tying up loose ends

I've been trying to go through a few things in the sewing room, and it's an uphill battle.

I've had a plastic tub that held purchased patterns (in their little plastic sleeves), those printed off the internet, and odds and ends of little notes.  Its a nice little catch-all, but got so that I couldn't find what I wanted without pulling everything out and making another mess.  So I pulled everything out one more time.  Using a three ring binder, I've been able to corral the printouts and notes, and its nice to be able to thumb through the book for what I want to see.  For now the patterns in sleeves are back in the tub in a neater fashion, but that's subject to change as I progress.   And yes, I do have a lot of project instructions saved on the computer, but sometimes I just want to access them easier.

And you may remember I mentioned my printer not working like it should.  Well, I realized for the bit of printing that I do, Staples office supply store is my new friend at 10 cents a page.  Each page is on good quality paper, and I don't even have to think about ink running out.  I take in my little thumbdrive, along with a list of what I want printed, and its done.

In going through things in another part of the room, I came across the blocks from a swap that ithinksew (we all have our board names) hosted on the HGTV quilitng and sewing forum. This swap had to have been at least 5 years ago, so I thought it was time to do something with them.  I made a quick trip to a fabric store and got a yard for the sashing, and got started.

ithinksew made 2 blocks, and I also have blocks from solidgolddancer, quiltnanny, needprozac, byabasket, LisaP8, myjack, nr4crafts, and ball63. One block was the squares and triangles to make it, for us to assemble ourselves. At first as I was laying out the swapped blocks, I thought I was one short.  Then as I read the little note included, I saw her comment about finishing the one ourselves.  Its possible someone dropped out, but this worked out fine.

ithinksew gave us specific colors she wanted used in the quilt, such as apple green and purple, along with kind of a royal blue and deep red, all on a cream tone background.   Her last sentence in the little note mentioned that she would really love to see our finished quilts.  Sadly, ithinksew died almost a year ago.  I think she would have liked it.

While this ufo is not completed yet, I do feel better that it has progressed to this point from being a bunch of squares in a bag.  :)

Will I ever get my sewing room completely squared away?  Who knows.  I've already got another project going though.  Can't stifle my creativity when it decides to come visit!

Have a good week.