Time For A Tidy Up

 I desperately need to tidy my cutting table and the area all around it. 

I've been cutting scraps, and pulling out fabric for more cutting, for weeks, without taking time to put things away afterwards. It breaks my concentration to have to fit yardage back onto shelves, and squeeze FQs back into drawers, so I just let it pile up around me, until I can't work anymore. I no longer try to break myself of that habit; after all this time, I'm not going to change. The time between cleanups changes, as sometimes I'm more conscientious if I'm not in such a fever of creativity, but I always end up back in the mess.

I pulled out a lot of fabric to try with the Courtyard blocks, auditioning for the setting triangles and the borders. 

So many choices.

I'm stuck as far as deciding. There are several choices I like; one fabric has 7 yards on the bolt and I'd dearly love to use up a chunk of that, but I'm doubtful. Maybe it's not The One? That perfect one, that speaks to me straight away. If there's one habit to break, it's that search for perfection. Over and over again, when I'm caught between 2 choices, it's because both would look nice, and one isn't better than the other. Sigh. I'm going to put the pieces on the design wall down the shop and see if the natural lighting helps me make a decision.

And I may have started another leader-ender, this time with my 2.5" squares and HSTs.

I made a blue and yellow/cream Split 9 Patch many years ago (and sold it), 

and it obligingly used up lots and lots of fabrics that I just didn't want in my stash anymore.  I want to attack this box of squares; 

a lot of them came in scrap bags from the op-shop. They're not horrible, but I won't cry about using them all up.

The HSTs are always available, I cut hundreds of them with the Accuquilt die years ago. It's time to use them up and cut new fabrics to fill the triangle box.

That's a lot of projects, all concentrating on my repro, or sort-of repro fabrics. I'm starting to miss my nice modern pretties. Now that spring is here, I might make something light-hearted and happy. But not until I've cleared up.

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Trail Mix Progress

 The Trail Mix blocks I'm making are harvest colours; orange and peach and gold and green, with the occasional blue thrown in. I'm liking it, but now that I'm putting rows together it's becoming obvious that it's not going to have nicely nested seams. My pet peeve is having to mash seams together and press them into submission; I go out of my way to avoid having to do this. So the top is going to be only 60" square, and that will be enough to clear out a lot of those fabrics from the scrap and strip drawers. I don't  even like those warm colours particularly, I'm much more drawn to blue/green combinations, so I won't mourn the passing of these scraps.

A lot of them are from a wholesale mystery order from about 2010, when we could order boxes of 1800s repro bolts for a ridiculous price, sight unseen. Some of those fabrics were truly awful, but most were last season odds and ends and we were glad to have them. If only we'd known that that category of fabric was losing popularity, and would almost disappear in the future, maybe we wouldn't have sold so many in our shop. We're still using up what remains, and saying goodbye to some favourites, and there's not a lot to replace them. The stash comes into its own....

I don't know what I'll work on next. I only need another 10 blocks to complete this project, so I had better start thinking about what will be the focus after this. UFOs? A new project? Adding to the boxes of blocks that are ongoing? Assembling some of those blocks into an actual top? I'm still in the mood for something easy, that doesn't require a huge amount of attention. I might have to go back to the Log Cabin blocks while I decide.

 

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