Progress!

I am still operating with my guiding word for the year: "vision"; I have that, but time is FLYING already. It seems like I take one step forward and two back. Sigh. As promised in my last post, I am reporting on my progress. Here are all the scraps from my bin cut precisely and accurately into sizes that will play nicely together. This amount of work took me two days! So, as impressive as that may seem-- look what I found stashed on the bottom shelf of my cutting table:
yes, another bin! This one is pretty much all civil war reproductions and the like. I have set up a nice little cutting station for this purpose.

Normally my die cutter and table reside in the closet but I have moved them out into the studio (and the light of day) so that nothing is hidden and forgotten about. VISION! If I can spend a few hours a day cutting these up I will get to the bottom of this bin before too long also. (See "where the one step forward, two back" is coming from?)

I am celebrating my scraps by ordering this new book. I'm excited; hey-- I'm not buying fabric!

Mr. Goodneedle is making good progress too; our soon-to-be porch has all of the beadboard ceiling in place. Since this photo was taken he has boxed in the two skylights on the right. 

I'll be happy when he's off that scaffolding once and for all. 

Santa brought me a few new pantographs this year, this is one of them, Easy Peasy Baptist Fan. It will be nice to get this quilted and bound. My objective is to have a new "table quilt" for our breakfast table in the kitchen each month of the year. This is the Summer Sampler from Temecula Quilt Co.; a sew-along from 2015, I completed the top in November. More progress!

I got the tree down and ornaments and decorations stowed for another twelve months. Is it just me or does this seem to come around more quickly each year now? It's never as much fun to put away. 

We are enjoying this Amaryllis, watching its progress; albeit S-L-O-W, but progress nonetheless.

One more photo-- just because! Mr. Goodneedle celebrated a birthday at the end of 2019. 

He had some pretty cute help celebrating too!

So, what's your progress so far for 2020? 

Life is Good!

Up next: Replacements

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead to 2020; I have chosen a guiding word to focus on: VISION. Well, with this new year, what other word could I possibly choose for twenty/twenty than this one? I am borrowing a page from Quiltdivajulie's book today and choosing a guiding word to lead my path through these next twelve months. 

So, in an effort to be guided by the word VISION, I need to look at, and see, what is directly in front of me! The best place to start is with my bins of accumulated scraps; I am blessed, my bins runneth over! I spent some time pressing the first bin and plan to spend the next few days running these through my die cutter and cutting them into usable shapes that will play well together for a multitude of scrap quilts. Santa brought me some more basic die shapes this year and I can now cut 2", 2.5", 3.5", 4.5", 6" and 6.5" squares as well as 2.5" X 4.5" rectangles. It's high time: my work's cut out for me. 😉 I've long been a subscriber to Bonnie's Scrap User's System. I need to see the forest for the tree and remind myself that this isn't a Scrap SAVER'S System! No, clear VISION and determination will pay off with some great rewards. I can already SEE that this is going to be a very productive year!

Happy New Year!

Life is Good!

Up next: Progress

Three Excellent Adventures

Quiltkeemosabe and I had excellent advenure #1 on Friday. We took off bright and early for the Capital City for our scheduled volunteer stint monitoring the Carolina Longarm Association's booth, and selling raffle tickets, at the Got To Be NC Festival. We reconnected with old friends there and made some new ones too; we made a few sidetrips along the way, and stopped for a late lunch on the way back home; all in all it was a wonderful day. We always have fun together, it doesn't matter at all what we're doing; we can be stopping at the grocery store or going on a weekend roadtrip or retreat together, when Quiltkeemosabe's along it's a great time. Over the last 21 years we've been through many advenures together, I am thankful for this friend who's always there for me and with me; a friend who's ever ready and willing to listen to my problems or complaints, or there to cheer me on, a friend who'll take a stand on my behalf or happily jump in the car and go along for the ride wherever it happens to be headed!  Here's to you, my friend; thanks for your friendship through the years and here's hoping we have many more adventures side by side, you help to make my life's journey a joy-filled one!

