July Wrap

Leaf Padfolios soon for sale

I know I'm not alone in wondering where July went off to. Still, as I look at my July plan of attack, I did get a lot crossed off. I did think I'd be well into the first baby quilt by now, an idea sparked by that African batik and a couple of my hand-dyes. Instead, I traded that work time for making more padfolios than were on my list. These three use up the rest of the printed bands so I've been able to put away where they belong a bolt of fabric and several smaller cuts as well as the peltex, steam-a-seam, directions and other odds and ends I've left out until I felt well and truly done with padfolios for awhile. Clear space is emerging on the work table, and I'll soon be cutting into the fabric for the baby quilt.

I also started the documentation process on the last 6 quilts I finished for ArtWalk but have a ways to go to be done. I'm pretty old school about this, still using the printed out forms I developed years ago, printing out photos to attach and leaving on the table fabric from each which will be added as swatches to the page. What takes a bit longer is tracking down start and end dates and tallying up how many days I spent on each piece. Not sure how important that last thing is anymore, but I DO still get asked now and then how long it takes for me to make my pieces. Without my tracking system, I'd have no idea. Once filled out and filed, even more work space will emerge.

While putting the fusible away, I finally had it with this storage unit. It's been around for quite awhile and over time the plastic sides have bowed out, making it impossible to keep some of the drawers in their track, and no place for the trackless drawer to go but into the drawer below. This has always been an issue even when new, depending on how heavy the things were in the drawers. I've been halfheartedly searching for a replacement, but when I could no longer get that top drawer of fusibles and stabilizers to stay in the tracks, it was time to do something about it.

So yesterday I decided between two Sterilite units I'd been eying, neither very expensive in the grand scheme of things. It is the same depth and height as the old stacking units but a little wider, with deeper drawers so only three. I nearly got the one with two more shallow drawers on top but thought better of it as I worked the drawers and observed the side to side wobble. These drawers do not run in a track but just slide along the bottom of each slot. I'd rather have a unit like what you see sitting beside it - wood laminate that I've had since the 80's and still hanging in there - but I couldn't find the size and configuration I need within my price range. Well, I think this will do for quite awhile.

I don't get into these drawers much except for the fusibles one and it was a bit of a shock to see what was stored in the bottom two which I consolidated into one drawer of the new unit. I tossed a few things and should have jettisoned more but I quickly got overwhelmed. There's fabric for a couple of specific projects I can't imagine getting back to so the fabric really should get filed into my regular stash. But that would mean admitting I won't continue with the idea and wondering what to do with the blocks that are completed. Also a few "orphan" blocks and leftover pieces of stripsets and their fabric leftovers, other odds and ends. I just moved it all for another day. The other drawer is full of small pieces suitable for paper piecing (which I do very little of these days) and string quilts (which I make from time to time for charity). Now I'm eying those long thin pieces for fabric baskets. This is why I have such a hard time getting rid of things. If I wait long enough, I'm often happy to still have these things around!

As far as the other things on the July list, I finished stamping the piece of ugly art cloth but didn't get it made into a bag, although I think I've tracked down a purse pattern like what I had in mind. I ironed the pile of green hand-dyes from my friends stash that had been waiting for me to finish up with ArtWalk and folded/put them away along with others that I'd been stacking up. I didn't get to the half a bag that's left to wash/iron and put away so that task will continue to be carried forward. And finally, I mocked up a design requested by my niece-in-law who is expecting in September. She had some specific colors in mind which were harder to find in print fabric than I anticipated. She's in CA so we've been collaborating through e-mail - me sending her links and she letting me know what she likes. With size and fabrics agreed upon, the ordering began. I now have everything I need for her baby's quilt, but it must wait until the other one is done. The baby it is for is already here!

Fabric for a "modern" quilt for the California baby to come