I may have lost my mind -- or more of it

Now anyone that knows me understands that my mind has never been fully in tact so they may all be giving me the DUH face about this statement. The latest way that I may be pushing the limits of my sanity is in the latest undertaking in my sewing room. One of my goals earlier this year was to get a better organization on my scraps and to use more of the scraps in my quilting -- thus mt-scrapula was developed and I was feeling pretty good about this but it didn't take me long to realize that this may not be the most effective way to use up the scraps or even find pieces I am looking for at any given time. I am a follower of Bonnie Hunter and marvel at the things that she creates on quilt cam using scraps and she mentioned sorting out her scraps into usable sizes and so I decided I would give it a try -- thus the crazy. My guild did this to help make using the charity stash more usable so this makes sense to me so now I am in the process of processing my scraps into usable sizes.

This is about half the scraps so far and am feeling pretty good about he process. I may have more sizes than I need but so far I have 5,4,3 (not sure I will keep this category but I found several pre cut in the scraps so for now it's a group) and 2.5 inch squares. I made a group of 2.5 inch strips (might finally get around to that scrappy trip along out of these) as well as a bag of strings (anything less than 2.5 inches and longer than 4 inches. Anything smaller than 2.5 by 4 or an odd shape made it's way into the crumbs baggie (that's the big one in the back -- because i needed a bigger bag). I've still got 5 color groups to go but am feeling good about the progress I have made, even if part of me is doubting my sanity for taking on this project.

In other OCD exciting news -- all the large fabric is officially folded and now color sorted and back in the dresser. I't so beautiful and makes me giddy knowing there is a huge fabric rainbow in my room -- even if it's hiding in the dresser. (I will be updating a picture of this later)

My large love seat is being sold so that will be leaving my quilting room and that means more room to spread out and use the space better. I will now have a raised cutting and ironing table -- with the use of the bed risers that were previously on the legs of the love seat.

And here is my new sewing surface that I picked up from Goodwill this weekend that needs repainting and some cleaning. The original machine is no longer in the desk and my machine won't fit into the table but I like the idea of knowing some other person used this as a sewing table (because of the loose threads in the drawer and little nicks on the tape measure guide under the lid) and now I will love it as they did -- thus the cycle goes on. I haven't picked a color yet but it may be black to match the other furniture in the room -- unless I get brave and go for a bold color.

I also have three finished projects that I was finally able to get photos of because the rain stopped. The top two are for charity and the bottom one is a sampler quilt for craft shows using baby clothes. 

I got together the fabrics for the It's a Sister Thing Swap and hope to make my buddy Lee proud because I am going to be using her pattern designer star to make something amazing for my new sewing sister with the following fabrics -- navy is the background fabric. There is some Denise Schmidt (blue dots) hiding in the corner that will be a border as well. I'm planning out the layout of my colors now and determining what I'll be making -- either a pillow, wall hanging, tote bag or maybe a throw. 

So I'll be adding that to my UFO pile soon along with the others and hope to be able to get some quilting in tonight while I watch Quilt Cam. This may be a better time to work on the 3 block of the week blocks we got this week or the block of the month that is waiting for me to compete -- instead of trying to FMQ on the larger projects that are waiting ever so patiently. 

Hope everyone had a great 4th and got some serious quilting done. Happy Quilting everyone -- that's the dish for now.