrons and sew them.
The half triangle squares and pinwheels have a problem getting sewn. My machine is sucking them into the
feed dogs. I talked to Lynn at Needlentime today and she has one of the plates I need so that I can sew them up. So I will be making a trip up valley today for that. She is holding it for me. This is a new machine, so we are still getting aquainted, you see.
The squares and 4 patches are cut out and several of the four patches are sewn. That was truely fun and informative. I appreciate the informative instruction. It makes it great.