Heatwave!

Oh my goodness, the last 5 days have been dreadful. 41° (105° F) and the night time temps above 25°. Yech! The weather didn't get the memo about summer being over already. It hasn't been too hot this year, so I didn't really miss my AC, but this heatwave did me in.  It was miserable. It's cooled down a bit today, and so of course I got a phone call saying my new AC has arrived and will be installed tomorrow. I'm just happy that it's here and ready for the next hot spell; we often get nasty hot weather into April here.

While the world outside was sweltering I stayed in our shop with the AC running, and tackled even more scraps. 

The scrap boxes at home are my patchwork scraps. The ones at the shop come from Op Shop bags, leftover backings, donations from friends and customers who are cleaning out their stashes. Most of it is modern children's patterns, there's a fair bit of Oriental themed stuff and Australiana, plus panels  and metallics. None of it is my cup of tea, but here it is, clogging up the shelves. 

Seeing as I was incarcerated for the duration I got stuck into the children's fabrics, cutting for Happy blocks and I-Spy hexagons. 

Very quickly I realised there weren't enough large pieces to make a 5" square for the centre, or a hexagon, so I started string piecing 5" squares from the scraps. I'm actually loving it, which surprised me because I've always been on the fence about string piecing.

 I like that it uses up every last piece of some tiny scraps, and everything finds a home somewhere, but the mess is so annoying!

This time I'm coping with the mess by tidying up every few hours, which means all the un-useable strip ends get weeded out, and all the remaining strips are sorted into various lengths and colours, and then I start making a mess again with new blocks. The tidying up is a bit zen, it interrupts the intensity of shoving fabric through the machine and I don't feel overwhelmed by the chaos.

I'm loving these bright colours for a change; it's so not me, but it's fun. I'm aiming for 30 or so blocks, which will put a dent in the boxes, and then I'll decide what to do with what is left. By that time the temperature might have cooled down enough for me to go back to my sewing room, and my regularly scheduled programming.