Trying for progress

Yes the sewing room is still in the stages of “undone”. Progress is slow while Mike is working long hours.  He has managed to get a little done here and there in the morning before he goes to work.  I think for sure most of the work will be done this weekend.  I have started with some of the painting – working on the side of the room that he is done with the ceiling on.  I have not done anything drastic with the paint color.  It is a very, very light gray with a medium gray for the trim work.  I really think the color of the bright stain glass dragon wall hanging will give it plenty of color.  Also there is almost always a quilt on the frame and fabric stacked on the shelves.  That gives it a lot of color.  If I painted the room a bright cheerful color then all the other color would clash in my opinion — and that is the only one that counts here!  LOL

I have not posted much in the line of photo’s since this work started so I thought I would show you my “temporary” sewing area – the dining area and one corner of the living room.  Just look at all of that stacked up!  What a mess.  Even with all this mess I am trying to get some work done believe it or not.  It has been moving really slowly.  Here is the 4th border of the Christmas Baltimore Album - it is about half done and I started it a week ago.  The 3rd border only took me a week to do so you can see I am slow on it.

We leave on our trip in about 2 weeks so time is running short that is why I have to try to get the sewing room back in order early next week.  I am already trying to figure out what sewing projects to take along with me on our 3 week trip.  I have learned from past experience to not to bother to take a lot with me as I just don’t get around to doing a lot of sewing while we are camping because we spend so much time out seeing the sights and hiking in the mountains.  I will bring some of my “Insanity Revisited” blocks with me to work on as I haven’t touched it in months.  I won’t bring a lot of them though – maybe 5 or 6 and I will be lucky if I get them done.

I think I am also going to bring something easy to work on while Mike is driving.   I recently got a pattern and black fabric  from the Twiddle Tail on-line shop that I mentioned about 2 weeks ago I think.  I have my 5 inch squares cut out of all different colors.  Next is to cut the black border pieces that go around them to have them ready and the white that goes around them.  This easy quilt top is made with 35 – 5″ blocks and white and black borders around them.  I will go ahead and hand piece it while we are gone.  It should be a fun and easy quilt top to make!

I barely made a dent in scrap fabric when I was searching for the fabric for the 5 inch blocks.  You couldn’t even tell I had taken anything out of the scrap boxes.  I really have no idea how many scrap quilts can be made out of all of those scraps – I would really like to get rid of some of it so I can start buying more in the kinds I like more of now.

Hand piecing is easy and relaxing and you can take it anywhere with you.  You really must try it sometime if you have not.  Two different times now I have brought along a log cabin quilt to hand piece while we were traveling and it worked out fine.

I plan on having the Christmas quilt finished before we leave – the top that is!  I haven’t bothered to try to quilt any of the “Insanity” quilt with a hoop while it has been off of the big frame – it is just too big and heavy to do with a hoop in the summer time.  It can wait until it gets back on the big frame.