And That Was September

I didn't do a lot of quilting last month, thanks to being distracted by a renewed interest in other arts. I'll blame this silk velvet pumpkin I made from a kit.

I did finish this slow stitched beach bag from my summer projects.

I'm still struggling a little with not embellishing everything to death when I make a bag, but I think I did better with that this time. Helps if I put the bead box somewhere difficult for me to reach.

I obtained two beautiful vases for a song from Goodwill and made some fall decor arrangements for the house.

I'm quite proud of how well these turned out while using mostly thrifted supplies.

Crochet got its claws into me again when I decided to make some slippers in hopes it would loosen up my stiff fingers.

I was happy that I still remembered how to follow a pattern, although dismayed at how lame my execution was with this pair.

Investing in some scrap yarn from a professional maker allowed me to make a couple of crocheted binders for some supplies (these will eventually become book covers.)

Then I went into the yarn aisle at JoAnn for the first time in forever, and eight days later finished this v-stitched crocheted wrap. I don't regret being distracted by the pretty yarns and crochet projects, as making the wrap really helped loosen up my fingers and got me through Kat moving to Hawaii. Still, I think I will be doing nothing but quilting in October, starting with this project, the blocks of which I pieced while waiting for Hurricane Ian to arrive:

Bye, September. You were a lot of fun right up until the last couple days. :)

Comments

nightsmusic said…

Lovely projects for last month but that little pumpkin is absolutely adorable!

October 3, 2022 at 4:28 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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