Friday, July 4, 2014

the Great Shed Clean Out 2014

 No reason for this picture, other than he is adorable and didn't want me taking his picture.  Took me three tries to get his face.  Gotta love this guy.  He's been my sanity lately with all the craziness that's been going on around here.  He helped me make pancakes for dinner tonight.  What better way to celebrate our Nation's Birthday?  Chocolate Chip Pancakes and bacon.  yummy!
 Here's a couple of snuggly flannel quilts for some little ones.  This was the impetus for the Great Shed Clean out that started yesterday.  Wish I had taken a Before picture, but I always get in the middle of the project before thinking about such things.
 This one I used my favorite quilt design that I came up with.  It's snails and looks so cute on a little boy quilt.  It stitches out so beautifully.  I need to come up with some more like this.  It just makes me happy when I use it.
 Here's my other friend who has been keeping me company lately.  Lily is so sweet and puts up with my little guy carrying her around the house and is the first one to help me clean the kitchen floor.  She's just as happy to sit next to me on the couch or snuggle in my lap when I'm needing the extra comfort.
 At least the tennis court is getting some use.  Great for staging the buckets of fabric.  I got rid of three buckets of fabric and three buckets of yarn/crochet thread today.  I have a friend who will take whatever I can't use and has a traveling craft bus that goes into schools for art days.  She provides all the supplies and clean up and the kids actually get to do art.  Whatever fabric isn't suitable for quilting goes to her.  I had been saving some great fabrics for at least 4 years.  My last clean out was in 2010.  I wrote the date on some of the buckets.  I guess I just got busy.  Looks like the tennis court needs washing.  Ick.  I don't even want to know what these stains are.  The buckets on the far right are flannel, then 5 buckets of fleece then all the rest are quilting cottons.  I still need to sort those into big and small pieces.
Here in the shed, the top left 6 buckets are knits.  I used to make baby hats out of them and would buy knit fabric for $1 a yard like crazy.  When my little guy was a baby, he had a huge lump on his head and he wore a whole lot of hats.  I made them like crazy and donated them to the hospital.  Not sure why I stopped making them, but I'd guess there's fabric in there for about a zillion hats.  Looks like I either need to make hats again or find someone who wants to take up the cause.  Not sure if I could make backings out of the knit fabric or not.  Worth a try I guess.

The bottom two buckets on the left are Christmas fabrics.  Then, the rest of the stuff needs going through still.  All the stuff in the front is empty buckets.  The ones I emptied today.  I started vacuuming.  The rats got in here a couple years ago and had a nice family.  It's warm and dry in there and well protected from the rain.  I need to work faster and use up the fabric rather than hoarding all of it.

Good thing we have three quilt days this month.  Hopefully we will cut up and use up all the fleece.  That's 5 more buckets gone.  I believe there are some big pieces in those buckets.  I think I have another 5 or 6 bags in the garage as well.  That stuff takes up a lot of room.  I tried cutting it today with the Studio cutter and the rag die.  Cuts like butter!  Now to sew it together again and see how I like it.  No sense cutting it all up if it doesn't sew back together well.  Would be nice to have a single layer blanket for the warm days and much easier to sew together, but not sure what that's going to be like.  Will give it a try.

We will be staying in tonight.  My husband never got into the 4th of July celebration.  His family was pretty dysfunctional and unstable and they never had any family traditions.  It's hard trying to make them when you are fighting against something he feels so strongly about and it was just me trying to drag 4 kids off at night, so I let that one go.  My two middle ones are off with friends today, enjoying the fireworks.  I'm happy they are getting to celebrate.  I'll be celebrating at home, enjoying the freedom and keeping my puppies company.  I'm sure they will appreciate that.

I hope you have a safe and happy 4th.

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