Organizing, Knitting and Quilting

   I split my time over the last month working on two big projects.  One was the Grandmother's
Flower Garden Quilt and the other was an organization project.

    I organized all my craft supplies and projects that have been stored into big, medium and small storage boxes over the years.  I have over 48 storage boxes and they hold fabric, yarn, buttons, zippers, pins, pin cushions, rotary cutters, snaps, Velcro, excelsior, batting, fiberfil, batting, embroidery floss, embroidery hoops, tape, paper, greeting cards, thread, stabilizer, beads, jewelry findings, paints, glue, and glue guns, etc.  Some have specific projects in them that are ready to be started (or finished) and some boxes just hold several items that go together like yarn, pom pom makers, and a nostepinne.  I organized all the like items together, labeled the boxes and indexed the box on the computer.  I put most of those boxes in my office closet and I have a legend that tells me the location of each box and what is in it.  It's nice to know where everything is.

     Here's are a couple of pictures of the inside of my closet.

    I spent about 3 weeks last month working on the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.  After I finished putting the third row on the quilt top, I figured up how many hexagons I need of each color for rows 4, 5, 6 and 7.  I traced them and cut all of those out.  I paper punched more hexagon papers for basting, then I basted and sewed together all the flowers for the fourth row of the quilt top.  I just have to add the green path to each flower before I sew it to what is already together.

    Here's a picture of the flowers for the fourth row.

    On Saturday and Sunday last weekend I spent time knitting dishcloths.  They are a thank you gift for my DD for helping me with some yard work last Saturday morning.

    Here's a picture of the knitted dishcloths.  I love the yellow yarn.  I have to get more of that color for me.

My Sewing Notions Tool Box

   This tool box is my favorite place where I stash miscellaneous notions like my extra scissors, old broken sewing machine needles (they are in the orange pill bottle), my seam rippers, new sewing machine needles, serger tweezers, porcupine quill stillettos,  sewing machine brush, a tracing wheel, measuring tape, silicon finger protectors, needle threaders, and a couple of seam gauges.

   My favorite part of this tool box is the accordion trays that open up but they stay on the box, you don't have to lift them out.  I can't find a tool box like this anymore.  I wish I had three more just like it for various sewing supplies.

Fun Fabric Package

       I almost forgot that I ordered this fat quarter collection from  Craftsy on February 3rd.  They were having a great sale and I think I got these 50 fat quarters for about $56.00 (not including tax or shipping).

    This collection is called Free Spirit.

I Can Trace.

      I have had the muslin for this project for a couple of weeks and I've had the pattern even longer, but I couldn't make myself start this project because I was afraid I was going to screw up the pattern tracing.  I've never traced a pattern before, I can't draw, and I don't own a light box.  I do have a lovely sliding glass door in my dining room that gets beautiful morning light and I knew I could use this as a light box, but I was procrastinating.

   This morning I made myself get my fabric ironed, I opened my new brown pigma pen, got my painters tape out, pulled out the embroidery pattern and the instructions.  I used the painters tape to secure the pattern and the fabric to the window.  There were three pattern pages.  I taped the first page up, and didn't tape up the second page until I finished tracing the first, then I lined up the second pattern page with the bottom of the first page, taped it to the window and traced it.  The third page was the easiest.

   The morning light at 10:30 a.m. was perfect.  It took me about an hour to trace this pattern and it came out really well.  I've already selected the colors from my embroidery floss stash and I'm ready to start stitching.

    Here is my sliding glass door light box.  This is a picture of the tracing finished.

   The pattern is "Never Underestimate The Power Of A Woman With A Sewing Machine"  Here is a link to the pattern.