Stash Slimming

What you are looking at is my impromptu quilting area downstairs.  It is the larger of the two downstairs bedrooms and the only floor space large enough to lay out and assemble blankets.  The room has an added bonus of a door, so I can shut the dogs out when they decide they want to come and lay on my work!

I set my ironing board up in the downstairs hallway and my sewing machine on the table in the family room.  I got quite a lot of sewing done over the weekend and was happy about that.  Those dogs never cease to amuse me.  I was working on my first wretched seam of a jelly roll quilt and Zak was under the table.  He didn't seem to mind as all the fabric spilled off the back of the table and onto him.  His other trick is to lay on my pile of strips as I'm trying to feed them into the machine. 

I am happy to be the proud owner of two new blankets because the weather is getting colder and winter is the season for company.  This quilt was was pieced using up all the winter themed fabrics I'd collected over the years and backed with a cut of pale blue/gray batik purchased at SR Harris.  Everything I sewed this weekend was stuff I already had.  I used up 2 battings, about 15 yards of fabric and remnant spools of thread.

This quilt was a departure from all the other ones I've made.  It is certainly the most frilly and frou frou!  I had been collecting all these "shabby chic" floral prints for the colors because most of them are on blue backgrounds.  It is backed using a bed sheet my sister found for me at Saver's.  My grandma Joann made me a blanket for my bed out of the exact same fabric and I treasured it, more so after she passed away.  It was so worn out and the batting was totally gone in places.  If you held it up to the light, you could see through it, that's how worn out it was.  I painfully threw it away in the final frantic hours of packing to move to Minnesota and now I feel like I have a replacement for it.  Dave joked that he was a little scared to sleep with this blanket on the bed because it might reduce his sperm count.

The air is cool and crisp and it actually froze over the weekend.  I am proud to say we have not had the furnace on once yet this year but I did hang up the downstairs hall curtain.  We have electric baseboard heaters in the family room and this curtain confines the warm air to that room.  It is just a shower curtain rod with a length of fabric hung over it.  I actually hemmed it and made a casing for the rod whereas last year it was un-hemmed and safety pinned over the rod!

Dave's mother had knee replacement surgery and came home from the hospital on Friday.  We picked up her prescriptions and took supper over to his parents that night and on the way home, we stopped at the church jumble sale at St. Peter's.  I got a a Christmas ornament and centerpiece and Dave found this for $5!  He was so excited about it and insists that this go in the yard on Halloween so the trick or treaters see it.  What a nerd!  And of course the dogs are afraid of it.

Speaking of Halloween, I hung up the lights and the fake jack o lantern in the front window.  Once I saw it lit, I was horrified at how dirty my window is!  I will wash it after I take the decorations down.

This is my new favorite lunch!  Toast with mashed avocado, salt and pepper and topped with a poached egg.  Num NUM.  Today I've been doing laundry and cleaning and putzing around the house, but soon I will start cutting strips for a third quilt because I have one more batting to use up.  There has been some serious de-stashing around here of late!