The BIG sort

 What a totally crazy day! But it was a good day! I did two things - and I know I'm not going to have time to tell you about both - so do we talk about decluttering, or do we talk about sewing? Let's see how much time I have. 

By the way, someone suggested that I could use the scrappy strips for a log cabin quilt. The narrow ones would work! I'm going to tuck that in the back of my mind. Thanks for the suggestion. 

Oh - let's talk about sewing!

I have a couple of guild presentations in the next couple of weeks. HEY -- if your guild is looking for a speaker, I do guild presentations. I have a couple of topics - organizing, scrap quilts, group quilts, modern quilts, and my journey as a quilter. So - is it easier to do a presentation in person or on Zoom?? Well, I have to take pictures of all the quilts, or I have to pack them. To sort them in person is a physical job; to sort them in a slide presentation is easy! And I'm able to add in a lot of other interesting things by doing the slide presentation. Yet - I would HATE to do a slide presentation in person. 

And what other advantage is there to the Zoom presentation? EVERYONE gets a front-row seat, and it's easy to show details of the quilts. Oh yes-- I think I'm going to love the Zoom presentations to guilds. 

I'm doing a presentation on GROUP quilts on Thursday morning. I think the guild will allow guests to attend. I should check that out in case any of you are interested in hearing the lecture. It's with the Kanata Quilt Guild. 

However, that means that I need to get a "couple" of pictures. And all the quilts are still in that huge pile in the living room. So I started to sort them. I have a pile for magazine quilts, one for quilts I made while at Northcott, and my personal stuff. It's pretty much my personal stuff that goes into my guild presentations. 

Starting the BIG sort

Oh boy -- that's going to take a long time, so I just grabbed the ones I need for the group quilt presentation. And as I was working during the day, I started to pull other things that I can share in the presentation. 

As a result, the ironing board was a tad full this morning. 

The ironing board became the dumping ground

The cutting table was a mess. 

The cutting table became a work zone

Oh my --- I can't wait to get started assembling this presentation later today. There's only one slight problem. There is ONE quilt top that I can't find. Yes - the quilt top is together; I did NOT find it in the list of "to be quilted" or the two boxes of quilt tops that need backings. I've checked the shelves; it was NOT in the project box, and so where the heck is it???  And there's one newspaper article that I want to find. I'm pretty sure that it's in a folder in the filing cabinet, and so that's my job for later today - I want to find those two items. If I don't have them, it's no big deal, but it'll add to the stories I have to share about my group quilts. 

And then, I have to prep the scrap quilt presentation for next week. 

Oh boy -- I've done a LOT of group quilts, and sadly a "few" of them are not done. I guess they should get added to the UFO list. See - the old me would have piled a few onto the current projects table. I can't do that! But I'm so tempted. NO - you MUST stay focused. FOCUS!!!

I'm happy to report that the scrappy blue string quilt is together. 

Scrappy, string pieced blue quilt

And despite the many seams and the double thickness (the strings are pieced to a solid piece of fabric), those seams are FLAT as a pancake. 

The seams are FLAT

Even the back is well pressed. A wee bit of manipulating with your fingers and a LOT of steam - you can make anything lie flat. 

Even the back is flat

I pulled out some backing fabric for it, and I also pulled the tin of leftover bindings. I'm going to search out all the blue leftover pieces and see if there is enough to make the binding for this quilt. 

Then I had time to sew something else, and instead of working on things that have a deadline, I chose to work on the paper pieced project that I should be working on. Technically, it doesn't have a deadline, but it takes up a LOT of real estate on that table, and it would be nice to get it finished. 

I started the session with these partially sewn arcs for the double wedding ring. 

Partially sewn arcs for the double wedding ring quilt

And by this morning, I'm almost finished with the arcs that were partially sewn. There are quite a few arcs that have not been started, and I'm going to work on those today at Monday sewing. 

Paper pieced arcs are ready to be trimmed

Once those arcs get done, the next sections do not require as much piecing, so hopefully, they will go faster. But these ars are a breeze to sew together. And listening to this intense audiobook makes the time go by very quickly. 

