School supply and Dollar Store shopping

September 6, 2021 / quiltinggail / 21 Comments

It’s September and most kids are back to school … or not. At any rate, the stores have all their “back to school” sales on. Do you take advantage of these sales for your sewing room?

I do. Here are some of the products I use in my sewing room and some are suggestions from other bloggers and quilters.

A flannel back tablecloth is great for a design wall … especially if I’m going sewing somewhere besides in my home.
Hair clips are great for clipping labels onto fabric
Spray bottle for water (I always use a dry iron … and I spray the fabric if I want steam)
Shelf liner … will hold your sewing machine foot in place, add it to the back of pincushions to prevent them from slipping around, and in a pinch, you can use a couple of pieces (3″x 3″) to place under your hands when you free motion quilt
Put a small square between your small rulers and your fabric – it’ll prevent the ruller from shifting
Hair ties – place them around the thread and the bobbin and you know which bobbin goes with which thread … plus it keeps the thread from unwinding

These are the small hair ties … they are cloth covered elastics. You can see in the picture how small they are. When my thread and bobbins are in the drawer, it’s super easy to figure out which bobbin goes with which spool of thread. Plus there isn’t miles of thread all over!

Notebook with grid lines … for planning that next quilt and Pencil crayons to colour your quilt

Mechanical pencils for fine lines (on the back of HST or to mark the centre of a block

Elmer’s School Glue … I use this a LOT … dilute it 4 parts water to 1 part glue and it’s perfect for gluing down binding or whatever needs to stay in place.

Binder clips – they are perfect to supplement your smaller clips … great when you have a large number of pieces or ???

Flag post-its, or just plain post-it notes are perfect for short-term labels.

Disappearing Elmer’s Glue Stick. These have MANY uses. I often use it to pre-baste my binding. Then when I get to the sewing machine, binding is done in a flash.

Coloured Sharpies … OK … confession here … these are great for colouring that white thread that is showing, or for outlining shapes (as per Helen Godden).

Design Wall

Piecing:

#1. The project for the “Falling for You” Blog Hop. My day is Sept. 20.

#2. Third project from Scrappy Improv … which I can’t show you until after the blog hop

Quilting:

#1 November Island Batik project is being quilted

Stash Report

No finishes this week … no stash yardage used.

Fabric Used this week 10 yards
Fabric Used this year: 99 yards
Fabric Bought this week: 0 yards
Fabric Added this year: 27.75 yards (my husbands amounts as well)
Net Fabric used 70.25 yards
Husband’s purchases: 0 yards (which are added into my total amount of Fabric added this year). For those of you who don’t know … my husband often buys more fabric than I do … so, I’m keeping track! Unfortunately, he doesn’t sew!

Stitchin’ Time

I’m aiming for at least 30 minutes a day. Many days there are more than a few hours spent in my studio. We were away this past weekend, so there was 2 days that I did not sew.

January – August – 235 / 242
Sept – 5 / 5
Total: 240 / 247
Percentage = 97 %

For more Stitchin’ Time, you can check out Kate’s blog: Life in Pieces

TO DO

Linda from Texas Quilt Gal is now hosting “To Do” every week. You can check out her blog HERE.

The last To Do list: (from weeks ago)

OK … so I had 2 weeks to accomplish my To Do list. I kept the list light because I want some more time to enjoy the summer! Consequently, it was easy to get it done. I’m keeping this week’s list light as well!

Complete Island Batik’s November project Partially done!
Complete 2nd Project from Scrappy Improv √ done
Prepare more fabric for Island Batik’s December project √ done
Write the directions for the guild’s Fall Mystery quiltDo NOT be distracted by any SQUIRRELS! √ done
Tidy & clean studio for 30 minutes √ done

This week’s list:

Finish quilting Island Batik’s November project
Finish 3rd Project from Scrappy Improv
Work on Island Batik’s December project
Do NOT be distracted by any SQUIRRELS! I NEED this continual reminder!
Tidy & clean studio for 30 minutes

One who sleeps under a quilt is covered by LOVE!

Happy Quilting!
Gail

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Linking to:

So Scrappy @ Scrap Happy
Sunday Stash @ quiltpaintcreate
Oh Scrap @ Quilting is More Fun than Housework
15 minutes to Stitch @ Life in Pieces
Frédérique @ Quilting Patchwork Applique
Monday Making @ Love, Laugh, Quilt
Design Wall Monday @ Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
To-Do Tuesday @ Texas Quilt Gal
Colour Inspiration Tuesday @ Clever Chameleon Quilting

PHD in 2021: August Report

August 30, 2021August 31, 2021 / quiltinggail / 24 Comments

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How are you doing with your PHD in 2021?

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the number of UFOs? Try just taking one UFO and focus on it. Perhaps write down all the steps you need to do to complete it. Even if the list is LONG … tackle the first step. I promise that you will feel much better about it! Then later, or tomorrow, tackle the next step. Pretty soon it will be done!

My PHD tally hasn’t changed a lot. Well, no UFOs are finished, but quite a few of the Starts in 2021 are completed. I’ve been working a LOT of my November Island Batik challenge. I am SEW glad that I started early! It’s taking a LOT of time and a LOT of concentration. You’ll see why in November.

Linky Party

Link up and show us your PHD in 2021 Progress.

My Favourite Quilt this month!

GROAN …. How do I choose which quilt is my favourite when I think I made 3 fantastic quilts? I know I’m biased … but I LOVE each one of these quilts!

DrEAMi

This month, I had a DrEAMi … (Drop Everything And Make it) This was a pattern from Sandra Walker (from Musings of a Menopausal Melon) and after seeing that several people made it … I just HAD to. The pattern is “Let Your Star Shine.” You can get the pattern from Sandra’s Etsy shop: HERE. It is a pretty quick quilt to make!

A NEW Blog Hop

Kelly Young has a AWESOME new book that has just been published. She is having a blog hop starting later in September. This book is fantastic! There are 22 mini quilts and they are SEW easy to make.

If you check out Kelly’s blog, My Quilt Infatuation she has an overview of the book HERE.

I have made one mini quilt for the blog hop and am in the process of making another for myself. I will show it to you after the blog hop is over. I don’t want to ruin the surprise of all the mini quilts that you will see during the blog hop.

I must say that this book is really well written! (I have my own copy!) The directions are easy to follow and there are a ton of fun projects to make!

If you live locally, Essem Textiles has the book in their store.

I will be teaching classes of projects from this book in October at Essem Textiles. Dates are TBA.

Rainbow Scrap Table Topper

The monthly table topper is run by So Srappy. The colour for August was aqua. I wanted to try a paper pieced Storm at Sea block … so that’s what I made! It’s 15″ square. Made with Island Batik fabrics, Hobbs fusible batting and Aurifil Dove thread.