Here’s my mid-month update to my September list of what I want to do…
1. Continue to count fabric in and out of my stash – Use my stash!
Even though I just got back to posting my stash report and I’m +almost 40 yards for the year, I’m happy with the downward progression that I’m making from year to year. In case you missed sunday’s post I noted that this time last year I was +60 and in 2013 I was +125 yards. +40 is okay now. By counting the yardage in and out sometime this year I wanted to start limiting myself to buying fabric for projects and not just because I love fabric (I do succumb every once in awhile.) But I am making a concerted effort to only buy fabric for specific projects and I’m getting better at doing that. I’ve run out of space for fabric in my current storage solution so unless I make changes to where I store it, I really cannot shouldn’t buy any more. 🙂
2. Concentrate on one thing at a time. –
- Scrapitude – haven’t done this yet. It is Quilt #2 to be quilted.
- make sure I have enough batting in my stash somewhere.
- trim down the batting
- quilt this
- Tell It To The Stars – haven’t done this yet. It is Quilt #1 to be quilted. Bailey is still in the garage and I haven’t brought it into the house yet.
- Get Bailey in the house to quilt it.
- Moon Glow –
- cut and sew the borders on – done. It is Quilt #3 to be quilted.
- buy batting – haven’t gotten this yet but it’s not high on the priority list since it is #3 on the “to be quilted” list.
- determine what the backing is going to be – I have bought the backing but I need to measure and piece it together so I can use it. Again, it’s not high on the priority list since it is #3 on the “to be quilted” list.
- determine what the quilting is going to be – I saw a quilted Moon Glow during the Quilt Run and it gave me some great ideas. I think I’ll be marking this quilt for quilting.
- get this on Bailey and quilt it! – At this point, I’m not proficient enough to want to quilt this on Bailey. By the time I get to it, that may be different. But I want to quilt each block differently and it might be easier for me to quilt it on the Bernina. The throat space is really small and I may use the Brother instead. I’m not sure. I’ll have to get the Brother set up for FMQ and practice a bit before I could even get there. For now, I’m going to wait and see how Quilt #1 and Quilt #2 go on Bailey before I decide one way or the other.
- Raining Cats and Dogs –
- Finish the applique on the final block – working on this. Now that Moon Glow’s top is done, this is back on my rotation. The plan is to work on this 2-3 times per week.
- Hampton Ridge –
- Piece the rows together – working on this. I pieced the first set of rows together last weekend. So Now I have 6 rows that need to get put together. I’m not rushing to finish this but I do want to get the inner top completed by the end of the month.
3. View and complete Craftsy Classes. –
Stephanie Japel’s Hats Four Ways – Work on the second project – I haven’t worked on this at all. I brought this with me to my quilt guild meeting last night but didn’t even take it out of the bag!
4. Complete a project I have a kit for – I’m full on quilty mode right now and I’m relishing it. I do have a few projects to work on but I’m not sure I’ll have the time to work on this. My Dad’s coming to visit for a few weeks so I think I only have time for quilting projects. As I stated in this post, I’m updating my upcoming quilt list above because I want to work on piecing blocks not rows.
5. Scrap system? – Go through bins and separate Bin #3, Bin #4 and full yardage. – Okay, so I’ve gone through my scrap bins and have separated them. I went into it in this post. But real quick here’s a summary. I keep 4 different bins of scraps and each bin is as follows:
Bin #1 – scraps I can no longer use. They are so tiny and are used to stuff pet beds or mailing stuff or more recently packing.
Bin #2 – Scraps I can use but cannot cut pieces out of. They’re bigger than 1/2 an inch and I use them for relaxing piecing when I don’t want to work on an actual project. This is the bin my DD has free reign to use whenever she gets in the mood.
Bin #3 – Scraps that I can cut into pieces but are not large enough to fold. So nothing bigger than a 5×7 or 8×10 depending on my mood.
Bin #4 – Scraps that are large enough to fold. These are fabric from quilt projects I’ve completed and have enough fabric left over to fold up. or are fat quarters I have on hand. I don’t generally buy fat quarters but they still end up in my stash.
Yards of fabric – these are kept in 4-5 separate large tote bins. The bins above are small. I will take a picture at some point.
Anyway, this is what I’m working with. We’ll see how well it works. I am thinking about sorting all my fabric in terms of color no matter the size of the fabric or whether it is yardage or scraps (not including Bin #1 which cannot be used in sewing or Bin #2 which is too small to cut pieces from. So Bin #3, 4, and yardage all grouped up together in their own color bins. That may come in handy if I’m looking at doing a Red and White quilt or something. But not so much if I wanted to be pure scrappy. And I may end up with a ton more bins than I have space for. So, we’ll see how this works and if I need to change it up, I will.
Here’s to a great year!
Happy Quilting!
~Melanie
You’ve got a good system in place! I like the way you’ve planned out your quilts, itemized what you need for completing each one of them. That’s a great idea.
Thanks Susan!
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