Catching up! Finally!

Organizing Chaos? Possible?!

I have to admit it, I am one of those people that just has to fly by the seat of her pants with no real plan of operation for anything. If I try and schedule my days -->something ALWAYS happens<-- to completely mess up my agenda. Not that this is a bad thing, I always seem to do my best work on the fly and under pressure, it just sucks when you are trying to get more organized. 

So how do you organize chaos? Take this weekend for instance, I had planned (you know I just had to tempt the fates right?) to have Mom's quilted pinned and quilted for Tuesday so I could square it up at the guild, I had plenty of time... I did... yeah... not so much. All 5 of us got hit with a really bad flu over the weekend, so very not pretty. 

So when I woke up Monday morning, shambled upstairs feeling like I'd graduated from Zombie to walking dead status (this is an improvement ;D) I reviewed the last few years and realized I have forgotten a very important lesson, when you lead a chaos laden life like I have organization doesn't work, flexibility, however does.  I realized that in becoming a quilter with all the mathematics and geometry, angles, rules and things you should not do I'd become very rigid in my thinking, very much like the rules of traditional quilting (we know the quilt police exist).  

Multiple hanger levels are very helpful
in visualizing a project.

From all sides I keep being told to get organized, plan, have a goal, in some parts I agree with this. My "studio" (Dank dark basement really, studio just sounds better) needs to be organized and clean, clutter just interrupts the flow of creativity.  

I found a really handy solution to planning as well, pant hangers! I tend to organize my fabrics by projects rather than by colour or lacking a project, like styles go with like styles whether this be by colour, fabric type, or pattern. 

When I've got my projects sorted they get hung up near my fabric stash so if I come across a piece that I would like to add, I can immediately add it to the project without it all getting in my way, cluttering up my shelves or having smaller pieces getting lost in the clutter on my shelves :D.

As for goals, I've said it before and I will say it again, I don't do "goals". I believe that goals are something that you strive for to complete, with something like quilting or any form or art there is no end to achieving or skill building so how can you ever achieve a goal? There is no endgame here, once you feel you have mastered a skill, you can apply that skill in a completely different direction and learn even more. I love that fact about quilting, there is always something new to try that will stimulate your mind and creativity.  

*-------------------*

Part Deux.

I know many people have been following Leah Day's new craftsy class (SUPERB btw!), I am glad I picked it up as well, she resolved one of the dilemma's I've been having with basting at home. I don't have a lot of floor space without carpet (I refuse to baste on carpet, thank you) or clutter and my kitchen table is the right height but it's the central area of our family and a real pain in the rear to constantly be kicking people out of there to use it (plus washing and cleaning the surface AGAIN lol) so I have a piece of sub-floor in my dungeon studio (that has a nice ring to it hah!) that I've been using which is way to long and not quite wide enough to be a perfect basting table so I have up until recently been using the guild tables since I had no clue how to make my makeshift table work for basting on the long side. 

Elastic!! I had a great big gargantuan roll of 2 inch elastic that I've had for.... a really long time, so on the sides I use binder clips and I've run elastic the long way, worked like a charm and it was super easy to readjust the quilt to either side so I could pin the hanging edges.

Really there is so many different ways to do things, this just reminded me that just because you were told to do something one way doesn't mean you have to keep doing it that way if it doesn't work for you.

Oh and another reminder... keep your fingers away from the ends of pins lol.

Small panel 1

Small Panel 2

So a quick peek at the back of Mom's Quilt since I didn't take a picture of anything until I was in the pinning stages (*shame*).

Practice Block 1

Practice Block 2

Centre Square

The large central square and the two small panels all came from a pillow panel that I had given to me by Suzanne, my mentor when I first started quilting (Oh that is almost a year ago... looks like I will have to do my first giveaway soon :D), the beautiful graded border is the fabric I chose for binding, which I bought when I bought the wool batting (*more shame*), I was just supposed to buy the batting......

(Once I have some extra bucks I will be buying a couple more metres, I am so ashamed.)

Once I have the quilt quilted I will post a picture of the back in it's entirety and explain more about it then... 

Passionately trying not to laugh, cause it hurts!

Chris.