Cutting

WOW --- it feels great to be away in a very casual setting and have great friends to chat with! Yep -- I think I'm in quilting heaven, and that's OK. 

It took a while to get here as I had to wait for my 1:30 appointment for the ultrasound. And can you believe I was almost at the clinic when I realized I had left my wallet at home? And my health card was in my wallet, and so was my credit card to pay for parking. DUH!! I didn't have time to go back, so I hoped that all would be OK, and sure enough, they had my information in the system and took me at face value. I will NOT do that again, and I truly appreciate the staff for letting me in. 

I guess I look like an honest person who makes honest mistakes from time to time. 

I needed a nap in the morning, and there was plenty of thunder and lightning, and the girls were not so happy. So I was napping on the couch, and guess who had to join me. 

MOM - we are protecting you - we are NOT afraid of the thunder!

Notice they were facing away from me. That's to keep an eye on intruders before they get to me! Oh, the girls are so silly. 

And then they jumped off, and one was on one side of the seat

MOM - I'm the right guard

And Murphy was on the other. It was quite hilarious to watch them. 

MOM - I've got the left flank!

So I am trying to get my projects organized. And I found this fabric in a project box. The original intention was to make a stack and whack from it. And guess what? I did -- I've made two. Now can you tell me why I would have this many more panels? Good grief -- that was in the days when I needed MULTIPLES of everything because MORE is better. I've learned (thank goodness) that MORE is BAD. 

Excess panels

So the question is, what to do with it? AHA -- I've now designated it for a quilt backing for the community project quilts. And there are a few bits and pieces in the project box, and I'm making up something as I go, and so far, it looks great. So hopefully, when I'm back home, I can empty that box. 

I was trimming some HSTs, and for the life of me, I could not find the others that I had trimmed a while back. AHA -- I found them sitting beside my computer. DUH!! There are days - but they were there to remind me to send an e-mail to someone! They are now all back together again. 

My trimmed HSTs

Oh -- you can't really see, but it was pouring buckets at this point. Needless to say, the girls were in the house. 

Pouring rain

Thanks to Linda, I'm now in a scrap-cutting mood. I brought some boxes of scraps here, and I'm going to cut. I also brought my sewing machine, but it's still unpacked. I raised the height of my table in the workroom to make it comfortable for cutting, and now here I am. 

My cutting station

I do not like precutting everything to shapes and have resisted for years. However, I've decided on THREE shapes that will work well. And I have THREE quilts in mind. So I'm cutting the first bits at 2 1/2" square. The second bit in the picture are 2 1/2" by 4 1/2" rectangles. So far, so good. That is for TWO different projects. 

Precut shapes

Then I cut 2" squares and 2" by 5" rectangles. Both of those are for the same quilt. 

More bits for another quilt

And so help me, this is what's left. Everything is nicely ironed and in a box. I know --- what am I going to do with this? Well, I'll have a second go another time, which I'm OK with. And I'll pull out the long skinny pieces for a string quilt, and I might cut 1 1/2" squares or some form of 1 1/2" rectangle, and then I really need to toss the remainder. But for the moment, I'm dealing with those specific sizes. 

The rejects (for the moment)

It's totally therapeutic, and with the quietness of the retreat, it's a blessing. There is ZERO drama, just fun and friends, and I love it!

This is the ONE container I've tipped upside down and dealing with. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done while I'm here. Yikes -- that is a lot of scraps. 

What needs to be cut

Then I had to cut a few squares for another project I'll work on here, and I brought a bag of Tula Pink scraps. I'm determined to get those things used up! I got enough squares for the project, and I have some yardage for the lining. Phew -- that job is accomplished. 

Squares for a separate project

I also bought some small bags of precut squares at a quilt show. Yes -- that one bag is cut at 1". I may or may not go down that road - I'll see how it goes when I make the first pass through the brown bins. 

Bags of squares

I'm not sure if I'll make a totally brown quilt or if keep those bits and mix colors? I'll just cut for now and see how it goes. So this exercise would be much easier if I cut those scraps as I go along. But I honestly needed to find a pattern before I could do that, and now I'm on a roll!

Yes -- I got my 20th geocache in 20 days. However, when I went back to look at the task, I think it meant 20 caches in the month, not necessarily on 20 consecutive days. Oh well -- it doesn't matter -- I did it!!!!!

My virtual geocaching badge

Yeah!!!! 

So I have one Zoom this morning, and then I'm free for the remainder of the retreat. I can live with that as I had to move this class from last week and this was the only time we could do it!

On that note, I'm out of here to resume cutting!!

Have a great day!!

Ciao!!!