Thank you for all the well-wishers on my last post. If I haven't replied to you privately its because the comment came up as no-reply when I tried to email you. But I'm grateful for your concern.
My many projects are in a terrible mess, littering every surface and tipping my sewing room into utter chaos. I'm cutting so many different size pieces, for so many projects, and I'm just making a bigger and bigger mess all the time. For some reason I focused on my Beloved blocks mentioned in a previous post, and resolved to find out exactly what I needed to kit up and how many blocks I already had.
By the time I ran out of steam there were 84 blocks on the design wall, and another 70 kitted, and a pile of leftover strips, but at least I could also pack away the fabric that had been bugging me in the first place. I didn't come across the blocks that I thought I'd made, so maybe I just imagined them after all; who can tell what goes on in my mind.
So I made myself clean off the original cutting table, full of scraps from January quilts. It took sooooo long, and I had to force myself to keep going, but for the first time in six months I can see all of the table top.
In the comments Riley asked about leader-enders, so I'm linking to Bonnie Hunter's Leaders & Enders page. She explains it so much better than I could. I simply cannot sew without a leader-ender to leave under the needle, I will hunt high and low for something to sew so that I don't have to pull the piece out to cut the threads. The backs of my blocks are as neat as the fronts, all the threads clipped close. I don't waste thread, and I don't have anything to tidy up before quilting. It doesn't take long for it to become a habit, and it saves a fortune in thread, so give it a go if you're not already a convert.
2 comments:
I'll be your *real* commentress (spell-check is arguing with everything I try to type, so it might as well be this) today, okay?
The biggest advantage to leader-enders I've found (and have explained to friends who've seen this but don't understand the reason) is that the loose ends of threads don't have to be grabbed by me before I hit the pedal. If they're not corralled, invariably a big snarl will ensue at the beginning of the seam.
Before Bonnie, I always had a little thread-filled scrap to run through. These days, if I don't have a leader-ender project cut and ready, I run through a pair of 2" squares. I always have those at hand.
Glad to hear you are doing better. I have a question about the little stand in the last pic of your blog post today. What is it, and where can I get one? Looks perfect for corralling small rulers on my cutting table. Any help would be appreciated
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