back to basics...

now that the holidays are officially over for another year.  from here until february, it's just plain winter.  this is prime quilting time, however, as any quilter can attest.  no gardens, lawns, cookouts to muddy up the schedule!  new year's day was a pajama sewing day for me....didn't even take time to make the bed or get dressed!  with jane austen on the telly, sewed up all the wishing ring blocks that were cut....

so there are just about half of the 143 i need for a good size quilt....and this year signed on for another small quilt sew along....the theme is curves and these blocks had already been set aside for someday....so it was kismet that i should join...

these are jo morton fabrics from a charm pack and the project has to be finished by may....thinking no problem here.   and then on my trek east for christmas, stopped at the guild receptacle and picked up 2 more top kits to sew.....

the gals who head this committee could be CEOs of any Fortune 500 company....tireless soldiers who motivate and manage an army of recruits....many charities benefit from our efforts and i'm proud to be one of the worker bees.  it's been a challenge without access to our ideal space but it's getting done, quite admirably too.  

so clean slate, fresh start and all that other stuff we tell ourselves at the start of any new year.  my family and i are blessed beyond measure, despite the valleys we've trekked thru and will probably continue to experience....but the joy of life knows no equal!

are you ready?

with no firm end in sight to "blursday", am fully prepared to know at a glance what day of the week it is that i'm repeating over and over...LOL!  you might recall my mom gifted me this in august at my birthday....

how did she know i had been ogling this online?  and then this arrived in the mail with autumn......

a really nice calendar with historical photos....last year it was portraits and this year highlights architectural details of this beautiful building in DC....this beltway chicken has yet to visit only 40 minutes away....and here's another i get every year with a gift subscription to my brother and SIL.....

this brings glorious photos of home and many places i've lived or visited.....then i get one of these every year.....

the delicately beautiful watercolors of this talented artist make me positively swoon....when the year is over, i repurpose many of the drawings for my scrapbook....i have 4 rooms counting the bathroom and each one gets a calendar....but the one i rely on most is this beauty, a gift from my daughter and SIL this Christmas....

this one gets my appointments and other useful info to keep at hand every day....last year's, of course, was nearly totally blank but feeling confident that this year's will be used more.  

i've been working on the new england sampler and it's getting closer to baste ready....

no other plans for the holiday other than relax and enjoy and my jane austen marathon, so take a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne!

finally together!

that would be ALL my fabric stash....not the precuts in shoeboxes or fabrics with UFOs....but everything else, including big (over 2 yards) pieces.  all it took was extending the shelving by 5 inches on one side....here is the before....

an inexpensive bookcase purchased when i moved here nearly five years ago....has served me well despite its precarious structural issues....yes it DID lean a bit now and then!  see the canvas tote?  yep, stash in there, as well as an underbed storage container that holds big pieces...plus the shoeboxes on the floor holding more fabric....but here it is now....

still six feet tall, but the space on the right has now been utilized with a slightly wider shelf width.  the shelves themselves are deeper as well, not required but easier when pulling and returning fabric. the shoeboxes came in handy to keep stacks from falling out.  big pieces and backings on the bottom.  the price was nearly the same as the shaky bookcase and is my christmas gift to me.  the underbed storage container is empty.  the white and muslin scraps have now rejoined their cotton kinfolk and the big canvas tote?  well, it WAS empty for a bit.....

pulled everything that was smaller than a FQ or quarter yard to cut up into strips and squares.  many are large enough to cut into squares for the guild's charity project quilts too...was nice to revisit each and every piece recalling places purchased and confess did toss a couple of pieces just too heinous to keep.  

as far as sewing, working on the new england sampler and all those needleturn flowers.  doubt it will be ready to baste by the new year but not long after, which is ok with me.  the pandemic rolls on and anticipate lots of sewing time well into the new year.  no word yet on vaccine for at risk folks.

when i turned 65, thought i would wake up that day being old but i wasn't any different at all...and anticipating the new year is much the same situation....dreaming that on january 1st life would be miraculously normal but knowing it won't happen.  even so, life is good, very very good!

scrappy sewing blitz

good thing phoebe had a tune-up...it was a busy weekend for her!  pulled out the tote with the 2.5" strips and removed lid gingerly....it was stuffed to the brim!  and there were more in another shoebox....time to thin the herd!

when the dust settled, 31 blocks had been assembled....these join the ones i removed from the design wall....

and another stack is waiting to be sewn....

i'll need 143 blocks in all for a decent size tied quilt for donation and i'm just about halfway there...sewing these up is like eating M&Ms....lickety split and there is a pile of them  (just the reverse with the M&Ms tho...LOL)....best part is the tote really shows a significant deficit.  i also pulled all the pieces that were 6" long or less and cut them into squares....then separated lights/darks to make it much easier to get back to cutting more blocks. 

this is my re-org week, one where put off tasks get done, some culling of no-longer-wants, getting out the winter quilts, attacking the budget and roughing out a sewing list for the first quarter,  the ocean waves didn't get finished yet due to time out of quilting because of my eye procedure.  

so thankful that another Christmas has come and gone and no family members lost due to pandemic.  that alone is a huge blessing.  despite concerns regarding family and friends that keep my prayers at the forefront, it was still a wonderful holiday!