A Busy Wheel

My sister admired the Carpenter's Wheel wall hanging I made around the holidays last year, so I put one together for her last weekend.  She likes jewel tones, and I had a couple of older Christmas fabrics left over from Mom's stash that I thought would be nice to use.

Instead of a plain lighter background, I used a text print with seasonal greetings that a friend gave me.  I'm not sure if it works or just makes the whole thing too busy.  It's a horse apiece, in my opinion.

But if Sis doesn't like it, I'll make her another one, and this will either become a gift or I'll hang it in the hallway.

The backing is a thrift store fabric find from earlier in the year.  I love that shade of vintage-y green.  All the Christmas fabrics have a metallic bit to them.

Although I haven't (and can't yet) show pictures of everything I've been working on, I am happy to have knocked out six wall hangings/minis/table runners, a half dozen pillowcases, and a few pairs of jammy pants over the past several weeks, and all that while the sewing room has been in a state of flux.  I feel pretty good about that!

One more thing to leave the sewing space last weekend was the 20-year-old TV.  It took both of us to haul the old behemoth up the stairs and finagle it into the back seat of the car because it wouldn't fit in the trunk.  We drove it immediately to Goodwill, where a stocky 20-something young man at the drop-off door came out to greet us.  After watching Norm labor to get it out of the car, he took it from him and then in one fluid maneuver rolled the whole set up onto one shoulder and walked into the building with it, saying, "Oh, it's not that heavy."  Norm and I walked in behind him, eyeballing each other and thinking the same thing: Show-off.

Assembly (Disassembly and Reassembly) Required

Scene:  The basement on a Saturday morning in November.  The husband, clad only in his tidy-whities, sits in a black leather office chair, watching his wife, clad in fleece PJs, pound nails—lots of nails—into the backing panel of a bookcase the two just spent far too much time assembling.  

Assembling incorrectly, that is.  The realization dawns on the wife as she notes the pre-drilled holes for the shelf supports on the outside of the bookcase, the one she just pounded lots of nails into.  She is a peace lover, this wife, but give her nails to pound and it becomes apparent that she enjoys the task perhaps a bit too much. 

Words are uttered, first by the wife and then echoed by the husband.  Some words have four letters.  None rhyme with "good" or even "okay" because they mean, in fact, the opposite.

Disassembly ensues.  This involves tools not on the instructions included with the bookcase.  Tools which include a pry bar, an exacto-knife (not pictured), a fork, and an ancient putty knife from the last millenium, which breaks under the stress.  Some of these tools would probably not have been necessary had the wife not been so zealous with her nail pounding.  But what's done is done, and now must be undone.

Wife methodically works the exacto-knife around each nail head, trying not to imagine other things she would rather be cutting out at this time.  She proceeds cautiously with this fussy cutting, as she does not wish the events of the day to include an emergency room visit, thus adding insult to injury (or vice versa).

Reassembly ultimately occurs as the errant board is righted.  Husband wears wife's garden gloves because his palms are sore from turning the screwdriver.  He is wearing garden gloves and tidy-whities.  It is a sight to behold.  Or not. Wife is sweating, and not in a good way.

No more bad words, the couple is joking and laughing.  The wife says she will have to blog this.  Husband offers his two cents for the post.  Wife does not listen.  She is happily pounding nails again—lots of nails.

* * * * * * *

And, um...voila?

I started folding fabric earlier in the week.  I have much more to fold, but this is a start.

The tchochkes are placeholders for now.

One bookcase down, one to go.

In addition to shelf construction/deconstruction/reconstruction, there has also been some sewing happening in the sewing room this past week.  For example, I made his and hers pillowcases for the holidays.

Alexander Henry's "Hurry Down the Chimney" for me, and "The Great Outdoors" for Norm.

I also started a table runner from a Moda "Swiss Holiday" charm pack I won earlier this year, using my Scrap Block Challenge idea.

I may do a tutorial for the table runner, if there is interest.

Linking up with Sarah today, ready to share the whoop-whoop-ing with others!