I got a customer quilt done yesterday. 

Customer quilt - DONE

And I was on a roll and got a second one done. Now there's a huge stack of quilts to trim, and I have to put the binding on this one, and the customer wants to pick it up today, so I guess I'll be starting the day by putting the binding on. 

Customer quilt - DONE

I have another quilt loaded and ready to go later today. I must confess that I snuck one of my quilts in. It's for M, and hey- when your kid asks for a quilt -you jump!!! The back is Cuddle, which is always a pain to load on the long arm. The quilt's width is greater than the normal 60" Cuddle. I happened to find the wide stuff a while back, so I had to load that. Almost 100" of Cuddle for the top and then 100" for the back. Did I mention that I hate to load Cuddle? Anyway - it's loaded and ready to go. 

Speaking of sewing and M, I got a call the other day - she needed help to thread the sewing machine I gave her! OH my -- what is she sewing? Anyway, it was an easy thing to get the machine threaded via Facetime. She did most of it herself; I think she just needed me to be on standby!!!

I have to laugh because she NEVER picks anything easy. What was she sewing? Lace to a sheer fabric to make a curtain for a shelf. Way to go, kiddo!!!!! I guess I probably shouldn't call her that since she's not really a kid anymore. OK -- way to go, M!!!!

M's lacy curtain

There's hope that she may take up sewing someday? I don't know why it is, but new sewists are ALWAYS attracted to fabrics that are hard to sew!!!

OK -- so I'll share a couple of pictures with you from the decluttering exercise. This first box is FILLED with receipts. Why?? Because I was going to verify them against the bank statement or the credit card! I dare not even look at the dates. OK -- I couldn't help myself - 2013. Oh boy - I don't think we need any of those. I'm going to go through the box rather than just dumping it. I know - I'm my own worse enemy, but this is how I roll. I NEED to look through the box. Anything important will be on a large piece of paper, so it'll be easy to sort through. 

A box of old receipts

I got too busy with sewing that I didn't have time yesterday, but it's on the list, and even if I poke out a handful from time to time and deal with it  - that's OK. Then I can refill the box with stuff from open boxes, so it won't' look quite so messy in here! 

Can you believe what DH said the other day about the office? BTW - he used to complain that it was a total disaster. He said it looked clean. Seriously??? OH - for him, a mess is when things are on the floor. I had to laugh about that. 

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Speaking of stuff on the floor, here's what's on the floor that needs to be dealt with. This is my sorting stack, and I have to literally step over that mess each time I get up from the computer. I'll be sharing more of the clean-up with you tomorrow, as I did get rid of some of this stuff yesterday. 

The stuff on the chopping block 

N, 

How did the software cleanup go yesterday? I'll be sharing my experience tomorrow. OK -- are you ready for something to declutter today? How about bank statements? Do you still have those?? If you are still getting them, perhaps you should call your bank and switch to getting them electronically. It saves a huge amount of paper. No FILING, and when you want a specific statement, it's easy as pie to find it on the bank's server. That goes for other bills as well. 

If you insist on keep them, ask yourself why? And how often do you go back and look at them. Unless you are my mother, there's usually no need. The same goes for income tax. You only need SEVEN years. The rest goes bye-bye!!!  Don't throw the stuff away - if you have a shredder, you can shred it yourself or take it to a UPS store or Staples or some other place that will shred your documents. You might have to spend a few dollars, but you'll also clean up a HUGE mess. 

So - hop to it --- dig out all those old cheques and bank statements - that's the assignment for today. And switch to online. I'm happy to report that I did that several years ago, and I LOVE it. All the old statements are gone, and I've never regretted it. Never had to go back and find something. I should check our box of income taxes - I don't think the last couple of years were recycled, and now everything is done electronically, so technically no need to keep anything in the house. Yippeeee!!!!!

On that note, I'm out of here!!!! I've got so much that I want to do today!!!! And it's Monday sewing!!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!