6/30/24

Cutting Up

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday's nice day turned into a rainy afternoon. I don't think anyone was expecting that, but it means I don't need to water anything today. I convinced Mike it was time to change the sheets on our bed, but aside from that, there's nothing on my agenda today except for sewing. Yesterday was a pretty easy day too. I spent some time on my slow-stitching, and then I headed for the sewing room.

If I were following my own self-imposed rules, I would have been making two more blocks for the current Shop Hop quilt.


On the other hand, Smitty was giving me stern looks about the fabrics I had laid out for the new "Scrappy Plus" quilt. After struggling with the piecing on the two Girls' Getaway blocks the day before, I was ready for something mindless too.


There's a lot of cutting for this project, and I've already determined that I should do it all ahead of time. Smitty was, as always, an excellent helper. He held those strips in place as I cross cut them to the sizes I needed.


We worked on this for the whole of my sewing day. Eventually, I had all the colors for the plus blocks cut.


Those are in piles of 10 and 20 pieces. I needed to find a way to keep them together as I work on the quilt piece by piece. I remembered some large plastic-coated paperclips I have, and those worked great for this purpose. 

There are still white and gray scraps to contend with. For those, I'm picking from my scrap bins. I had two of three sizes of white cut when I needed to quit for the day.


I still need 20 5-inch whites, and those will be cut corner to corner both directions to create 80 triangles. After dinner last night, I picked out pieces of white large enough for 5-inch blocks. Then, I sorted through my gray bin, pulling the dark and medium colors. Today's task will be to finish cutting those pieces. I expect it will take most of the day. If there's still time, I'll start piecing together some blocks for this quilt.


There was some happy mail yesterday. My friend, Jean, sent me some stitchery patterns she wasn't going to use. These are all new to my embroidery pattern library, so thank you, Jean. I'll enjoy stitching these. They're some of my favorite designers: Crabapple Hill, Bird Brain Designs, and Kathy Schmitz. (I figured out recently that Kathy Schmitz lives just across town from me.)


So yesterday's cutting was a lot of work without a lot to show for it. I'm making good progress on my slow-stitching piece, however. I'll finish up the dratted chain-stitched rug today. It's getting near a point where I'll want to move my hoop to a different spot.


So that's where I'll head next. But first...and you probably know what I'm going to say...it's Sunday morning blueberry oatmeal pancakes. They get the new week off to a good start. It's looking like another cool and cloudy day. That's good sewing weather in my book, and that's how I'll spend my day. 

Say good-bye to June, my friends. After today, you won't see it again until 2025.

8 comments:

Barbara said...

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen. ~ Winston Churchill

Pam Dempsey said...

I hope Smitty is quick on moving his tail! My Penny (calico) loves to chew on my thread spool and get involved playing with whatever I am trying to do. Like catch the needle as it’s going up and down. Love Kathy Schmitz and crabapple hill embroidery designs! 😻

Sara said...

Those are some cute new embroidery patterns. I like to get pieces cut before I start sewing too. It seems like the sewing goes so much faster when things are all ready to go. I also tend to kit up lots of blocks ahead of time.

Jenny said...

What a lovely selection of stitchery patterns you were sent. Wonder which one you will stitch first?

CathieJ said...

I love your new stitchery patterns. I would say that piles of cut fabric is not a lot to show for your day. Cutting takes a lot of time. I hope you manage to work on some of your list also. Enjoy your stitching and sewing.

Kate said...

Cutting all the fabric for a pattern is hard work, you'll be so glad you did once you get to the stitching point.

Magpie's Mumblings said...

I think I've finally figured out why I don't seem to accomplish much - I don't have a studio cat happily cracking the whip (tail). You and Smitty did a great job of cutting all sorts of little bits.

piecefulwendy said...

Good to see that Smitty is back to keeping you in line and on task in the quilt room! Haha.