Momentum

It feels so good to have the futon out of the sewing room, thanks to the wonderful friend who took it off my hands.  It seems lighter and more spacious in there now.  After some cleaning and a bit of rearranging this weekend, the futon area has gone from this:

to this:

Things are still in a state of flux, though, as there will be some shelves going up for folded fabric on this wall.  I bought two of these units and they're awaiting assembly.  By the way, thank you for your links and suggestions on sewing space organization.  They were very helpful and inspiring.  I feel like I am moving in the right direction.

I also took six yards of fleece out of the room over the weekend by sewing it all into pajama pants, some for my daughter and some for myself.  Doesn't make for a very exciting photograph, but I am pretty excited to have new jammy pants that the seat hasn't worn through.  I pretty much live in these things when I'm at home (and, truth be told, I've been known to occasionally wear them to work in the evening too, when it's just me and the cleaning lady). 

The pattern is an oldie but a goodie.  Only one pattern piece for the pants!  Can't get any easier than that.  So why did it take me so long to get them sewn?  (Don't answer that.)

Many months ago, I won a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop from Tabatha at Bending Pins.  I finally used it last week to buy some Vintage Modern by Bonnie & Camille for Moda.  It's so pretty!

I ordered more goodies from Fabric.com (which hasn't arrived yet), as well as Hancock's, some of which came today.  This is from the Spintastic fabric collection by Laura Berringer for Marcus Brothers.

Some of the new fabric will end up in a very cool project I'll be working on soon with Sandi at Piecemeal Quilts, which I'm very excited about!  More details on that later as it unfolds.

Meanwhile, I have more Christmas stuff to get done, so I'd better get cracking! 

Greta Von Riding Crop

It was snowing this morning as I went to vote.  The holidays will be here in a blink!

PS - For Downton Abbey fans, while we wait for the new season to begin in January, have any of you been watching Upstairs Downstairs on PBS's Masterpiece?  I got hooked in the middle of this second season, and this past week watched the first season on DVD from the library and got caught up.  It's very good!  Claire Foy plays Lady Persie, an entirely different kind of woman than her sweet Little Dorrit character.

PPS - Happy 25th Birthday, dear daughter!  Love you lots!

Declutter Report No. 3

Another trunk load went to Goodwill this past week.  Thankfully, they accept computers for recycling.

Before donating the PC, I removed the hard drive, which I'll dispose of myself after taking a hammer to it.  I'm saving that task for PMS week.  ;)

Tomorrow, a friend is coming to take the futon off my hands.  Yay!  I hope she isn't revolted by the cobwebs and whatnot we'll find underneath when we move it.  I am actually looking forward to doing a thorough vacuuming once it's gone.

"Out the Door October" is officially over, since we've flipped the calendar page, but the decluttering and reorganization will continue.  I'll spare you any more photos of my rubbish, however.  You're welcome.

I'm curious:  How do you organize your fabric?  Do you have a folding system?  Stack it on shelves?  Organize it by color or fabric line?  Put it in totes or boxes?  Stash it in a closet (or under the bed)?

I ask because I just don't know where to go with it all.  I need a system, but not sure what kind.  I am an out-of-sight / out-of-mind kind of person, i.e, if I put it away, I tend to forget about it.  I am more a "piler" than a "filer," so right now my fabric is stacked wherever there is a flat surface, and that looks bad.  But I feel that I need to see it to get the creativity flowing, on the one hand, and yet being surrounded by it at all times can be overwhelming, on the other.

Please share what works for you.  If you've done a blog post of your organized space or system, leave a link.  If you feel anything but organized, feel free to share that too.  If you too are a piler, have you found a way to have your piles and file them too?

In other news, I posted photos on Flickr of a couple of recent finishes.  These will be Christmas presents, so I am "hiding" them over there, where the recipients have promised not to peek.  The rest of you can see them by clicking HERE and HERE.  Have a good weekend!

Declutter Report No. 2 - Finding Grandma's Quilt

Good news:  More things went "Out the Door" this past week, including the two remaining vintage typewriters, the Hermes and the Olympia, sold to a nice gentleman who sent me two prepaid FedEx shipping labels, which made my life that much easier.

