Wonky stars for Australia

Today I made these two wonky or liberated stars. Tia Curtis is making a collection for those who have lost everything in the terrible fires in Australia. They are to be 12.5" unfinished, so I looked in the box of 4.5" squares to get the right sized pieces. There were the light blue triangles already cut! [I'm impressed that my re-organizing (which isn't finished) has such an immediate payoff.] However the first block, white with blue star, came out 1/8th inch too small. Probably because I thought I could do it OK with the wrong foot on the machine. Had to be enlarged with additional strips on two sides. So the second one I changed the foot back to the regular one, and made the pieces over-large and then cut the block down. And I then hada enough room to NOT match the corners where the star arms meet/don't meet. A little more wonky.


Here's the way the reorganization improvement was looking a day ago. No don't tell me there is work still to be done. . . I HAVE cut up that pile of scraps near the iron, and I have even "filed" a few more odd pieces that can be used in making backings. I, if only I, can tell that things have improved. And so far I'm doing 30 minutes of cutting scraps everyday. Two days. Hmmm, 21 days to make a new habit?


Now to go find an envelope for mailing these two stars to Tia, who luckily has a n FBO address in the US as well as one in Australia.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Charlie took the dog away while the cleaning woman was here (else Zeke barks the whole time)
Found those triangles!
Ate lunch on time

Oh, wow! I just went back and added the link to Tia's blog. I have never done that before. And it's easy. Sort of. So now you can click on her name and get the whole story at her blog.

More organized?

The good news is this:

The labelled bins are reachable, and filling up. And that upper right corner of the bookcase looks like it is EMPTY! Not for long I fear.

The bad news is this:

A large pile of scraps that have been ironed, but still need to be cut up into useable sizes.

The really bad news:

This bin AND the one under it are full of other scraps!

Meanwhile at least I have unblocked my access to my clothes closet, and a few boxes and piles have been combined. I have pitched out to the library several piles of excapist novels that I have no need to read again. I have kept the bed clear of piles, at least at bedtime each night.

I feel that some progress has been made. Now to become a HABITUAL scrap cutter, not a scrap piler.

Sara

Gratitudes:

60 degree weather melting the snow like gangbusters

Mailed away two boxes, one of fabric

Finished my Secret Sister bag of goddies for this month

Cutting Area reclaimed

Saturday work completed. That is, this is the work that got completed! The cutting mat is mostly cleared. Behind it the box on the left is the scraps that are to be cut next. The box on the right contains the scraps ro be cut up later! The pile up between those boxes are my squares and very wide strips for making backings for quilts. They don't get touched until I need a backing. Come to think of it, I'm going to need backing strips for the Carolina Crossroads. Hmm. Better get those ready before I go on retreat next weekend.

After church today I am leaving for Baltimore and a conference center at The Maritime Institute. I will be reading ordination exams there with Jim Young from Northfield, Minnesota, supervised by the Liturgics professor from The Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. Since I have done this five or six times, I know how the procedure works; one thing is that Jim will bring his laptop computer and we will write our evaluations on it. Another is that the daily liturgies will be good stopping points from the heavy mental work, and a joy to have someone else prepare! I am taking my camera, but my dream of visiting Charm City Cakes will not come to be. They do not allow visitors "for liability reasons".

I will be back in Grand Rapids late Thursday night, wash clothes, sleep and pack again for the quilting retreat. Probably I won't have time to post until I get back again on Sunday late.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Stretching exercises

Pool at the hotel

Seeing old acquaintances

Cutting Disaster Area

After the workshop with Gwen Marston I left my sewing machine and its table in my Subaru Forester rather than bringing them into the house. In three and a half days I am going out of town. When I return I am jumping directly into the car the next morning and going on a quilt retreat. To go to that I will need to load my sewing machine and its table into the car, along with a lot of other gear. So I thought I would just leave those two heavy items already "packed".

This has left a sudden VOID in my sewingroom, and the opportunity to clean up some of the piles of fabric, as well as vacuum the floor.

The object of today's incomplete work was my "Cutting Station". You can see the outer edge of the green cutting mat with a pile of scraps "to be cut" piled on top. I worked on sorting these a bit today, and the pile is a little shorter. Nothing got cut up yet, just removing things that really should be somewhere else.

Went to a play "Going to St. Ives" tonight at Actors' Theater and had dinner first with friends at the culinary training center of the Community College. Their restaurant "The Heritage" is quite good, but the service is a little slow while they learn how to do everything.

Sara

Exercise today: 50 minutes in the pool + grocery shopping

Gratitudes:

New duvet cover came

Afternoon nap

Good discussion of the play afterwards