Saturday saw excellent adventure #2. Working with the saints at Bailey's Chapel and seeing not one, but two, quilt tops become reality!  With a small crew assembled, including their Pastor(r), everyone worked tirelessly all day long amid the hum of sewing machines and easy conversation until that last stitch. I will meet with them again to baste the tops together and get the first quilt loaded on a frame for hand quilting. 

Excellent adventure #3 could also be called the joy of discovery... or rediscovery as this case may be. While looking for a bin in which to transport all of the pieces and supplies for the previous adventure I emptied the contents of a large container that resided beneath my cutting table to find the beginnings of this quilt top from 1998. Along with the mountain of scraps and this assembled pinwheel section were my handwritten notes detailing my plan to set these 6" blocks together (with 1.5" sashing) 14 across and 15 down to create a king-sized quilt for our bed that would measure 116" X 108.5".  My first thought yesterday was "yeah, right; I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my days cutting HST's...".  But then, a lightbulb went off... "I wonder" I thought, if I happen to have a the right sized die. Oh, yes, I do; Accuquilt to the rescue!  Then and there this one passed the "can I reasonably finish this?"and "is it worth finishing?" test in my own mind. Meet my newest project: "Light of Day". The name represents what this fifteen year old, instantly vintage, quilt has had shined upon itself, it has stood the test of time and is ready, at long last, for the Light of Day! This one is going to become my R.A.W. (Row A Week)  project, look for a completed top summer's end. What a wonderful weekend this one has turned out to be!

Life is Good!

From my notepad Note Quotes for Quilting Friends:
"A messy house is the sign of a happy quilter."

Ready To Roll!

I am so excited to show you the new place that my Accuquilt Die Cutter calls home... the stash closet! Since Christmas it had taken up residence on top of one of my sewing machine tables, this was only a temporary measure; the Studio model isn't the "Go!" (portable) and was too heavy for me to move around the room when I needed space at the machine. I thought about shopping for a rolling cart and mentioned that to my husband, one that would allow me to move the cutter in and out of the closet as needed. My resident woodworker took some measurements and went about building me something much nicer than a rolling cart, he had the vision of creating a custom cabinet with drop leaves for work space and three drawers (plus a cubby) for storage; it is perfect! (I snapped this photo, above, before the drawers were completed.) Here it is, below; in all of its glory, I have created a photo collage highlighting the cabinet's features. This beauty  rolls smoothly on casters so that I can use it wherever I would like and then roll it back into the closet at the end of the day.

Life is Good!

Time Saver?

This is a very basic and traditional block; "Airplane", cut precisely with my new Accuquilt "toy". I just love the die cutter and my mind is spinning with all the great projects I can accomplish in a more precise and faster way. We're rocketing into a new year, 2013 will be here tomorrow! My grandmother told me, when I was too young to understand, that as we grow older time seems to go faster. This memory is so vivid that I remember the exact spot where both she and I were standing at the time; I didn't believe her though.  It's funny to me now how I have remembered this and how much wiser she's become as I have aged. And so, now I have a tool to assist me make more quilts... faster and better. Will I have more time in which to quilt them? Probably not, I'll only find more to do! Will that make a difference? Not one bit!  It's almost unbelievable to me that another Christmas has come and gone; I hold on as tight as I can but the moments, days and weeks still fly by. When I began quilting in 1983 I didn't even own a rotary cutter, I carefully cut my fabric shapes with shears outside the pencil lines drawn around hand-cut cardboard templates. The quilt world has changed enormously in thirty short years; and yet, with all the time saving devices that I accumulate, that one precious commodity still slips away! Today I'm only looking forward. After all, I don't have time to look back! There are more quilts to make, faster and better. I've decided not to blink anymore, it's my resolution.

Happy New Year!

Life is Good!

Under Ten Minutes...

This is going to be fun! A handful of  scraps from under the cutting table, a turn of the crank, and... voilà, perfectly die-cut pieces in, literally, no time at all! This block was cut, laid out, and sewn, all in under ten minutes.Welcome to The Strawberry Patch, Accuquilt, we're going to have a great time together!

Thank you, Santa!

Life is Good!