Finally - Some Sewing Time!

Oh my gosh, I have missed my time at the sewing machine! Not just a few random minutes here and there, but several hours of uninterrupted sewing, cutting, pressing, organizing scraps and planning. And it finally happened this week! It was so much fun; relaxing with music and no commitments over my head. I had two whole afternoons this week to sew, along with the usual sporadic bursts of time. 

First I sewed up all my green strings into 20 blocks of 6.5”, unfinished. I forgot to take a picture of them all laid out, but that’s OK. All through the year as I’ve been sewing string blocks, I’ve said I didn’t have plans yet for them. Finally, I just decided to once again - because I’ve done this in years past - safety pin them in batches of 15 for Quilts for Kids. They match them with fifteen other 6.5” fabric blocks, and put together kits with fabric for two borders. They’re actually fairly popular with some of our chapter members when they’re available. But I digress.

So, here they are with the other batches of 15 blocks per color that I matched up. I’ll donate them at our October QFK workshop. There are 120 blocks total, representing most of the string blocks made this year. Except the white/cream ones; they were left over from last year. For the other colors, I guess there weren’t enough to make a 15-block set.

Next I decided to organize my brown scraps. I cut lots of strips in 3” for a project I’m mulling over, as well as 2 ½” strips. I pulled out 2” strips for zipper blocks if they were long enough, but otherwise they went into my string pile. Take a look. The tomato pincushion is for scale.

Sewing brown string blocks will be my project for the coming week. That is, after I finish up the It’s a Jungle Out There top, which only needs two more seams.

The rest of the checkerboard blocks are sewn together and just need to be attached after another black horizontal strip. I just ran out of steam yesterday. But here they are, pinned up to the design board for this afternoon’s sewing session!

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Our neighbor Andy came over on Wednesday morning and painted our accent wall. It took us longer to tape it off than it did for him to paint it. It looks wonderful and is what I was aiming for. 

Anyway, the furniture is back in place and I’m on the hunt for wall things. I’ve pretty much decided to move in our big living room clock over the couch, but I still need a nice floor lamp and some plants. So the before and after pictures will wait until that’s done. Maybe I should stop sewing and start shopping, LOL. But I will show a couple little vignettes of the remodel.

Counter corner with charcuterie board and fruit bowl.

This dining area window with new shutters looks out onto the courtyard. The little table was gifted to me by my friend Maureen. One of the extra dining chairs resides here when not in use.

It was a relatively quiet week except for the wall painting and the housekeeper doing a deep post-remodel cleaning. Bruce even worked on the cabinet he’s assembling for the office nook in our bedroom and I cleaned and reorganized the garage of packing boxes and garden stuff. We’re getting ready for the coming cold months. 

I still have to get a plumber in here to move the stop-and-waste valve from the crawl space up to the main level. My car needs servicing this week, we have dentist appointments. But for fun, we’re taking a drive in the mountains (in a convertible!) to see the fall color and have a picnic with friends. Life is good!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.