Thank you ladies!

A huge thank you to Regan and Pam P. for their postage contributions.  I really appreciate them!

Now I'm really done!

I found spots for all the fabrics that didn't have them.  They are tucked in here and there, and will move to permanent locations as fabrics are used in quilts.  The 30's and 40's fabrics are sorted by color and back in the closet.

Best of all, the backing for Emily's quilt is finished.  The quilt will go to the long armer tomorrow.  I'll bind it as soon as I get it back.  Emily and her family will be so happy to finally have it!

 I don't need any more of these colors!

I could use a few more purples and yellows.  The center stack is "multicolored".

I definitely need more reds, blacks and oranges

All of these are back in their baskets and in the closet - easy to reach when I need them.  I plan to start using them soon!

Looking good!

 

I think I'll start making "quilt backing fabric" next.  That's going to take a few days, but I'm eager to get the stacks off the floor.

I'm also going to get back to the little quilt I was making when all this started.  Hopefully I'll have a new little top to show you soon.

I think I'm done!

Well, almost.  All the shelves are done, however.  All that is left is to sort the 30's fabrics - stored in baskets in the closet - into color families.  I can't get a picture of the entire room now, however, as the cutting table is still crowded with fabrics.

These will be sewn into "quilt backing fabric" and rolled onto a bolt core

These wouldn't fit back onto the shelves.  I'm not sure what I'll do with them.
 The bins hold felted, dyed wool and ultrasuede scraps for applique.

These need prewashing.  I think they will fit onto the shelves.

It feels so good to have this project finished.  I love the way the room looks now.  There is still work ahead.  Not only do I need to sew all those florals, etc. into quilt backings, I also need to cut two baskets of pieces into strips, squares, triangles, and bricks.  

The shelves are still very crowded, but I can easily identify the deficiencies of the collection.  Reproduction cheddars, golds, oranges, yellows, purples and blacks.  There is room for some of each on the shelves, but not a lot.  I will just have to start sewing LOL!

A good time was had by all

I returned home from knitting retreat just after noon today.   The facility was marvelous.  The food was great.  The company was exceptional.  I knit most of the time I was gone, except for Saturday afternoon when I finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch hand quilting on Emma's Quilt.

I was sure I would finish a pair of socks this weekend.  After all, one of the socks was finished on our trip.  at least 2" of the leg of the second sock was completed.  The socks are from DK weight yarn on #2 needles, which knits up much faster than the usual fingering yarn on #1 needles. 

By early Saturday afternoon I'd finished the gusset and was working on the foot.  It was then I decided I needed to try it on.  It was looking smaller than the other sock - I'd been thinking this for some time.  I figured my tension was just tighter.  Heaven knows why I never thought to try the sock on sooner, as it really looked small.  Needless to say, it was smaller than the other sock.  I couldn't even get my foot through the leg much less the heel onto my heel.  I imagine trying on my 6 year old granddaughter's socks would have looked similar. 

So I double and triple checked the pattern.  I always knit a size small, just making the foot longer.  Not so with the DK yarn and this pattern.  The first sock was a size medium, the second a size small.  No way to fix that except to rip it all out and start over.  At this point I took out the hand quilting while I was silently screaming in frustration.

After dinner, when I couldn't quilt anymore because I'd forgotten my ruler and marking tools for the border, I cast on the sock for the second time.  By the time I left this morning I was at the same point in the sock as I'd been before I ripped it out.  This time I'd tried it on to make sure it fit.  So  I should finish it sometime this week.   The other two knitting projects I'd taken along weren't even touched.

Some pictures from the weekend.

Group picture.  The Sister in the front is the director of the retreat center.

 

Shirley dancing with her newly finished shawl

We ate well

Everyone is hard at work

I'm already looking forward to November's retreat.

Whoops!

I did have a little time to work last night, so I finished the tans and beiges and did a little with the yellows, oranges and golds.  Here is what I have left of those colors.  Not all that much - I should be able to finish these when I come back on Sunday.   Unfortunately, I've had to put fabrics onto the top shelves already - I was hoping to avoid that.

I've been looking at selvages a lot during this sorting process - double checking my choices of reproduction prints.  That has been very interesting.  I've run across a lot of fabric with NOTHING on the selvages.  Not only are there no color dots - there is no identification at all.  No designer, no company name, nothing.  Even the few ancient VIP's I have left have the VIP name one the edge.  Can you imagine how old the nameless fabrics must be?  I can't remember a time when fabric manufactures didn't mark the edge of their fabrics.

When I finish those, all I'll have left is the "stuff".  At least it is now off the office floor and back into the sewing room.  There is NO way I have room to put all these on the shelves.  There will be a place for "autumn quilt" fabric, holiday fabric, novelty prints and brights.  There are some here that can be sorted into the color stacks.  There are a few I'm  putting away to use in this quilt.  Those categories will take up the rest of the room.  What's left will be made into quilt block fabric or cut into strips and squares.  Slowly.  The trick will be to figure out what to do with them in the meantime.

At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm so eager to get back to the little quilt I started before the organizing bug bit me.  It is all cut out and ready for sewing.  I think I'm going to love it!

The end is in sight

Sorting fabrics has been an interesting test of what I remember from the classes I took from Eileen Trestain.  (I was lucky enough to take four years of quilt history and fabric dating classes from her a few years ago.  There is a label for the posts from each class in my label list on the right sidebar.)  I found many fabrics in the "non-reproduction" stacks that qualify as reproduction fabrics.  Last night I sat down and examined the photos of fabrics from each time period in her book, and realized I'd missed even more that I should have identified.  Once day I'll go through each stack again to pull those out. (After I've recovered from this project!) 

