I need to win the lottery...

...or conversely, to discover that I had some long, lost-to-me relative who left me a fortune.  Then, I would have ample time to dedicate to actually using my sewing machine.

Not gonna lie people, I hadn't touched the sucker in a really long time.  If it weren't for the fact that I'm kind of a neat freak, I'm sure there would have been a thick layer of dust on the thing.  So long in fact, that I (of all people) couldn't find the folder with my block of the month patterns in it.  Jeez.  Super Jeez.  Working my butt off is seriously cramping my style.  Ha.

Yesterday and today however, I took a little time to get back on the horse.  I was inspired.  Here's the semantic map in my brain...Pink Castle had a fabric sale --> I wanted fabric --> I looked at pretty fabric --> I thought to myself, "Self, where will you put this lovely new fabric you are lusting after?" --> I know! If I get rid of some by using it, I will have room for new fabric! --> Start on new project. --> Order pretty new fabric --> Repeat at some random point in the future.  I'm sure some of you can relate.

At the first guild meeting of the month, one of the guild women started a sort-of block of the month...well...more like a 1/9th-of-a-quilt-over-9 months-of-the-month.  Its made with all squares and half-square triangles and the finished product will have kind of a pixellated look.  I think the concept is cool, it really just involves sewing straight lines, it can use up some scraps, and it involves Very. Little. Planning.  I will struggle with this part but I do need to learn to let go.

So I chose my fabrics, and cut them up into squares.  I decided to go with six different lightish colours in this section of the quilt:

Going to go with orange and blue and use the massive amounts of leftover fabric from my sister's Star Dust quilt.

Then I had to throw caution to the wind and lay it out in a generally random fashion.  This caused an inner conflict so large I needed to do it and then let it sit for a while before I committed to attaching the pieces together.

I'm not sure I love it but I know its one of those things that will look entirely different sewn together than it will in 100 pieces.

And this is what it looks like in rows - I still have to sew the rows together but I already like it better than I did early this afternoon.  

Pretty sure that the darker it gets, the more I am going to like it.  I will be nine panels like this one.

So this is the top left of the quilt  By the time we get to the bottom right, there will be navy blues and royal blues.  Way darker.  Should be a cool experiment though.

Now...if only I could keep this weekend sewing momentum going.

Last post of the summer

I'm sad.  A little.  I love my job (like LOVE) and I'm pretty excited about this school year and all the kids and stuff but I had a good summer so I'm kinda sad to see it go.  Alas, Thanksgiving is in five weeks and then Christmas is around the corner so I won't be sad for long.  I'm not gonna lie, in preparation for what the weeks ahead hold I'm just sitting here in my living room in the dark and silence (I don't do well in intense busy-ness for long periods at a stretch.  I need some silence) enjoying the last few hours of Labour Day.

I hit up the sewing machine for a couple more small last-minute projects before we get into the routine of the year yesterday and took some pictures but then forgot to blog them.  Whoops.  Good call to do it today before I totally forget.

I need to get back on the horse with the smaller versions of the Lucky Stars Blocks.  When the summer hit, I got caught up on what I was behind in the 12.5 inch blocks but ended up shoving all the scraps from the big blocks into Ziploc bags while I worked on Out in Space.  The blocks from the spring had so many fiddly little pieces that I couldn't imagine doing the smaller versions.  Today, I decided to attack one of those minis.  I cannot procrastinate or this will end up being one of those UFOs in the bottom drawer of the guest room.

See how small these are? I stuck my pencil in the shot to give an idea.  My poor eyeballs. 

But at the end, it ended up pretty.  Can't complain.

The half sized version I made on top of the larger one I did months ago. 

Then, after this took me ridiculously longer than it should have cuz I'm clearly working at summer vacation speed. I needed to get something accomplished.  So I made two more cable/workshop pouches.  Lynn, looks like you rank!

Perfectly sized to stash iDevice cables, cell phone chargers and other items at workshops. 

And on that note, I'm off to bed - gotta get up for school in the morning!