Where to start

I firmly believe that I should never become so busy with the organization of quilting that I have no time for doing real quilting. Unfortunately the last month before Festival was a difficult time to do real work. I have been quilting a machine embroidered quilt (My Integrated Sampler) but have not done any piecing. My work room was halfway buried under fabric- I pulled out fabric for several different projects.

So before I could start working, I first have to dig my ironing board and cutting table out from under these fabrics. I decided to get organized with my Civil War blocks and tackled them. Except for block no 3 which is applique I can proudly announced that I completed the other 28 blocks. I had 6 done previously, but last week finished the other 22.

Today I have tackled my quilt in the frame. This will be my third quilt in the frame and after a 2 month absence, I had to relearn a few things. But after 15 minutes I felt confident again. I am now halfway with the quilt and hope to complete it by the end of the week.

Our chair lady is nagging us for our reports on Festival so I guess I need to give this priority. I have washed the fabrics I bought at Festival. I do not always wash the lighter fabrics, but I deliberately bought some darker fabrics and there was also darker batiks that I could not resist. I had a lot of colour bleeding from these fabrics. This just reminded me that it is safer to wash my fabrics than to have it ruin my projects. I love to wash my quilts, so pre-shrinking is also important. (I read from a clever blogger-sorry cannot remember who- that starching and pressing fabrics before using it in a project take care of shrinking. That was wonderful advise, because one cannot really wash precuts?)