Fourth Monday in January

January 24, 2022January 23, 20222 Comments

Monstrously behind in my crafting schedule, but there’s just not much I can do about freak nerve pinchings, and I really needed to get that COVID booster shot. This week has a little bit of extra free time in it because the kids don’t have school on Thursday and Friday, so I’m hoping to get a little more crafting done on those days. We shall see.

The fast and dirty rundown:

Cat Lady Quilt: Done and blogged.
Rachel’s Birthday Gift: In-progress, near completion. With the loss of almost two weeks of creating time, I had to give up on the idea of keeping this secret, so Rachel knows about it. It’s another circle skirt, this time made from the “Cast a Spell” floral print in the “Spooky & Sweeter” collection that Art Gallery Fabrics put out last year. It works well that she knows because I needed to measure her and then I figured I’d ask her if she even liked the idea before sinking hours of time into making it. It’s been super cute–she “wanders” into the craft room and stands behind me while I’m at the sewing machine and watches as the skirt gets stitched, and then wanders away, only to reappear an hour or so later to check on my progress.
Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: I ran into a hiccup on Rachel’s skirt and needed to take a break from it, so I went around and gathered up the various materials I needed to work on this and prewashed everything that needed it. Ready to baste. Could potentially finish this week.
Far Far Away Quilt: Also prewashed everything for this with the Chiffon stuff. It’s A LOT of fabric! So excited to hopefully get to working on this.
Brickhouse Quilt: Blocks 1-4 done.
Clementine Quilt: Almost done with Month 3. Probably finish this week.
Berry Quilt: Haven’t started, but will probably start this week.
HST Leaders & Enders Quilt: Haven’t started, probably won’t get to this month.
Nereid Mitts: Done! Need to photograph and blog.
Building Blocks Socks: Putting in the time, so they’re coming along.

It was a very productive weekend after many weeks of feeling poorly. It’s amazing how much you’re actually capable of doing when you finally start feeling better.

#craftygoals: January 2022

January 1, 2022December 30, 20211 Comment

Hello, and a happy new year to you! A new year also means a new month, and that means new crafty goals, which are:

Birthday Gift No. 1 (Because February is the start of Birthday Season here in Brooketopia…)⁠ And this isn’t a birthday “gift” per se, because I’ve already technically given it as a birthday gift to Em for a previous birthday, but it wasn’t totally finished then…and it’s still not finished now. There’s something about your kid turning eighteen and leaving for college in the next year that gets you wanting to clear out any languishing gifts that you were totally supposed to have finished up by now.
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Birthday Gift No. 2⁠: A legit new gift for Rachel. I think she’s going to be very pleased with it and I cannot wait to work on it! I won’t be able to show you anything about it until she opens it on her birthday because she’s an active fan of mine on Instagram and checks all my feeds. (Ha ha, Rachel! No sneak peeks here!)
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Finish the Mini Charm Chiffon quilt⁠ (I only completed the top for the reveal; it still needs quilting and binding.)
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Start the Far Far Away quilt (I am SO EXCITED for this!)⁠
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Sew up Blocks 1-4 for the Brick House Scrap quilt⁠ (Scrappy Thursday #1)
Clementine Quilt Month 3 blocks⁠ (Scrappy Thursday #2)
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Berry blocks⁠ (Scrappy Thursday #3)
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Iron & trim HST leaders & enders⁠ (Scrappy Thursday #4)

December’s #craftygoals: I only got one of the five December crafty goals completed, due to that stupid, stupid bout of illness I had for most of the month, and seeing how my December crafty projects were all tied to Christmassy things, they’re not being carried over into January. They’ll go into hibernation until I either need them for birthday gifts or want to give another go at making them into Christmas gifts. But still, at the end of the day, having only completed the Patchwork Forest quilt is still way better than not completing anything at all, obviously! Goals are awesome.

What goals are you setting for January? Anyone have any neat resolutions for 2022? Whatever they may be, I wish you the best of luck with them!

3 Ideas for More Organized Quilting in the New Year

December 30, 2021December 29, 20211 Comment

I have a nifty little project rotation schedule in my mind that I try to use to work through old projects and not let the scrap bins get out of hand, and it’s just not working. I sat down to figure out what was going wrong, and just decided that I needed to make it work alongside what I want to do, instead of it being the main operating system of my craft room. As I’m sure you’re aware, every new year and month brings up new potential projects that you need to decide if you’re going to pursue or not. New babies, weddings, graduations, a crazy pattern that comes out that NEEDS to be made ASAP because it’s amazing, a new dress because of fifty thousand reasons…there’s just a lot that you can’t plan for, and it wreaks havoc on a system designed to corral the creative madness.

So…Idea #1: Each month will have its “must makes” that I will work on until they’re done, and then the remainder of the month will revert back to my UFO/Project Rotation schedule and I’ll make headway on the projects collecting cobwebs until the month ends. It’s simple, far too simple, but until I wrote it out I couldn’t see it as my solution.

I came up with this idea in October and finetuned and planned it out, but it felt like something was missing, and I finally realized what it was whilst lounging in my bed during the Great December Sickness of 2021–I’m not making enough scrap quilts. At all. The scrap bins no longer close, and I don’t have time for scrap quilts even though I won’t be able to use my craft room by the end of the year if they keep multiplying like they have been, completely unchecked. And then I randomly remembered that I came up with a weird little system for THIS EXACT PROBLEM back in 2019: Scrappy Thursdays.

Scrappy Thursdays were devoted to working on scrap projects and block of the months. It didn’t matter what I was working on outside of Scrappy Thursdays, I’d set it aside and work mostly from the scrap bins for that one day every week. I have four separate storage bins that held the fabric and patterns for four separate projects, and each week had its Project #1, #2, #3, or #4. It was still in experiment form when it dissolved out of my life, but it was a rather successful experiment while it was in progress! I just got really busy with the Blank Quilting ambassador thing and had no extra time for play, which was fine because I was having a lot of fun with all the yummy Blank fabric. Ah, memories…

Idea #2: I’m going to reinstate Scrappy Thursdays in 2021. I’m really looking forward to it. My chaos-loving brain really enjoys the break from my serious “get ‘er done” projects that I work on for the majority of the week, and my “obsessed with productivity” brain loves that I’m making progress on so many different things.

Beautiful Mammoth Flannels being cut for one of next year’s Christmas quilts!

I had another good idea during the Great December Sickness of 2021, which is my Idea #3: Use my leaders and enders for greater Christmas productivity. As in, cut the fabric for the Christmas quilts I want to make for Christmas next year NOW, and use them as my leaders and enders throughout the next year. When it comes time to work on said Christmas quilts at a later date, I’ll already have a ton of the piecing done. I’ve even set up an annual reminder that the week after Christmas is for cutting next year’s leaders and enders!

I’ve got the fabric for two of next year’s Christmas quilts prewashed and in the process of being cut. I have at least one more, if not two more, Christmas quilts I want to make this upcoming year, but no idea what pattern and/or fabric I’m going to use just yet, so obviously can’t precut anything for those quilts.

I’m excited for this extra bit of organization to help things run smoothly in the craft room! Do you have any good tips or tricks for quilty organization? I’d love to hear them! Happy New Year!