busy bee

 

my early morning sewing sessions are becoming a necessary, non-negotiable part of my day. as unpleasant as the summer heat is, being home with my people and my projects is making me happy. i'm enjoying all the sewing immensely, and having multiple projects to pick and choose from each morning is another pleasure in itself.

each day when i walk into the room i have the fun of selecting what to work on. i also take time to declutter, clean, and organize most days. sometimes i just fold fabric for an hour. my decision is made based on what appeals to me at the moment or what will make my space better. there's no slogging through just one project until it's finished. i get to decide what looks fun now or which set of fabrics i want to spend time with today. i realize there are pros and cons to this approach, just as there are pros and cons to sticking to one project, start to finish. but my method appeals to me and fits my personality best.

i have several projects i'm itching to move beyond the piecing phase, some very old and some brand new. my sunny yellow crossroads project is one of them. this morning i noticed a large scrap piece of a low-volume fabric sitting next to my pressing board. i decided to cut it for scraps, starting with my crossroads project. i wasn't sure if i'd already used it for that one or not, so i pulled out my project box to see. nope, not used yet, so i cut the needed pieces and added them to the box. while in there, i took stock of the project. it needs 16 more pairs of blocks for a top. good to know; i'll be getting to that soon.

the leftovers were just the right size for cutting into pieces for my two "bonnie lass" projects, which i did next. thanks to my new scrap system, they got filed away in the right spots immediately. 

the smaller set lives in this clear bin that stays next to my cutting table or sits next to the sewing machine when i want to use it for leaders-and-enders. there's a lot of pieces here already. it could likely be a whole top soon.

that little bit of processing done, i decided my main project for today would be making binding for my liberty courthouse steps quilt that's for my friend. i got that all quilted up this spring and want to finish it off so i can finally gift it.

making the binding roll went smoothly. my normal hour was about up and i was going to leave the room when i decided to go ahead and press the next set of fabrics for "lemonade at sixes." the iron was on and hot, so i'd just quickly press the fabrics and move on with my day.

but i ended up cutting the set once it was pressed. and then i processed the leftovers for scraps. i actually only did two of the fabrics that were both half yard cuts because the third fabric in the set was a long skinny piece from the ds patchwork panel 6 and couldn't be cut with the other two. i made photo notes of my cutting process for the pieces and the scraps, which i'll share in another post.

aaaaand, i also decided to cut the "capel" pieces i want to use for random pink touches in "lemonade at sixes," as well. i was on a bit of a cutting and pressing roll, so i just did it. i had similarly-sized, generously cut quarter yards of these 3 colors, so was able to cut them together.

i still don't know how i'm working them into the project, exactly, but i was thinking of using them as the skinny "road" pieces in a few spots of the mini crossroads blocks. those all measure 1" x 2" or 2.5", and i only need a few pieces of each. it felt wasteful to cut 1" wide strips of each color, so i cut standard 2.5" wide strips and will cut off 1" pieces from there as needed.

each of the fabric pieces was at least 10" x wof, so i went ahead and cut them all into 2.5" strips because i will use that size for other liberty + chambray projects. i filed them away in the liberty scrap drawers once cut. it feels like i've got a head start on whatever future project i use them in.