Spring-ish Cleaning

I have been traveling - A LOT - so I haven't done much (any) quilting.

What I am going to write about today is not quilting, but it is something that is part of every quilter's life: Getting Organized. I am in the process of cleaning out our basement (and some other places that collect "stuff"), and when I got to some shelves that held fabric and yarn and UFO's, I knew what I had to do.

I worked for an hour or so at at time over several days. Every time I though I was done I would find another box or bag or pile. Now I am done. At least, I feel done. I want to be done.

So. Here are some photos.

For the Garage Sale

I put all my small scraps in a couple of gallon bags. Somebody will want these - I hope. They are going to be $1 per bag. I am also "letting go of" a stack of 8" squares I bought in Hawaii (at Hilo Hattie's). They are really mostly white and I don't think I'll ever do anything with them. $1. And I have two packages of 4" square samples from Benartex. I don't like them that much. Somebody will like them. $1 each.

I sorted the medium scraps by color and folded them into 6" squares and put stacks of them into quart-size bags. $1 per bag?  I put a bunch of loose pieces of elastic, ribbon, seam binding and so on into another bag. I put some surplus pins, hooks and eyes, jingles bells, and other stuff into another bag. I'm thinking 25¢ per bag, maybe 10¢.



The random scraps are unusual fabrics such as rip-stop nylon, spandex, pleather, minky fabric, etc. They are fairly small pieces, so $1 for the whole stack. I had some fairly large pieces that I will mark as $1 each. Next, a frame for basting a quilt using little plastic things that are similar to the plastic pieces used for price tags. I didn't like it that much. Someone who is not as particular as me and values speed will like it. $1. Finally, a bag of large and medium scraps of Michael Miller's Fairy Frost, as well as some other sparkly fabrics, all color coordinated in blues, whites, and silver, for $2. A bargain!
 

Some yarn. Fifty cents each for the Red Heart, one dollar each for the wool and novelty yarns.
 

Comments on my proposed pricing?

Stuff to Keep

Yay! The rest of my stuff is Organized now!  With a capital "O". And not a moment too soon. I found one kit that I had bought twice. I don't think that will happen again, now that everything I have is in one place.

There are six unfinished quilts in this tub. All are bed size. Also in the bin: all the fabric and instructions that go with each quilt.


On the left, quilt patterns. On the right, at least 12 unfinished small projects or unstarted kits for small projects, plus one almost-finished lap quilt. (On the lap quilt I decided to rip out the machine quilting I had done on about 25% of the quilt because I really didn't do a good job. I need more practice. But some of the stitches ended up being very tiny and it is not an easy job.)
 

There is also a big tub, not shown, half full of fabric I want to keep. Most of it is in large pieces. Last but not least, four unfinished yarn projects, occupying five bags. All are afghans or throws. That's about all I ever knit or crochet.
 

The "Allietare!" project will be left out in my sewing area because I will be working on it now that I am Organized.
 

The Unraveled Traveler
 
And here's a little about my big trip. (If you want to read a lot about it, go to this link: The Traveling Blogcrastinator.)

This is what I worked on on the trip. It's much more portable than quilting. I can't say what it is going to be because it is a surprise.


And here is some Maori-themed fabric I bought in New Zealand. I need to think about how to use it. Any ideas?

Knitters and Natters

It's hard to quilt at home. You need a lot of space, a lot of equipment, and a lot of free time.

It's really hard to quilt on a cruise. There actually are "quilting cruises," but . . . no, I don't think so.

So I cast around for a portable project. (A knitting pun and a sailing pun!) Cross-stitch fits the bill exactly.

On cruises, whenever there is a day at sea there is usually an "event" called Knitters and Natters. It's not really an event. It's more like a flash mob - just show up with your project at a specific place and time. There is no instructor, no leader, nothing. Just show up.

Usually there will be from 10 to 25 women. Never any men. So far. Most of the women are knitters and most of them seem to be making socks. There are usually a few cross-stitchers and needle-pointers. Sometimes there will be someone hand-sewing some small patchwork piece. Every once in a while you will see someone doing something like tatting or some arcane form of embroidery.

Inevitably someone will ask, "What is a natter, anyway?" Some people think it is a special kind of knitting or needlework. But the definition of natter is:

to talk casually, especially about unimportant matters; chatter

There's a little bit of a value judgment in that definition, but quite often the topics ARE relatively unimportant. That's what makes it so pleasant - no politics, no religion, no competitiveness over needle skills.

Before the trip I gathered up all of my supplies and different colors of floss. I sewed some grid lines on the aida cloth. I got ready, but I didn't start stitching until the September cruise. 

I am a relative newcomer at this. I found out there's a lot more to counted cross-stitch than just making x's. For one thing, you need good eyes and really good light. I ripped out a lot of stitches and my work went very slowly.

Here is what it looks like after two cruises:

I won't say what it is, but I'll post photos from time to time.

I was fortunate to be on the same cruise as a woman who is a MASTER cross-stitcher. She was very generous about sharing her expertise with me. Of course, I thought of a lot more questions after the cruise was over.

Her work was absolutely amazing. Her stitching was so perfect that the front and the back of her work looked almost the same.

Lesson learned:

Find a mentor. You will learn things that you didn't know you didn't know.