2024 Studio Post #4 - A Repair and A Finished Edge

Another small week, but I love getting into my studio!

My husband's old lined jeans were wearing out at the buttonhole. He primarily uses them for walking the dog at 5am on cold mornings or working in the garage in the winter. I cut a buttonhole zone from a pair of old denims and stitched it over the frayed fabric. Due to the many layers of thick denim, I couldn't go all the way around with my sewing machine, so I hand stitched part of it. It's not pretty, but it's holding up!

I found a piece of heart fabric on the "free" table at Minnesota Quilters and nabbed it right away! I pressed the unfinished edges, gave it a sew, and used it in a display at church for "I love missions." It's simple and quick, but I did some sewing last week!

Paradox

More than a few times lately, I've thought about blogging something and then checked myself. Just because it has been helpful and motivating to me to blog about getting rid of stuff doesn't mean I have to blog about every darn thing!

I'm finally evaluating the why and the future worth. Sometimes "hanging on to stuff," even electronically, is helpful. The archives can be searched and the info can be found. (I've looked up my own entry on breaking my wrist as a child and the corresponding hospital bill several times!)

 

Sometimes it is a bit of history . . . when I went through my father-in-law's yearbooks, I only took photos of the pages that included him. But boy oh boy! There was a treasure trove of a teen's life in the 1940s! I almost wanted to keep it but am so glad that his high school has those yearbooks. They're more relevant there than here.

Sometimes I pause to think "will I need this information in the future?" This morning (1.28.24), I have the note about the St. Paul Winter Carnival Jigsaw Puzzle Contest. The date I registered us, the amount paid, etc. I have a file folder for the contest. I could chuck this slip of paper in there. Does it matter? I haven't kept meticulous records of all the years we've competed (over the last 20ish years). 

So . . . keeping track and blogging has been a helpful tool, but I don't need to track and quantify everything!

Louie and I have started doing some exercising in the morning. Nothing major, just trying to develop healthier habits. I have an alarm go off M-F after coffee and before showers. It feels good to do SOMETHING, and as I was tempted to start tracking WHAT I did and how many pounds, reps, seconds, etc., I decided I just didn't want to. Later, I may get serious about it and tracking can help with a fitness plan. But for now, I am choosing to not add that thing (tracking workouts) to my day.

There are so many things that I do out of habit or compulsion. I need to be more mindful about what matters!

2024 Studio Post #3 - MQ Intown Retreat

Now, technically, this doesn't really count since I wasn't in my studio! However, I spent a lot of time sewing last week!

I had been participating in the 2017 Mystery Challenge. I wanted so much to keep up and get it done, but life got in the way. Then as I was trying to play catch up, I got to directions I struggled to follow AND I saw other peoples' finished quilts. 

Mike Ellingson was the designer and he's amazing. It was called "Go with the FLW." Initially, I thought it was "flow" without the "O," but I learned it was FLW for Frank Lloyd Wright.

In any case, I had made all the blocks using his directions through month 7. Then I had started month 8 and . . . paused. Here's what the finished quilts looked like.

 

I just wasn't in love with it. And my fabric choices were odd, since I did a mix of scrappy and brights. (The directions gave some color / hue info, but our choices were ours!) 

After it sat for about six years, I opened the bin to see that yes, I had done a lot of work, I still didn't understand the month 9 directions, and I didn't want to make Mike's design.

There were things I loved and things I didn't love. I decided it was my quilt and I had already done a lot of work on it, so I brought it to the three-day in-town retreat and played with what I could make. Here are a few shots, but I didn't get it completely done. It took a surprising amount of time to go from lots of partial pieces (strips of flying geese, some courthouse steps, half-square triangles, etc.) to an almost finished top.

 

I've got more done, but I'll wait until I finish the top to post more. The retreat was 9am - 8pm on both Thursday and Friday and 9am - 5pm on Saturday. I stayed overnight at my girlfriend Jenifer's house so I wasn't driving as far. 

I'd write more, but I'm tired and I have a lot going on tomorrow. It feels really good to have gotten a lot of sewing done. I'm super excited to finish this top and schedule time to quilt it.

I've fallen behind on the declutter challenge, but I don't like to be stressed out, so I'll just try to get a little done each day.

2024 Studio Post #2 - This and That

This entry was intended to be done on January 14, but life got kind of busy. From 1/7-1/14, I worked on the Declutter challenge and finished another hair towel. I didn't really know these existed until just over a year ago. We have so many towels that I cut one up to make a hair towel. It was a bit of a fail, so I made a second one that works fine. This is my third (and best) one so far. I love how well it fits on my head!

 

I didn't take a photo after sewing the elastic in place, but it was nice to get it done and into rotation!  By the way, I used this gal's info to make this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eBiET1xuR4

I stitched on a few things and decided what I was going to bring with me to the Minnesota Quilters In-Town Retreat. (More on that in my next post.)

2024 Studio Post #1 - Black and Neon Quilt for Benjamin!

I don't finish quilts very often, but this is a very exciting way for me to start off a new year!  In October of 2011, I won 18 Snail's Trail blocks in our Minnesota Quilters Block of the Month drawing. Such fun! I laid them all out in the same orientation to think about them. My oldest son Morgan saw me pondering and asked if it wouldn't work to change how they are laid out. Oh my! I feel as though I should have known that!

