June OMG: Pink Scraps Sorting Box

After spending hours upon hours on the computer yesterday putting the finishing touches on my upcoming pattern release, which Yvonne will have a look at this coming week, (yep, another, and it's a stars quilt!) I had to work on something mindless, fun, and pink. So I started quilting the panels for my next scraps sorting box, and finished it up today.

I love it. I guess I have loved pink forever, since I used to have a pink wall-papered living room in the 90s, and the lining, which you may recall is also featured in my Bear Paw Baby quilt, was what I used to make cushions that sat on my oak chairs in my dining room... So pink is right up there next to blue. Making this box gave me a lot of joy, on a day that is special: June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day here in Canada and it coincides with the Summer Solistce, though that actually did happen here yesterday about 5:20 pm. Rather fitting for the announcement that is forthcoming in this post, a post that is also my OMG fulfillment post.

No Scrap Withdrawal This Year

This was the scene early yesterday morning when I started pulling fabric for my Mini Swoon.  Looks a little chaotic, right?  Love the photo-bomb of Naala's butt!  The yarn you can see is one of Bella's many toys.  Just as in Kingsville, she and I share my sewing space. 

I thought that people who know that we spend a good chunk of the winter here in Florida would probably be curious as to how I had a fair number of fabric pieces from which to choose for the fabric pull for Swoon I wrote about yesterday.

How do I decide what to take and what to leave behind?  It's a serious dilemma I face, and mostly avoid, until the last minute, much to my husband's, MacGyver, (his alias on the blog, as he is a very private man), chagrin.

I thought I'd tell you what I did this year, after last year when I couldn't get started on a Scrap-a-Palooza quilt because I didn't have my scraps of yellow with me.  I was nearing serious withdrawal symptoms, shakes and stomachaches, the lot, ha.

Presenting...my scrap stash!

This is almost all of it, barring my sets of Sterilite 3-drawer organizers that have the roll-ups scrap stash.  An example of the roll-ups is the blacks and greys and pinks you see on the left.  Some more are visible in the Ziploc bag, oranges and lime green and some Christmas.  They are all in that bag because they are destined to become the final few cows I need to paper-piece for my aunt's quilt.  The blacks and greys will be a bull of Maartje's design.

What is the method here?  Is there one?!  Let me show you.

Roll-ups
These are bits and pieces and sometimes fabric bought just because it's a good colour or pattern or I just flippin' like it. (Notice I have not written a stash manifesto.  Yet.  Still contemplating that one.)  The size of the roll-ups is usually 1/4 yard-ish to 1/3 yard-ish.  The pinks and one brown and some royal blues are together because they are going to become a quilt.

Smaller than 1/4 yard chunks
These go in the ziploc bags, organized by colour family.  I brought them all this year, and they all fit in the one tub in which they are perched here. Well, not quite, the whites, ivories and low volume fabrics are rather plentiful, so they have a little bit bigger bag, and were stuffed in my toolbox.

Strips
Above the ziploc scraps is a green basket of strips.  I've started separating strips from the ziploc bags because I want to make another string quilt.  I brought them all.

2.5" squares collection
These are in a drawer organizer.  I've dipped into it already for both cushion covers I made in January.

Two turquoise baskets
They contain my blue and the green smaller scraps, too many for a ziploc.  They were loose in the plastic tub, but it was too disorganized and jumbled, so I bought the two baskets at Big Lots for $1.30 and now they have their own place. :-) And yep, there is a stack of squares in with the greens in a variety of sizes and colours that I also brought because, well, they just fit.

It's all organized neatly in the closet and one of the drawers in a dresser, so I can put my hands on and in it readily!  No scrap withdrawal pains this winter. ;-)

Linking up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Having Two Sewing Rooms Is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

Since Lara, of Buzzin' Bumble asked me, about a month ago, how do I manage two sewing rooms, I've been thinking a lot on this.  I even started jotting some notes down for this very post.  Well, I got hit upside the head again today with the woes of two sewing rooms, so I thought it's high time I share some of my angst.

Now don't get me wrong, at first read, "(angst) at having two sewing rooms" is probably, "Like, say what? I'D LOVE THAT!!"

Sewing room in Ontario:

Bella is a permanent fixture whether it's North or South sewing room

I sew in a corner of our unfinished basement.  You can see the insulation and vapour barrier here.  My sewing desk is a piece of melamine laid across two IKEA short dressers.  The machine is not dropped in...yet...so I've done very little FMQ on my it since we moved there a little over two years ago.  Below you see my design wall which is the gridded flannel I purchased several years ago.  I used to have it mounted on 4X8' styrofoam panels and glued to one wall in my sewing room in Alberta. Now it is pinned to the studs and some of the plastic on one wall of the basement corner.

