Everything But Sewing

My husband, Jim, retired July 10 and it has been a summer of major adjustment for me.  For the past 35 years I have been used to him being gone from home for at least 12 hours five days a week.  Now he’s here all the time and I’m not getting anything accomplished.  It isn’t necessarily that we are doing things together all the time, it’s just more of a distraction.

Since his retirement we’ve taken a few short trips and gone to more local events so it’s not all bad. All the fun and games, however, have left little time for sewing.  Because I haven’t had large chunks of time I’ve been doing more piecing and less finishing.  Surely 2015 has been the least productive quilting-wise that I’ve had in the 26 years I’ve been quilting.  The 40 yard dash I started in March has become a marathon and I’m anxious to get those quilts finished so I can move on to other projects.  Blocks are made for four more quilts pieced from all those strips and now I’m sewing the tops together so I’m beginning to see the end of this project.  For anyone who doesn’t know about my 40 yard dash project, I pulled 40 yards of fabric from stash and cut it all into 2-1/2” strips.  I should get 12 or more quilts from those strips.  My other self-imposed rule is that all backgrounds, borders and backings must also come from stash.  It’s been a great project for getting rid of some older stuff.

This is the latest one on the design wall.  It is a circle log cabin.  I’ve made a few of these over the years and always like how they turn out.

I used the same background throughout.  It is from the Barn Dance collection by Country Threads.  This is an old favorite and now I just have a little bit left that will be cut up for my scrap bins.  That way it will be a fond memory in a few more quilts!