A Little Housekeeping - Part 3

A freshly covered ironing board, a newly covered design wall, and now it's time to sort and organize scraps!  My scraps have been stored willy-nilly for a very long time.  Well, forever, actually.    

Some in stacking drawers .....

..... some in plastic bins .....

..... more in plastic shoeboxes .....

..... and even more in plastic, bulk sized Biscotti containers.  (I know!)

When I pulled all this together into one place I wondered if I really knew what I might be getting into.  What I was getting into was a tangled mess!

I pulled out all the reds and began pressing .....

















..... stacking .....




















..... and cutting into useable sized pieces.  

Piles of odds and ends .....


























..... soon became strips .....


























..... and more strips .....

..... and a lot of squares to make much better use of those storage drawers and bins!  Well, at least they look better.

Small, neatly cut and pressed pieces went into ziploc bags to either use or share.  (Ummmm, want some?)




















The local thrift store soon became the happy recipient of storage containers for some other quilty scrapaholic!

I'm seeing progress, aren't you?  What do they say about how you can eat an elephant?  Oh, yeah - One bite at a time.  lol

Hmmmm, what to bite off next?

A Little Housekeeping - Part 2

If the condition of my ironing board was awful my design wall was almost as bad.  Ever since Hubby helped me make my design wall, about fifteen years ago, I've kept it covered in flannel, and it's always worked great.  Then, for some strange reason I no longer recall, I decided (when I moved into my new sewing room) the flannel needed to be covered with batting.  Who knows? 

That turned out to be not such a great idea.  Blocks refused to stick to it for very long, but stray threads seemed to love staying put and were almost impossible to remove - even with a lint roller!  And it got so saggy that I eventually got frustrated with it and finally decided to tear off all that uncooperative batting.  

Happy surprise!  The flannel underneath was still in good shape! 

I forgot to take "in the process" pics, but this is what it looks like "after".  Quilt blocks even stick to it.  What a concept, right?    
  

That turned out to be a big improvement and well worth the housekeeping efforts.  Next up - scraps! 

A Little Housekeeping - Part 1

I think my winter funk is almost over.  The sun is coming out once in a while, and the days have been a little warmer. I've been sitting in front of my Happy Light every morning for a little boost, so there is hope!

I've managed to get a little housekeeping done in my sewing room, and was it ever needed!  

My ironing board had certainly seen better days.  (That's putting it mildly!)

















Well, to be honest, it wasn't actually ripped, but it didn't take much effort to do that.  And it made for a better photo op, so there's that.  I took the "well worn" muslin off down to the heat resistant layer.....  

.....and pulled out my bolt of muslin.























Once the new muslin was stretched around the board I got to work with my handy dandy staple gun and tacked it down.







Ahhhhh!  Much better, right?  Kind of makes me want to sew.  Or should I keep it clean?  Nope!






















I'm very happy with my fresh ironing board.  Hmmm, what to do next?