And bonus, all the materials required to properly pack them cleaned out a nice space in the basement.  I also have the table from the previous post now listed on Craigslist.  We'll see what happens there.

More eBay sales, shipped out this past week:

As far as the basement sewing room, progress has been slow, but I did get that laundry basket and futon full of prewashed fabric pressed and folded, another pile of fabric bagged for donation (mostly poly/cotton blouse weight fabric with small florals, and other stuff not suitable for quilting), and some other miscellaneous tasks.  The problem is where to go with everything.

I got a bit distracted when I found this quilt top in a big plastic tote that I was getting ready to move out of the way.  It was made by my Grandma Lillian, probably in the late '60s or early '70s, I'm guessing. 

There are so many different weight/quality fabrics in it, and some of the green color from the sashing has transferred to the white.  I won't be trying to finish it.

Still, I love the pattern and love looking at the vintage fabrics and remembering my dear grandma.

This block is my favorite.  Love that funky tan swirly print with the orange!

Does anyone know the name of this block?  I'm going to try to find a pattern and make a block just to see what it's like to sew all those curves and seams.  Looks like a fun challenge.

Back to the basement cleaning, soon after repacking the quilt top back into its box, I was distracted by something shiny (literally).

One thing led to another and soon I was pulling fabric and cutting and sewing.  But beyond this little sneak, I really shouldn't say anymore because...Christmas is coming!

I have been very good about avoiding the thrift stores lately, but I did find a deal at Walmart that came "in the door" — a new pair of quilting gloves!

Yeah, so they are actually football receiver gloves, but let me tell you, they are wonderful for quilting with all that tacky palm surface, and more style than my Machingers. Put these babies on and you feel like you're ready for anything that might be thrown your way!

Declutter Report No. 1

The "Out-the-Door October" decluttering has been going okay.  I am working my way up (or down, as the case may be) to my basement sewing room.  That room intimidates me, frankly, because it's the most cluttered space in the entire house.  Everything that doesn't have another home ends up there.

So far, I have sold 11 items on eBay.  Woo-hoo!

I took photos of some mid-century tables to put on Craigslist, but I haven't gotten around to listing them yet.  One is in need of refinishing, but it is apparently a brand of mid-century Scandinavian furniture that's pretty hot right now, which I did not know until I perused eBay to research the name to get an idea of what to ask.  Doesn't look like much here.

But ho-lee-you-know-what.  Do an eBay search on this name furniture sometime and you will say it too.

Who knew when I basically trash-picked the thing 14 years ago?  I just thought it had good bones.  But after almost a decade and a half, since I've never gotten around to refinishing it (and now I wouldn't dare do it myself), it's probably someone else's chance to have a crack at it.

I went through my kitchen cupboards and refrigerator (tossed a bunch) and pantry.  I have a bag set aside for the Boy Scouts food drive this Saturday.

I unearthed stuff I totally forgot I had, like brand new Pampered Chef grilling utensils.  Might have been good to know a few months ago!

I went through my bedroom today.  I'm trying to motivate myself in baby steps, like seeing if I can get rid of 10 things per room.  It usually leads to more, but 10 seems like a manageable goal without feeling overwhelming.

This is the Goodwill and/or give-away-to-friends/family pile.  Also a few things to take to the local historical museum, if they'll have them.

The museum has a room named after the guy who owned these books, one of which dates back to when the state was still a territory.

Now for some really scary stuff...are you ready?  It's the basement sewing room.

Augh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Terrifying, isn't it?  My great-great grannies peeking over the detritus in the center there would be mortified.

Keeping in real, yo.

I did venture in the other day but promptly sidetracked myself into pulling fabrics for a Christmas table runner.

And so, the saga continues.

Oh, and here's a pretty scary thing that came out of the garden at my uncle's.

That is a ginormous beet!  With a normal-sized apple for comparison.

But, like the decluttering process, it is less intimidating if you cut it into smaller pieces (and roast with a little olive oil, salt & pepper...p.s., it was delicious!).

Have a great weekend, all!