Pink - lots of pink!

OK - I'm now obsessed (possessed) with this darn clean up thing. There was a pile of stuff in the living room and it was getting out of hand. So I loaded up the car and I was off to the recycling depot. Got rid of 7 or 8 boxes of stuff. Phew - that feels good and the living room looks a whole lot better. There's some stuff slated to go to the retreat with me next week, but there's still a couple of things that I need to get in touch with the person who said they wanted the stuff and see how serious they were.

I also sold another item (a small air compressor) on Facebook Marketplace. I listed it and it was picked up mere hours later. I've got a couple more things to sell. The trick is to not ask for a ton of money. The object here is to get rid of stuff, not make money. I check out similar items for sale and then price mine a wee bit less. It's worked every time.

I wonder if they recognize me at the recycling depot. I told the man what I had in the car and he said: "you know your way around?" Yep - I do. And then I proceeded to happily dump my stuff. While I was getting back in my car, I spotted this. Do you know what it is???

Election signs

Yep - our election was over last week and you are NOT supposed to throw those signs in the garbage. There should be piles and piles of these. It's such a waste. All that yummy corrugated plastic for bag bottoms. I don't need more so I just drove on by!

When I got home, I decided to delve into the cold storage room under the front steps. OH GOD! I found one box of chemicals for the hot tub that we no longer have. That goes right to the recycling depot where I just was! And I found TWO more boxes of fabric dyeing stuff. Good grief. Now I have to go through that before I list the fabric dyeing supplies. Thank goodness I found those boxes before I listed the stuff.

I'll be sharing pictures of that cold storage room soon. All that's left in there are some painting supplies that I don't need, but not sure I have time to sort through it. Oh - I know that I'll make time. There's also bags and bags of fabric scraps that people gave me to make pet mats. Why or why did I offer to do that???  I'm now saddled with a HUGE pile of stuff to make pet mats. I'll work my way through it - I'm now motivated to make that happen and I've found some treasures in the previous bags I went through.

Believe it or not, I find it very therapeutic to work my way through the crap and sort it. BUT - I'm NOT sorting through your crap. I have enough of my own. If I made three pet mats each day, I could get through it and I'd feel a whole lot better.

So the furnace room still needs some work and that cold storage room needs more work, but I made huge progress yesterday and it wasn't even a tidy up day! I now have more stuff in the kitchen to go through, but that's OK. It will be nice when I get to the quilt closet and the stuff under the long arm. Most of that is staying and just needs to be reorganized.

I managed to get the border on that scrappy jelly roll quilt that I serged at the Monday sewing day.

Scrappy jelly roll quilt top - DONE

I dug through the backings and found this fabric (this is the wrong side), and now the backing, binding, and the quilt top are in the "to be quilted" pile.

One more quilt in the "to be quilted" pile

Speaking of quilting, I got that huge quilt done yesterday. I now have two huge quilts to trim. I'd better get to work on that. That wide-angle lens on my phone is amazing! This quilt is 106 inches square.

Customer quilt - DONE

Do you want to know my current status on cutting pillowcase kits for Ryan's Case for Smiles???  After I emptied the tubs that contained the fabric dyeing stuff (it was transferred to cardboard boxes) and the tubs were washed. They've now been repurposed for the pillowcase kits.

Pillowcase kits

Let's see - I now have 10 completed kits. Once the band and the body are matched up, I'm putting them in a plastic bag and they go in the tub in the upper left. There are now TEN kits ready to sew. The pillowcase bodies are in the tub in the upper left and the bands are in the foreground. There are an additional 5 bodies cut and waiting for a matching band to be cut. 4 bands are waiting for a body. I think I said, I would get close to forty pillowcases from that fabric I washed. Well, I was wrong. It's more likely that I'll get 30. Some of the directional pieces were too short to make the pillowcases. And one darn fabric was polyester.

I kind of had my suspicions when I handled it but didn't think anything about it. But when I went to press it (and the fact that it wasn't too wrinkled) well the smell when the heat of the iron touched it revealed that in fact, it was polyester. Darn!!!!  Well, not to worry - remember this is ONE of four baskets of fabric that I've designated for making pillowcases.

Polyester - can't be used for the pillowcases

And if I was feeling sad that I'm putting this fabric to good use, that darn basket doesn't seem as empty as it should be after I've removed fabric for 30 pillowcases. I'll share that with you, but it's a bit disheartening. Enough fabric for thirty pillowcases removed from a basket of fabric and it makes hardly a dent? That means it's even more important to be going through those baskets and getting rid of stuff. Liberally getting rid of stuff.

I'm expecting fabric donations from three people. Once I get those fabrics in the next couple of days and I'll be done cutting what I have washed, then I'll know how much more fabric to wash. The rest of the stuff that I'm donating is NOT directional - so it'll be easier to calculate how much I need.

Fellow quilters - you CANNOT take this stuff with you. I would much rather be doing this than having my family deal with the mess once I'm gone. Get out your fabric and decide how you want to have fun with it. DO NOT save it for a rainy day - well, it's a rainy day today so get it out and find a use for it!

Here's my pile of novels that I bought at the used book store. I got lucky with that bottom one. I was searching for the next three books in the series and I found them all in ONE book. Yeah!!! I was trying to buy them so that they are in the series and only those that I can't find in the local library. However, some of them seem to be quite rare so now I'm buying in several series whenever I see a book that I need. That's why lists are so important. I'm going to need to read faster!

Novels bought at the used book sale

 Has anyone read the book "A House without Windows"?  I have three hours left in the audiobook version of it. Holy cow - this is a novel filled with twists and turns. It's a very sad book based on the subject matter and how women are treated (or should I say mistreated) in Afghanistan. And how a family will sacrifice so much for the sake of appearance in their community. It's long and not a page-turner, but very interesting. Now I want to know what happens - three more hours!

In the novel department, does anyone have any books by M.C. Beaton? There are two different series (Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin) and the books are rather hard to find. Let me know - I'd be happy to buy them off you or borrow them if that works.

I'm also on the hunt for this book about Nancy Zieman. Seams Unlikely. It's her life story and I thought it would be a great book. It's not in the library and if I can find a used one somewhere, then I'll buy used. That's just my quirkiness.

With Christmas coming up in less than two months, I've been thinking of lists of what people can buy as gifts. Not for me - I don't need a thing. That's going to be next week sometime.

One last thing today. Yesterday the new Cherrywood Challenge was announced. The theme and the color of the fabric. Oh boy - I didn't see this coming but I should have. The first two challenges were based on musicals. The first being Wicked (Green) and the second was The Lion King (Yellow/Gold). Then they went to honor people who were no longer with us. Van Gogh (Blue), then Prince (Purple), Bob Ross (Multi-color). So if one were paying attention to the fact that they are focused on honoring famous people who are no longer with us - who would you pick??? It's a woman. A very famous woman who died tragically. Her grandchildren are very much in the news.

Did you guess Princess Diana?? Well, you'd be right and the color is PINK!!!! I know Shelly will be chomping at the bit to get her package (NOT - she hates pink!).

And if you want to see the Bob Ross Challenge at Houston - check out this link.  Part of this display will be in Canada at the end of this month. It's going to be well worth the visit and you can pick up your PINK KIT for the challenge. Right, Shelly???? I'll get more details on the dates for tomorrow.

After my class last night, I started to do some research and well - not sure that I have an idea yet, but I might have.

I've got a couple of errands today that take me to opposite sides of the city. Not my choice. Oh well. I'll try to get some work done in between. And the next quilt is loaded, but I need to get to the sewing machine - I've got some samples to be making.

On that note, have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!!