Work in Progress

Good weather for staying inside and getting down to business. No more fooling around.


In the last week, I've been pecking away at the sewing room organization project and have progress to report.


Would you believe two entire days spent folding fabric?? Getting fabric out of the bins was the best move I've made in awhile. That was clear when fabrics emerged from the depths that hadn't seen the light of day in many years. Lots of "what was I thinking when I bought that?"



Thanks so much for all your feedback on fabric storage. Smaller pieces of fabric are still an issue for lots of us. After a couple evenings and most of one afternoon slicing chunks into usable-sized strips, I feel like I have that issue pretty much under control.

For now.

I plan to keep some bins for specialized groups of fabrics, such as hand-dyes, vintage pieces, African prints (and I had no idea I had so much African fabric!) and Japanese fabrics. There is still a huge pile of....stuff......on top of my cutting table. But I'm working on it.




This reorganization will extend to more than just fabric. I'm looking at a whole shelf of mugs full of pencils, most of which have hardened erasers and never are used. Gone. And I DO have a file cabinet. I'm looking at better organization of patterns, so that searching and SEARCHING for things can be kept to a minimum. And there's more to come--a couple small storage units are on order.

I'm looking forward to having an inviting sewing area once again. Then I can get the year's sewing underway at last.

Quelle Mess!

After going gangbusters last fall, my sewing output has dropped a bit this winter. And is it any wonder? My sewing studio is one HOT MESS with fabrics pulled to audition for one project piled on the back leaf of my sewing cabinet (these fabrics have been sitting here since October):


Scraps are multiplying like some sort of virus:


Fabric bins are bursting at the seams:



and project bins are piled sky-high:


Far from being a peaceful refuge, it feels overwhelming just to enter the room. Clearly some re-organizing is in order.

Mr. Kathie is up north this week for the annual Ski Jumping Tournament. And so, with some unbroken weekend time approaching, I think my Saturday and Sunday need to be devoted to sorting out this mess.

Seeking opinions: who stores fabric in bins and who folds on shelves? I've always been reluctant to spend time folding fabric; mine has always been sorted in bins by color. And that inevitably descends into color-coordinated chaos before too long. I'm seriously thinking about giving folded fabric a try. Talk to me!

And Yet More Words

We're continually weeding at the library. Weeding is library talk for pitching the old and non-circulating to make way for the new and shiny. And me--I'm a little obsessed, of course. Some of the old and unwanted looks pretty good to me. A decade-old Jane Smiley novel that hasn't circed in five years? A one hundred year old copy of Julius Caesar? A copy of Captain Blood that has fan pictures of Errol Flynn glued in it? Who could pass all that up? Certainly not me. This is why the three bookcases bought a couple years back are getting pretty full.

Getting to more current reading: has anyone read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle? I was up until 2:00 a.m. finishing it and would really like to talk about it with someone. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. I can relate to the Wisconsin-ness of it, and the passages about relationships between dogs and their humans will bring tears to your eyes. But in other ways, it's a challenging book, with many possible points of discussion.

I usually feel like I read too slowly and quirkily to fit into a Book Club. But in this case I wish I had some people around me for talking.

Wordiness

So--tah dah--here is my Four Letter Words quilt top completed:



I added a narrow spacer border using wordy background fabrics, then did an improvisational dash border, alternating the background fabrics and the solid brights.



This pieced border was made up as I went along but I really like the way it looks with the wonky words. And I may well use it again.

The outer border is good old reliable piano keys.


Let's see--how many quilts have I used piano key borders on in the last year? This is at least the third. So I'm in a rut. What else is new?

Three sides of the quilt are fairly straight, but the left side is pretty slanty. I had debated making an extra wide outer border on the left side, so as to square things up. But I decided against it. This whole quilt is whacked out and the border being out of square is consistent with the general theme. It stays.

Now to quilt it. I think I'll slide into one of my quilting ruts--I think my wobbly echo quilting will be just the thing on this quilt. And I think I'll use a variety of bright colors.

TGIF, everyone!

DeSoto and Back

Here's the view from our DeSoto, Wisconsin, retreat house, looking toward a frozen Mississippi River and the bluffs of Iowa beyond.


We were blessed with great winter weather for the weekend--a bit of snow in the air for the drive over, but bright sunshine for the rest of the weekend. The mercury even nudged up to the freezing mark. Very cheery.

We stayed at The Cottage, one of two houses in DeSoto owned by a family from Verona, Wisconsin, and available for rent to retreaters. Both houses are beautifully turned out (with views of the Mississippi from the bright living room),


especially well-planned for sewing, with sturdy worktables, wiring for lots of irons, and Ott Lights to go around. The kitchen is also very well-equipped for trading off meal prep and sharing a variety of snacks and goodies. My contribution was Fasolakia, a wonderful Greek green bean combo, which has become a favorite of mine ever since Littleshika prepared it and blogged about it here. This dish has so many possibilites--hot, cold, or in between. And the fact that it's a tasty way to serve up a healthy veggie should not go unremarked.

Several people left sewing machines at home and concentrated on handwork all weekend.


As for me, have sewing machine, will travel. I sewed like crazy and my Four Letter Words top is completed. No pictures yet. Coming soon...

Hurray for me--Monday night I actually made it to a Milwaukee Art Quilters meeting. I met Kasia for dinner before the meeting and we drove into the city together so that we could catch up on each other's lives. We used to work together and would see each other nearly every day but life changes have whittled our get-togethers down to only a few times a year. Show and Tell at the meeting was action packed--many members brought several pieces to show. The usual sleepless night followed, as I worked to process all I had seen.