Several days this week I’ve spent time pressing and cutting my scraps into manageable usable pieces.  The pickings in several of my pre-cut boxes were getting pretty slim, but I’m happy to report that now there’s a good selection.  But my rotary cutter is wore out from prepping pieces for “Future Quilts” and I need to work on a couple of more pressing items.

So, the remaining scraps, including the pile I pressed yesterday, has gone back into the basket on the shelf. At least it’s no longer overflowing.

It’s been a while since I worked on my DWR.  Tonight I finished quilting two of the outer arc/melon sets.

Tomorrow it’s back to work on Josh’s quilt.  I understand the forecast for next week is the high will only be 32 degrees farenheit. He may want his quilt back before then.

On my list of things to do, is to rearrange the stuff on my “extra” shelves so all of the quilting overflow is on a single set of shelves. I didn’t think to take a “before” picture, but here’s a picture from July to give you an idea of what I was up against:

I’m not there yet, but I’m getting closer.

Fabric from my mom and a friend’s mom was found in some of the boxes — more than I remember having. (That’s a good thing).  In fact, I did the quilt along using all floral fabric to use up some of my florals, only to end up with more floral fabric than I started with!  Not because I went shopping, but because I opened a couple of boxes.

Now to the multiplying scraps.

In the first picture, the pile of fabric/scraps on the ironing board appears to be my orphan block box.  I got it “under control” back in July.  What you can’t see is the red basket on the shelf full of scraps and bits & pieces of leftover fabric dating back to 2011.  I  haven’t been keeping my scraps cut up.

Tuesday night I dumped the red basket into a laundry basket so I could root around and pull out the larger pieces and put them away.  I tell you the scraps multiplied.

They filled up the laundry basket which is nearly twice as big.  Then I turned around and spotted another laundry basket – this one with shirt scraps.

Clearly I have some work cut out for me. But when I get it done I’ll be ready to start accumulating scraps again in my newly labeled basket.

One third of the quilt has been re-quilted.  Ten more blocks to go.

Earlier this week my husband embarked on a lamp project for his music room/office. While looking on Craigslist for a lamp he could cannibalize for parts, he found the “perfect lamp” and we drove half way across the state to get it.  After bringing it home and studying it, he decided it needed a few modifications, which in turn has resulted in numerous trips to the assorted hardware stores.

One of the things he bought is a 75 watt equivalent LED Daylight bulb. That darn thing is pricey! But look what it can do.

The pictures above were taken about midnight with only two lights in the room — the LED bulb in my task light fixture and a large compact fluorescent bulb in a floor lamp approximately 5 1/2 feet away from the sewing machine.  The flash on my camera was turned OFF.

Guess what just got put on my wish list.

As for the perfect lamp I’ll post a picture when he gets it put in his office. It really will be the “perfect lamp”.

Work continues on Deadline Project 2 and Josh’s quilt repair. While piecing I’ve been making green and white 4-patches since that’s what I had in my pre-cut box, but I only have a few more left.

Then I got distracted. I needed to clear a space to set up a vintage aluminum tree to photograph it to see about selling it.  Everything got shifted around and when I boxed up the tree, I was determined to take down the little table that had a pile of fabric on it from my last two (or three) projects.

The birthday quilt and leftover fabric is in a bag ready to go to V for quilting. I folded a stack of leftover fabric and put it away and now I’m tackling the scraps which were on the table. Eventually, I’ll need to deal with that red basket just visible on the right side of the picture and that laundry basket on the floor on the left. Oh, and it would be nice if I could clear a space on the shelves for that box hiding behind the iron cord in the picture. It’s the one containing the tops which just need borders.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to see what others are working on this week.

Lots of piecing this week, but only the fabric for the tie shows up in the stash report. The pattern calls for 3/4 yards of two different fabrics, but since I’m a scrappy quilter I figured I really only used 1/2 yard for both sides, given that I can cut up the rest of the fabric for something else.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 164.037 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report:  0.5 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 104.823 yards

Net Used for the year -59.214 yards

See how others are doing with their stashes over at Patchwork Times.

I just read Jo’s post over at Jo’s Country Junction.  Oops.  Guess what I left off my November/December quilting goals. Not only that, the quilt and border fabric has been put in a project box  I seem to have misplaced the quilt in the cleanup from last week!

I know I did something with it because the label 3″ Spools is missing from the new labels I made.  On the master list I’ve written “4” beside the listing.

And from my legend I now know that I’m looking in the wrong place.

It was with this last clean up that I started putting “active” quilting stuff over on the shelves on the other side of the room. No wonder I wasn’t able to find the quilt top during my quick searches.

But even knowing where to look didn’t seem to help me. So one more turn around the sewing room, then I spotted it.

I setup a box for those quilts that are just need borders – only there’s no room on the shelf for them yet.

It’s sitting on the floor.  Whew!  I really didn’t want to have to re-clean my sewing room to find this quilt.

I think I’m going to aim for next weekend to get the border on the quilt.  I have a long weekend and perhaps I’ll be done with the piecing on Deadline Project 2 and the re-quilting of Josh’s quilt.

Check out the links over at Jo’s Country Junction to see how others are doing on their challenge quilts.

Judy has posted her “Get It Done” linky so I thought I would add my list. I haven’t done well with this challenge – either listing what I was going to do or follow through with it.  I’m not even going to play “right” today.

Earlier this week I was musing about my UFOs. Will I have finished more than I started by the end of the year?  So I reviewed what I have done so far.

I have started 12 new projects – 6 are still in the piecing stage, 4 made it to the top stage and 1 is completed. I’ve also finished 7 UFOs. I will have to finish 4 more quilts by the end of the year to break even.

So, my goals for November and December are as follows:

• Complete Deadline Project 2.
• Frog Quilt – it just needs a little bit of applique and embroidery then it can be quilted (it’s only 16 x 18 so what’s my problem?)
• Eeyore- lots of applique ugh. It was supposed to be a birthday gift May 2012. I don’t know if I can pull it off for Christmas 2013.
• Tetris Quilt – it’s small and it’s already layered for quilting. There’s no rush on it but might be a quick finish to end the year with the same # of project in progress that I had at the beginning of the year.

Additionally, I will need to do the following:

• November BOM
• December BOM
• Repair the quilting in Josh’s quilt — I’ve started this and I’m about 1/4 of the way done.

Will I get all of this done? Who knows. But I have a plan and goal.

To see what other’s plan to work on in November hop over to Patchwork Times.

“Do you have any Halloween Fabric?” was the question from my husband this evening.  Turns out he wanted a Halloween tie.

Several years ago I bought 5 or 6 yards of this Disney Halloween print with the intention of making a Stack ‘n Whack quilt. But then decided there wasn’t enough motion in the background. Until about a year ago, it was the only Halloween fabric in my stash. Since then, I’ve been given some FQs, scraps and have bought my own FQs.

Side one was decided.  Now to find side two.  It clearly wasn’t going to be Halloween fabric. Briefly we thought about making the other side Christmas. But then we rooted through my music fabric. When I was buying music fabric, if I thought the print would be good for a tie, I bought 1 1/4 yards.

I opened the drawer where I last saw the tie pattern (“The Two Soup Tie by Fasturn patterns # 100) and was rewarded with not only the pattern but with the interfacing traced off. All I had to do was press it to the fabric, cut, stitch, turn and sew up a 2” opening.

DH will be decked out in holiday spirit tomorrow as he substitute teaches.