Here are the important fabrics I have yet to sort - golds, yellows, oranges, and non-reproduction beiges and tans. 

I should be able to do these in one day, but it won't be until I get back from this weekend's knitting retreat.  Yesterday I finished the reds and the reproduction tans and beiges.

All of the reproduction fabrics I received from Eileen when I took her classes are in a basket under the cutting island.  The pieces are small enough that they would get lost on the shelf.  I will use them for finishing the class quilts first, and then will start including them in all my other quilts.

Finally I will need to deal with this mess.  Fabrics I don't see myself using any time in the near future.  I will sew many of these together to make a bolt of  "quilt backing fabric" as I did before (see this post).  All the florals .will definitely be used this way.  Holiday fabrics and brights will go onto top shelves.  The rest - I can't even remember what that includes - will be dealt with in one way or another.  I'm not worrying about those until I take care of the rest.

 (And yes, if you have eagle eyes, you can see some reproductions in this picture.  These are set aside for pre-washing.  They are here so they aren't in my way in the other room.)  I'm confident this process will be done by the end of next week.  I'll be so glad to have it done, but also so glad I did it.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Gratitudes:

1. Coffee with a friend that I've not seen for almost a month
2.  A quilt show to see this afternoon!
3.  A spring rain to water our thirsty plants - and souls.

Slowly . . . slowly . . . .

Another day of moving fabric, another evening of exhaustion.  Another evening hand quilting "Emma's Quilt" while watching the Seattle Mariners win their second baseball game.  I hope they can keep this winning streak going for several games!

Today I finished the blues - two large shelves and three small shelves.  No question about it - I don't need to buy more blue fabric.  I still plan to buy Jo Morton's new line but that will be the last blues to come into this house for some time.

I found more purple while sorting today.  Turns out one small shelf isn't enough. So purples are sharing the top shelf with the blues.  If I buy a bunch more purples in the next year or two I will have to use up more blues to make room for them.

I also sorted the plaids.  By color, no less.  Not an easy thing to do.  I finally gave up on some of them and created a stack for "multi-colored" plaids.  Three large shelves and three small shelves.  No more plaids will be coming in the house either - unless they are purple!

  

The browns are almost half done.  They will be the first thing I finish tomorrow.  I look at the fabric all over the surfaces in the room and  then tamp down panic - it sure looks like not all of it will fit.  And that may be true, as I added fabric that was in four different baskets under the cutting and ironing tables.  I've also taken out a bunch that I've stuck in two of the empty baskets - small pieces, ugly pieces, etc.  They will be cut into strips and squares ala Bonnie Hunter.

I've tried not to put anything I'll use often on the top shelves of the bookcases, as I need a stool to reach those.  They will include lots and lots of florals (remember Hoffman florals), brights, "autumn" themed fabric, holiday fabric and primitives.  The last I do use often, but only if I'm working on a primitive quilt.  In that case I'll just grab a stool and take down what I need for the day.

Still to come are reds (there are lots of those!) yellows, oranges, tans, creams whites and shirtings.  I ask you again - how did I get into this mess?

(Sending Kathie a huge thank you, because I will love this so much when it is all done.  I should be able to sew a lot more because the fabric I want will be easier to find.)

Out of order . . . chaos . . . then order

After spending the morning trashing my sewing room I spent the afternoon bringing back order one shelf at a time.  Tonight there is a total of six shelves - it is a beginning anyway.

First were the greens.  By doing those I could create a little more work space.  The top shelf holds the reproductions, and the bottom two shelves are "everything else green".  I have room for more reproduction greens - hooray!

Above the greens are the pinks.  Only one shelf of them.  The left stack contains the reproductions, and the center and right stack are not.  Looks like I need to be on the lookout for some double pink reproduction prints.

The blacks are above the pinks.  Not much here either.  The stack on the right contains reproductions.  I need to keep my eyes open for some good black and gray reproduction prints.

The last color to be organized today was purple-lavender - and that stash is pitiful.  Purple-lavender is a challenge in that it is really two colors.  I guess I could call it my lavender stash and my purple stash.  No matter what you call it, it is still pitiful.  You'd think I don't like purple - I love purple!  So that must mean that (1) I've used most of my purple, (2) I never think to buy purple, or (3) purple is hard to find in quilt stores.  And I do mean purple - I rarely use lavender in my quilts.  I think the answer is (3) - so I definitely need to search for more purple reproduction fabrics. 

I could have accomplished more after dinner, but I was really tired from moving all that fabric around.  So I was in my sewing room, but I had my sewing chair tilted back, my feet on a stool, and my hand quilting in my lap.  After all, tonight was the opening game of the 2013 baseball season for my Saturday Mariners.  And I'm happy to say they won, defeating Oakland 2-0.  The bull pen made it uncomfortably exciting in the last two innings - thank goodness they didn't spoil King Felix's great first outing.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 
Gratitudes:

1.  Sweet, clear birdsong waking me early, as our evening was so warm I had the window open.
2.  An unexpected visit from our SIL Rick and the best of all grandsons, Joseph.
3.  Hugs and kisses from Joseph.
4.  A Mariner win

My goodness, what have I done?

Do you ever ask yourself this question?  I'm asking myself that right now!

See that tiny space on the ironing table - that's currently my work space.  Argh!!!!!!

Kathie made me do it!

This is just a beginning.