Of course you're supposed to orient them to make a secondary pattern! I might have gotten there on my own, but I'm so glad he helped me see this! Once I realized how they should go, I decided to make more blocks to form a twin sized bed quilt. I had won 1 blue, 1 orange, 3 dark pink, 2 light pink, 6 yellow, 2 bold green, and 3 light green. I made twelve more - 1 green, 1 pink, 5 orange, and 5 blue. The blocks I won were made by Kara Albrecht, Virginia Mercil, Mariana Campbell, Sally Lajon, Katherine Faust, and a few other people who didn't sign their blocks. (I kept track of which blocks were from which people in my quilting "scrapbook.")

 

I finally put the quilt top together in 2016. I decided to add piano keys to the top and bottom to get the dimensions I wanted. I even picked out the batting and backing! I was ready to go in July 2016 . . . but other life events crowded it out and it went on a back burner. A very back burner. For a long time.

 

At an MQ meeting on November 4, 2023, I saw a friend who has invited my sisters and me to quilt at her house on her long-arm machine. (We are actually blessed to have more than one quilting friend like this!) I told this friend that I needed to make a date with her to quilt a project that has been sitting for seven years! She told me to get my calendar and we'd figure out a date. So we did!

 

On Wednesday, November 15th, I went to her house with my sister Ann and got the backing, batting, and top onto the quilting frame. I got a refresher course on using the machine. I did a little practice, then was off and running!

 

I did go a little too fast at first and had a bit of "eyelash" stitching. It was a good reminder for me to S-L-O-W down and sew smoothly. What fun to make progress on this! 

 

I used an overall meander because it's easy and I thought it would look fine on the Snail's Trail blocks. My friend Rose offered some different threads, and I chose this beautiful variegated one! So many colors in this quilt! The binding was fabric I had purchased for another project, but I thought it worked perfectly for this quilt.

I was so excited to finish this quilt that I brought it to work (New Prague Middle School and RaDon) to show to people who know me. I took this photo at RaDon, climbing up on the table to get this shot.

I had also laid it on the guest room bed to get a picture of it as an actual bed quilt. 

The reason I'm including this in my 2024 studio blogging is because I stitched on the label on the back during the first week of January 2024. I gave it to my grandson Benjamin at our family Christmas on Saturday, January 6th. 

I know he's only a year old and can't understand what this quilt means to me, but I hope he'll make good use of it as he grows up!

I'm inspired to work on another UFO . . . (Unfinished Object, to you non-quilters). I've also signed up for the 2024 Declutter Challenge that Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts is running. Oh my! What an inspiration! I've already spent so much time (in small chunks) going through my sewing room, getting rid of unnecessary stuff, and stitching! 

I'm working on a quilt that a friend's mom had started for my friend's brother. Sadly, their mom passed away in August 2023. She had the top done and was hand quilting it! 

If you're interested in Karen Brown's Declutter Challenge, check this out!

#declutterchallenge2024

 

Declutter #48 - Games

I thought I was done with the decluttering blog, but I need to add another entry for 2023. I went through my games cabinet. Initially, it was so I could move the big piece of furniture to take out a picture hanging on the wall behind it. That picture has been trapped for years! I got that done, but figured it made sense to go through my games.

I pulled everything out, then started putting back ones I knew I wanted to keep. I love games, but don't seem to play them as much any more. My kids have so many new weird games that they bring to family gatherings. I cleared out enough space to bring down some of the "little kid" games that Joshua is starting to enjoy. 

These are the ones I asked my kids if they wanted. (Of course they didn't.) So they are boxed up to be brought to the donation center! I gave a few language arts type games to a teacher friend. It feels good to get more cleanout done!

Declutter #47 - Last One for 2023! Appliance and Stuff

In a perfect world, this would be entry #52 - one for each week of 2023. But we don't live in a perfect world and I'm just so excited about making progress. I'm also excited that the process of blogging about this topic has motivated me to continue to get rid of excess stuff! I have a long way yet to go . . . before we sell this house and move. But I'm getting there! I'm also excited about focusing on sewing and other craft projects in 2024!

Here's what happened this past week. I was on a step stool looking for something in the cabinet above the fridge. There was a box with a toaster-type appliance in it. I asked Louie and he thought it was the box for our toaster oven on the counter. Nope. There was another appliance in the box! The label on it indicates that it belonged to my Uncle Cyril who died in 2009. Into the donation box it goes!

I also just chucked my blogging reminder sheet into the recycle bin. Get rid of unnecessary papers!

 

I emptied out my games cupboard and only put back the things I genuinely want to keep right now. I have a bunch of games on the pool table to check with my "kids" when they're here next Saturday to see if they want any. But the excess will be donated. This also gave me extra space to put some of the "little kid" games and puzzles from upstairs into this cabinet. Joshua is enjoying games more and more.

There are some other things that have traveled to garbage, recycling, and donation, but I'm too excited to move forward to dig around figuring them all out or taking more photos. 

 

I have a huge box with bows for gifts that I need to figure out . . . what to keep and what to donate. I rarely use bows. It's a work in progress!