String Update

I started to write this yesterday to link up with Jo and then realized that I had made very little progress on my string projects. So I held off until I could report something. Last night I had only 5 new kites/units/ 1/4 blocks, whatever they are called,finished. Today I have my weekly allotment of 11done and the 11 new pieces cut for the upcoming week.



Since I had over 40 of these units done, I decided to put some blocks together to make sure I liked the outcome.





Yes, yes I like it. The light in this room doesn't do this justice. Will have to take a better one in daylight.  With only 4 or 5 strips on each side of the kite, they go fast so it should be quick work to get a whole bunch more made.  The only thing slowing me down is all the other projects demanding some attention right now.

I started cutting and sewing on the bar mitzvah quilt and oh didn’t I mention? My hubby requested another present for a cousin.  The last time I gave the Orange Crush I had in the UFO pile, the time before that I did a Bricks and Stepping Stones. The Bricks and Stepping Stones is faster to do from a cold start ( uncut fabric) so that’s what I’m going with.  A dash over to Joanns provided some current novelty fabric and I have been slicing away at it. Only 30 more bricks to cut.  But first while I have a sitting down break from cutting, off to link up with Jo

UFO Challenge update

Oh my, I went down to get some pictures of the progress and totally lost the rest of the day.
I haven’t been sewing downstairs much this week but I did get a good chunk of my UFO project together.
This was a mystery quilt and I am now working on clue 8 of 9. And that means pieces are starting to look like something. The little nine patches and strip pieces are going together to make big blocks.

Please excuse the streak of sunshine. The time of day I like to work in my basement sewing room is mid-afternoon when the sun is shinning in my window. It makes the cutting easier but messes up the photos.
There are still a lot of pieces to go. However this assembly requires precision, with careful placement of blocks, so I only work on it when I have a big chunk of uninterrupted time.
Which hasn’t been that frequent. Mostly I've been running down to cut more pieces to then bring up to the sewing machine in my bedroom.
Slowly it will get done, it has been waiting for two years, a few more days is nothing.  Now to link up with Jo's UFO challenge

A new challenge !

And challenge accepted.
Jo has issued a challenge to finish a sampler/BOM project and do I have one? Yes I do. Not very old, it is a BOM for 2017 which was Canada’s 150th birthday. Several quilting projects were inspired by that occasion, fortunately I only signed up for one.
As you can see from the glare, they are mostly all still in their packages. Untouched. Except for the first month which I did do. And as Jo said on her post, the process of all that work for only one block seemed a waste of time and effort.

This was an on-line signup, and they had my credit card to bill every month.  So even after I gave up on it, the patterns kept coming. I didn’t have to go anywhere, they came to me, every month, two of them a month. It became overwhelming after the second month and I just shoved them away, a couple not even opening the paper envelope they came in.
I felt guilty because I was paying for them and not using them but had too many other things on the go to tackle the backlog.
I did get the first months blocks done.

So I’m not completely behind. LOL.
Now with Jo’s help I will get this done.
The first step is admitting the problem right? The first step here is to link up with Jo's Challenge because she always gets me moving on a project. Almost as good as a boot in the rear. EDIT: oops, it wasn't a link-up today, just a start up post.

The second step was getting them all out and in a project box. Now to go pick a fabric for the next month's block.

 

Ringo Lake Mystery Link Up

I feel very confident writing this week. Lots of progress was made on all the clues. Clue 2 is almost done.  It could have been checked off however I came up 2 pieces short. This could just be that a couple of the stacks clipped together have more than 10.  Rather than go through and recount them all, I figured it was simplier to cut and sew two more. And cleaning off the cutting board I found one, so only had to make one more.
I also am feeling more confident because I have the clues all organized, sorted and tabulated. Doing that makes me more relaxed. In my old sewing room, in my  previous house, I had a white board stuck on the wall over my cutting table where I tracked the clues and could see at a glance what needed to be cut, sewn or was done.  That didn’t come with us and I have been missing it.  Fortunately when my husband was cleaning out his cubical at the office prior to retiring last month, he brought home an easel pad.
While it doesn’t provide the wipe-off ability of the white board, it does give me a place to chart what is going on in the mystery.(When taking the picture I put a piece of white paper over the numbers since we’re not supposed to be sharing them.)
Then as a second step to organizing, I assembled the pieces for each clue on their own paper plate.
This is way easier to carry them upstairs all intact to the machine to work on and back down to the cutting room to replenish when I run out of pieces. Which I have done. Several days of intense sewing has depleted the cut browns and I need to resupply.
But before I do that (since the chances of me resurfacing for several hours after going to the downstairs room are 1. slim, 2. none) time to write this and link up with Bonnie and the other mystery quilters.  How did you do this week?

String Link Up

Linking up with Jo's Country Junction to share progress on my string projects.
I got so many of the Spider Web pieces done I had to go cut another batch. Yay. Plus during the drive to my In Laws today I de-papered the finished pieces. As an attempt to do it as I go, rather than have the whole bunch to do at the end.

 
I also finished a whole stack of the neutral blocks and de-papered a bunch while we were sitting around the fireplace chit-chatting. However the stack I had just finished still needs to be trimmed, the de-papering was catch up with ones already done weeks ago.

At the same time as I was working on these, pieces of the new mystery passed through the machine but I will do a separate post on them tomorrow.

We are mid-calf deep in snow and looking very picturesque. Fortunately the roads are well cleared and our trip in the in-laws was easy. Things are very relaxed and low-key here as our celebration has already finished and my husband even started putting away decorations today. He does the train, it needs to have the batteries removed for the year long storage.
I hope everyone’s celebrations are as stress-free and joyous as it has been here.

Monday, Monday

Blame it on Bonnie, she said it first and now that tune is stuck in my head.  And she’s also the source of my obsession,  fondness for recycled shirts as fabric. Although Jo was the source of the box that I picked up Friday.  Since I am linking with both, I will apportion blame equally. Thus the fabric overload situation I am currently dealing with. Not only did I get a ginormous box of shirts that need to be cut up, I also picked up a half dozen packages from Quilted Twins that have been accumulating at my US mail box.  I received so much fabric I didn’t know which to fondle first.

 
So I left it all and went to sew. And sew, and sew. These string blocks seem to be going on forever. Just when I think I am coming to the end of the neutral blocks, I find another clip of papers. Or two.

I cut more of the kites for the Spider Web blocks while I was down cutting pieces for the mystery clue 4 . At the same time I measured the kite fabric so I would have an idea of how many more I can make. Lots and lots.  (110 at least)

And in between the two string projects, I sewed some mystery pieces.  They still need to be ironed on the next trip to the basement sewing room but here they are.

So that brings me up to date on everything I’m working on. Now to link up and see what everyone else has done.

Bonnie's Mystery Link UP

Jo's String Quilt Link UP

Wednesday UFO update

I almost said that I had forgotten that today was Thursday but that would be untrue. I haven`t lost track of the days, I`ve just been busy. Hanukkah started this week and I had a whole lot of stuff to do to get ready for it.  Thus most of the sewing I have been doing hasn`t been on UFOs but on the string projects and Bonnie`s new mystery. Mostly because they are upstairs in my bedroom ready to sew on whenever I catch a few minutes.
Here`s hoping for better progress next week. Linking up with Jo`s Country Junction.com: Ufo-challenge