While I'm away.............

Sleeves on those two quilts and they are gone!  

The next quilt needed some major work on the backing.  The fabrics that I had available to me were in pieces - some were FQ size, some were fat eighth.  I messed with them all until I had a backing that was big enough for the quilt that measured 45 by 60 inches.  Loaded it on the long arm last night and got it quilted.  The binding was also made from FQ pieces so there were double the seams.  Bottom line - that quilt is now finished. No sleeve necessary on that one. And I'm going to show you how it came together tomorrow.  

Once I was finished with the quilt, it was time to pull my kitchen apart. The cleaning lady is coming in today to wipe down the upper cabinets - inside and out. That means that EVERYTHING in the cabinets had to be removed. 

Thankfully we had done this once before a couple of years ago. We ended up donating a lot of stuff so while the cabinets were full, they weren't jam-packed. 

Upper cabinets empty!!!

Shoot - I should have taken a picture with the cabinet doors open.      There is some stuff that we don't use a lot but I'm not ready to get rid of it yet. Like mixing bowls - when do I ever use a mixing bowl?  Oh yes - the days when I want pancakes.  So we have a minimal set of the basics - serving bowls, mixing bowls, etc.

Where we have the worst problem is the cups................

A wild assortment of cups!

Many of those cups were given to me by friends so I don't want to get rid of them. But there are some that are just ordinary cups and those will go!  Before we put things back in the cupboards, it will be sorted by what we keep and what we don't.

A sad little hodgepodge of glasses

This is all we have left for glasses.  I don't think I've ever had a matching set. The closest I got was those green ones, but I see there is only one of them left.  A couple of the smaller ones belonged to my grandmother and I'm keeping those. 

It's not like we don't have room so I'll see how it goes, but there are definitely things that will go.

The other area is the foodstuff.  I have a HUGE selection of tea.  It's HUGE - takes up two doors of cupboard space.  I guess I had better start drinking a lot more tea at home!  It's getting colder so I expect that will happen more.

And then there are the staples - half of which I don't think need to be in the cupboard. So that will be the major area of clean-up.

Then in two weeks, we're going to do the bottom half and the next after that will be the drawers.  Hopefully, we can get that kitchen spic n span and filled only with the stuff that we actually use.  The rest  - GONE!!!!

I won't have time to get the next quilt completed that was due this week until late Friday night so it will get shipped out on Tuesday.  That's just the way it is - we go by priority and we focus!!!   Once that is done, then we're onto the next list of deadlines for the month of October and there are a LOT of them.

One thing that I've noticed as I've been working this week.  I used to hate making the binding for a quilt. I used to hate sewing it on. Now I don't even think about it. I just trim the quilt, make the binding, then sew it on. My supplies are sitting right by the sewing machine and there's zero excuses for not getting it done!!!

Well on that note, I'm out of here.

Lots going on and I've got lists to make so I can prioritize the next list of quilts.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!