How Nice to Be at Home Today!

It's been a little cloudy and/or dreary, but quiet and relaxed, compared to the past several weeks!

Yesterday we got all 75 of the little quilts labeled, rolled neatly and tied with a Christmas ribbon. They're stacked in three groups: Men, Women, and Either, and ready to be delivered after December 1. The five of us there took a vote and agreed "We did good!"

Someone had said something like those quilts were going to get us into heaven. Just to set the record straight, that's not what gets us into heaven; I'm hopeful, and pretty sure, most of you readers know that, but if not, I can tell you what does. *smile* I just hope the little quilts will bring some degree of pleasure to the recipients.

I do thank you for all the sweet comments on all the little quilts. They are for a good cause, but I'm glad that project is finished!

Last night I celebrated by making Civil War Block Week 7, Log Cabin Block.

Now, onto today! You can imagine the mess the sunroom was in! Fabric of every description was (still is!) piled everywhere, and the closet is still a disaster area! I decided to get fabrics back in place, after washing almost all the fabrics I had gotten at the estate sale a few weeks back.

I started the washer, and then started the sewing machine and made CW Block 9, Birds in the Air. I had looked at all the Flicker CW bird blocks and realized most of them had blue birds. Then I remembered I had some brown CW fabric with birds and a little bit of red, so I decided to make red birds, in a bright, clear blue sky. Here's how it turned out:

You may notice that I skip around on the blocks as I work through this project. I made a spreadsheet with the block number, date posted, block name, date I complete it, and colors. I enter the completion date so I'll can tell at a glance which ones are finished. As I study the blocks, I find I need something different from what I have available, so I make a note for when I go shopping again.

After finishing the block, I began getting all my fabrics organized by color; I even took things out of the drawers in the closet and piled them out on the table. When I got into those estate fabrics, I realized I have a lot of possible backings, and a wide variety of colors and fabric styles. I used Color Catchers as I washed the fabrics, and that's a good thing! I bought more reds than I realized, and boy, did most them run when the water hit them! Three of them have been washed three times, and still want to run. I went online tonight and found how to soak them in strong vinegar water for 24 hours. We'll see if that really works on these reds! If not, they are not staying here! One of them is Moda; I was really surprised by that! I washed a white napkin with the others the second time, and it came out white, as did the Color Catcher, so all the rest of them should be safe to use!

I didn't get all the fabric back in the drawers or new plastic tubs, but hope to finish that tomorrow. It should make life easier. I found fabrics, some of them really nice stuff, that I had forgotten buying! I won't live long enough to get half of it made into quilts! *frown!* Then I must straighted up the quilting books and other things stored on the closet shelves! What a mess!

It will just have to stay piled all around until tomorrow! I'm going to bed now!

Have a great Saturday! (The new Civil War block comes out in the morning; I can hardly wait!)

---"Love"