Brady's Christmas quilt in progress

My Avanté is also in our basement, in the other corner.  So technically I have half of the basement!  It will one day become a sewing room much like my last one, I know.  I have a very talented husband.  Who also has many demands on his time, and has hobbies/passions of his own.

Sewing room here in Florida:
A complete bedroom all to myself!

Photo-bombed again by Bella

In our condo I had to share with the guest bedroom.  Here I can spread out and make a mess no problemo.  You can see it is a bit of a mess at one end with cutting pieces for this latest quilt.  For large cutting, I take my big Olfa mat into the kitchen, but for smaller pieces the end of this L-shaped unit is perfect. These are pieces of IKEA Bestå from our condo living room that didn't work in this house.  Oh darn!

So what's so terrible about having two sewing rooms?  Well, here are the issues, in no apparent order.

1.  Hauling:  The obvious is that I have to cart my stuff 1000 miles between them when we leave one place for the other.  I have it down to a science now:  two Rubbermaid or Sterilite tubs, a terrific 2-part rolling toolbox I bought at Canadian Tire, (which stays mostly packed with essentials all year round, paper list inside.  You never know when a retreat might just beckon!), my machine in her rolling case (from Fabricland, a great buy with lots and lots of zippered pockets that can be, and are stuffed), and often a zippered vinyl pouch (from a comforter or sheet set, you know?) containing a project.  Or two.  Here I was in the spring of 2014 ready to head north:

One of the tubs isn't visible here, but you get the idea.

2.  Batting is bulky.  This year I brought down one 1/2 yard or so by 90" with a smaller chunk for perhaps small projects or to Frankenbatt.  I figured I could (and I did) go and buy some if needed.

3.  Chair:  my chair up north is much comfier than my cheap but serviceable IKEA chair I have here.  Both seem to have static electricity build-up! I've taken to wiping my hands from time to time on a dryer sheet which I have wrapped around my presser foot knee lift.  It helps.

4.  Stash:  WAAAAAHHHHH! That is the hardest part of this, period.  I've sewed since I was 12, quilted for 20 years; ergo considerable stash:  yardage, 1/2 yard or smaller pieces organized in stacking plastic sterilite drawers, and then scraps in ziploc bags and in Rubbermaid boxes.  I cannot cart it back and forth, so I have to decide on projects I want to complete, not that big of a deal, especially if I (and I usually do) have them organized with the fabric all together.  This year I brought down several scrap and/or small pieces of fabrics for various ongoing projects, but it's a fraction of what I have.  And it's never enough.

Example:  right now I am madly into, and loving, my next quilt, one I've designed myself!  It's going to a very special recipient... 'nuff said for now.

This afternoon I made the design decision to use many ivory 3" squares, in other words, scraps!  I have tons of neutral scraps in Kingsville.  Did I bring any?  Nope.  All I have is few scraps from the neutrals in Fleurs, and yardage for a winter quilt, as yet to be designed, but fabric is pulled.  Will I cut into the yardage?  Absolutely, for a half dozen or so 3" squares.  Will I have to visit Alma Sue's Quilts?  In all likelihood.  Makes me really depressed, can you tell?

5.  Threads:  not a problem...I pretty much bring 'em all!  I also have a great supplier close by, Sewing Supply Warehouse (online store) and their retail store, Expert Sewing Center.

6.  List of Essentials:  I learned to do this when I was in the guild in Alberta.  We had a weekend retreat once, sometimes twice a year.  Because of working full-time, this simplified and expedited the process of packing Thursday night to be ready to take off Friday right after work for the retreat.  I've carried it over into heading down to Florida in December and returning to Ontario in mid-April.

7.  No Avanté:  this is difficult, to be away from the machine for 4.5 months, especially when it is still very new to me.  However, I used my Bernina and my Elna before her for FMQ, and it isn't that big of a deal, although it is really a treat not to have to manipulate a quilt around a 7.5" throatplate.

Sadly, I always run into situations where I know I have the tool or the fabric, but it's not with me.  I bought Marti Michell's Peaky and Spike rulers last winter for a Christmas trees quilt.  I brought the fabric with me and forgot the rulers this year.  Either I will make templates (joy), I will figure out a way to do it without the rulers, or I won't make it this winter!  Luckily, I'm not out in the back of beyond, (as some of our retreats were, lol) so I can always go and buy something in person or online if really necessary.