Unexpected Surprise

Today I was looking over a credit card statement for my business. I saw in the fine print -- which I had not noticed before that this card has reward points. I've had the card for quite a few years and when I went online I discovered that I could purchase quilting books, magazine subscriptions, fabric or other tools using the reward points. I had a lot of points so I now have coming a magazine subscription, a couple books and I joined a quilt club. What a fun surprise!

From scraps to a really cute quilt

It's amazing what one can find in their stash of quilting fabric. I was looking last week for some scraps that I could use for a lap sized quilt to give as a wedding gift. I found part of jelly roll. It was a Moda Christmas pattern from several years ago. I made several table runners with the fabric but didn't use the designs that weren't very christmassy. Using this leftover fabric, I cut it into 6 inch strips and started to sew them together. I only had enough for 4 rows. Not enough to make a quilt top, but I had about 1 1/2 yards of this black polka dot fabric that looked really good with the rows. So using 1 1/2 inch strips, I sewed those around the 6" jelly row strips. Still not big enough. Then I added the long white strips, another white border around the whole thing and finished it off with a 4" black polka dot border. It was cute before it got quilted but extra cute after the quilting was finished.

Day Off

One of my goals for the new year is to take more time off. Having a home business can be hard in that the work always seems to be calling to you. There's advantages; you can work any hours you want, you can combine work and other things at home and best of all -- there's no commute! But I also get stuck in the routine of thinking I should work most days. I've never wanted this business to become full-time. It's purpose was to help out the family financially and to do something I love -- quilt. It's been over 10 years since I started. A lot has changed. There are so many machine quilters in the area now. My studio space has more than doubled with a few of my children moving out and moving into their space. I feel much more comfortable in what I do and I think I'm pretty good at it. So life is good. But today was a day off. And a very enjoyable one. I visited with several friends, went to lunch with my husband, spent a couple hours in a quilt shop and best of all -- it was sunny outside. I purchased fabric at the quilt shop to go with some fabric I currently have that needed some companion prints to make an apron out of. The photo shows the fabrics I bought. The plaid fabric on the left is the one that I have a whole bolt of. And I mean a lot of fabric -- it started out with 40 yards of fabric on that bolt. I may never use it up. I think it will make a cute apron though. I'll post pictures when it's done. Now off to sewing and enjoying the rest of my day off!

Recent Customer Quilts

I have always loved house quilts, though I have never made one. I really liked this customer's scrappy looking house quilt. It almost inspires me to make one -- notice I said almost. My determination and discipline is to not start any new quilts until my list of quilts to finish is down to about 5. I have worked at whittling that list down for about two years now and I am seeing progress. Anyway, this was a lovely quilt.

Recent Customer Quilts

I'm enjoying a slower pace of life and a slower pace of quilting. That's probably one of the best things about January -- everything slows way down. I don't feel under the before Christmas pressure with quilting. I'm also taking a little time to work on a few of my own projects. Hopefully I can chip away at a few more quilts on my 'projects list'. But more on that later. Here's a couple pictures of two recent customer quilts. The red, white and blue quilt just has an all-over pattern and the little work trucks quilt is more custom. Notice the cones I quilted down the one border.

Happy New Year

I had to go check the calendar yesterday to remember the year. I am serious. I couldn't remember what year was ending and what the next year would be. Maybe it was my foggy head from having a cold. It does seem almost impossible to be in 2011. Time definitely accelerates.
Here's wishing all of you a happy new year. What will 2011 hold? A few plans are in the works, but only God knows the future for sure. So I will trust Him as I watch 2011 unfold.

Here's my favorite view out my studio windows -- my garden and the chicken coop!

My Quilt Studio Reorganization is Done

My quilt studio is done -- well, mostly done. There are still some project bins to go through. It's basically cleaned up, fabric sorted through and a new arrangement. I love the way it looks. Having a storage closet is a great help. Even after getting rid of so much stuff, I still feel like I have too much.
It's been almost a month since I quilted anything on the longarm. So Monday I get back to work. It will be inspiring to be in a clean, organized studio. I'm ready for 2011.

Still Re-organizing

Have you ever noticed when you start reorganizing any area, the project just grows and grows. First I started with my fabric -- 5 very large bins of sizeable pieces (1 yard or more). That lead to going through my small bins of scraps -- 26 bins and I condensed them down to 16. Next it was the miscellaneous craft supplies -- too many bins and containers to count. Then there was the scaling down the sewing machines and sergers I own. That was an especially tough task, and so far only one is slated for the garage sale pile. In the process of checking the back recesses of the garage I discovered two more bins of fabric, a bin of purse making supplies and two more bins of scrapbooking/card making supplies. Does it ever end? I'm determined to get rid of much. But the mess just keeps growing! In the last hour I pulled down all my decoration bins from shelves in the garage. This isn't Christmas decorations, but spring, fall, winter, valentine, Easter, etc. That's another 6 large bins! Yikes -- this may take more than a week to finish. (This picture is the shelves in my studio before emptying them and deciding what stays and what goes). When it's all complete I'll post pictures of my brand new, less cluttered studio (I hope).

Reorganizing

I've spent most of the day reorganizing my studio. I'm moving things around, eliminating a lot and donating a lot. Hopefully I can downsize. That's a hard task when you are a collector of fabric, quilt patterns, sewing machines, magazines, etc. There's more here than I could ever accomplish in my lifetime, so it's time to eliminate much of this clutter. Now that I have use of the walk-in closet in my studio, most of my sewing/quilting supplies will go in there. My goal is not to have more than I can store in the closet. I would like my studio free of all clutter. That's a lofty goal -- especially for me. Here's a couple pictures of the closet.

Christmas Greetings

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this blog. My stat counter statistics show that there are somewhere between 700 and 1,000 views each month. I know many of you are fellow quilters. It's a joy to share my life in my quilts but also personally.
This Christmas day has been very quiet. Only some of my family is here today. We have snacked, played games, worked on a puzzle, played with our Christmas presents and enjoyed each others company. It's been a great day.
I will not start quilting again until after the first of the new year. It's nice to have a good long break. Next week I will hopefully reorganize much of my quilt studio. With my daughter getting married, the walk-in closet that was hers (in my studio) is now ready to house my things. I would like to do some major sorting of quilt paraphernalia and have a whole lot less of everything. We'll see how that goes :)