Friday, December 09, 2011

Actual Sewing - Can You Believe It?

I sewed yesterday for a little bit. I actually cleaned up my cutting table for 15 minutes first. I was so excited, as I found a packet of 80 die-cut hearts that I have been looking for, plus I unearthed my quilter’s reference book. You know the one – it has how to set on point and how many triangles will you need and cut them this way, etc. I was quite glad to see that again.

We’re trying to move back our small family room sofa so that there is more floor space for the PS3 Move that we have. My cutting table butts up against the sofa, so the cutting table has to move so that we can move the sofa. So it will move to where the ironing board is. The ironing board will go away and so I need an ironing pad. A series of bookcases are also going to be moved in all of this, so it’s just a boatload of crazy. We want it done soon, so that we can enjoy the Move, but it is not a requirement for us to host Christmas.

We are hosting Ted’s mother’s side, who are all very forgiving people when it comes to housework. That is right up my alley.

In detailed Orca Bay news, I am using green where Bonnie is using black. So I am taking out 5 hunks of green fabric at a time and cutting 1.5 strips and 2.0 strips, and then of course the corresponding neutrals. Someone did point out that the HSTs for Old Tobacco Road (OTR) were the same size as these, so I’m cutting more 2.0 strips and just piecing those HSTs like crazy and dumping them in an ice cream bucket. Once I get all the QSTs made and counted, etc, I will go back and start pressing and counting all of the HSTs. I want to knock out the OTR ones at the same time and since I have a king sized bed, I want like double the amount of HSTs. So basically I just need to make 1200 HSTs and life will be good. See why I’m not even counting them at this point? I have 22 QSTs sewn and many halves sewn.

I am using black where Bonnie is using blue, so I did cut out 18 foundation papers and started sewing those as the leaders and enders for when I chain-piece all the cut green pieces. I just add a strip to every block I’ve started and make sure the last thing through the needle is a new string block. These are going very quickly. I have not been able to find any black strings so far in my scrap bags, so I am cutting strips from black hunks of fabric.

I am using yellow where Bonnie is using red, and of course since I work, I haven’t started those yet. I don’t think I can have 4 steps going at once. So these will just have to wait. I did just finish an all yellow log cabin, so I have tons and tons of leftover strips that I will use. I will sort through all of my bags and pull them all. The first goal will be to see if the strip is 2.5 inches. If so, and it’s long enough, it will go into the pieced binding. Once I have 350 inches of binding or if the strip doesn’t meet the binding qualifications, I’ll go ahead and use it as a string.

My weekend is already a bit crazy, but that’s OK. The goal right now is to finish the QSTs while sewing on steps 2 and 3.

As for Christmas, I have two small gifties to make for a pair of sisters that are the nieces of a friend of mine. That will be something fun to do next week.

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