Friday, February 26, 2021

I had such a mess from the last two days of mask making that I decided it was time to do some cleanup. So why (oh why) did I start cleaning in a spot that wasn’t even pulled apart all that badly?

I use batiks for one of the layers in my masks and I have a drawer and a bin where I store them. The drawer holds bigger pieces of fabric and the small bin holds strips and strings that I purchased at a yard sale several years ago. When the drawer is in place and the lid is on the bin they both look quite tidy.

Today though I chose to focus on these two batik areas. I have squared up and cut down larger pieces, I have refolded the yardages I have, and I sorted out small pieces into bags where all the pieces are the same size.

The bin of strips was quite a mess (even if the lid fit). As I started to pull them out I noticed they are of varying widths; some of them will be okay for the project I have in mind. There are enough strips in the bin though to make at least two scrappy quilts when the original project is done. I’ve done a bit of a sort; the project I have in mind uses dark and light so that is more or less the way I rolled them up.

So everything is neat and tidy again (except for the floor that is covered in bits and pieces of fabric and thread) and back in place. For one foolish minute I thought I could combine the two units but that didn’t work out. The rest of the sewing room is the same messy state that it was this morning.

I’ll have to start using the batik for miscellaneous projects – my tendency is not to like sewing with batiks but I’ll have to get over that.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

I made nine more masks today. Once the fun of picking the front and back fabrics is over they tend to be a bit boring. At the end of the process though I also get to pick threads that will match the fabrics so that adds a bit of interest. It doesn’t take much to amuse me.

I made a quick trip to the fabric store looking for some specific fabrics. They didn’t have either of the themes I wanted, but I managed to pick up some fabric for another project I have on my list; I may get to it next week so I want to be prepared.

I’ll get the masks in the laundry now and have them out in the mail tomorrow.

I have a Zoom meeting tonight and I’m hoping I can do a bit of sorting out in my sewing room while it is going on (thank goodness you can turn your camera off). After digging through several bins of fabric everything is a mess. On the plus side though I found several more bags of scraps – as if I needed any more but they’ll add some variety to the ones I already have.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

I started my day making masks. I made a lot of masks for everyone in my family at the start of the pandemic and later in the year I made a bunch more that were three layers rather than two. Everyone sent me back masks that I could convert into three layers but it seemed everyone already had enough. I finally remembered to check with Kathryn and apparently Alex had some favourite two-layer masks that needed to be converted. As it turned out I had enough of his favourite fabrics to start from scratch with the three layers and it saved Kathryn having to send masks back. I have seven done now; I added a few extra masks that I thought Alex might like.

The block on my calendar for today is one that I liked the minute I saw last year and I decided then to make a community quilt using the pattern. The calendar’s version is eight inches but I didn’t want to make so many blocks so I doubled it and ended up with sixteen inch blocks. I started the blocks when I was still sewing with my Thursday group but haven’t looked at it since.

I pulled out the bin today. Early in March Stacia, Deloise and I will be doing another virtual sewing session and our theme is donation quilts – this will be my project. I have quite a few fabrics that I pulled from the community quilts fabric bin last year when I decided to make it and I have a few shirts from the thrift store that I use for background.

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

I worked on some calendar blocks today. I had one block cut out and made two from scratch. I’m sure I have enough blocks for two (maybe more) quilt tops but I’ll wait until we go to Texada as I have a really good design wall over there. Looking at the dates on these two I’m not sure if I’m ahead or behind!