Third week of January 2026

 I have been spending time trying to eliminate baskets and containers of "stuff" in my house and my sewing studio.  I will admit Marie Kondo has a few great ideas that work for me and my drawers in kitchen, bathroom and laundry room are looking very organized and it is easy to keep them that way (as long as I am the one putting the clean towels and facecloths away).  It really does make me smile when I open up a door or drawer and it looks lovely, tidy and easy to get what you want from it without disturbing everything else in there. 

Downstairs is a bit different.  In the late summer our friendly realtor delivered a huge number of vacuum sealed bags with contents from our Arizona house. A lot of the quilting items were duplicates and I have been shoving things around but not really feeling like there is a place for everything so everything can be in it's place. 

It was a slow start to the month with my husband having Moh's surgery and me being behind in my quilting which didn't get done on schedule the last week of December.  I also have a lot of small projects from the Advent boxes and bags that I subscribed to in 2025.  Plus, I started a number of projects that were being work on intermittently.  

First step yesterday was to clean off my white board.  It was behind my ruler rack (from AZ) that I love and it works great where I mounted it on the wall.  But, I couldn't reach half of the white board.  I use post it notes on my board so took them all off, washed the wall, re-positioned  it, and started fresh for 2026.  It looks off center but I can live with that.  I need a small wallhanging to the left and it will be good.  

I threw out post it notes of anything I no longer wanted to make and reorganized.  I know it still looks messy in the photo with 'stuff' but there are my fabric buckets for scraps of fabric when cutting.  There is a container with scissors, rotary cutters and a container with all my Villa Rosa patterns.  The cutting surfaces have been cleaned and given some water to rehydrate them.  So much better than before I started and am a great believer in touching everything at least once a year.  

This is the area I am going to tackle today!   Lots of in progress projects.  
 

But, I do have a couple of tops finished, ready for quilting , starting next Sunday, last week of the month!  Lazy Goose is the sew a long with Running Doe, a Villa Rosa pattern and I chose some reds and browns with a Northcott Canadian print for the background.  I reduced the block size to 15" so top will be 60 x 75.  Ready for quilting. 

I am using Bonnie Hunter leader and ender from last year and now working on quilt #3 using 2.5" strips (she used 2").  So many scrappy strips in various locations, I can probably make these forever and not run out. 

These are the leftover houses from my Missouri Star table topper that was in the Advent box in 2024.  I have extra doors as well as the pattern so will offer them to someone who wants to make this... good deal with houses already made except for the background sky... I have no more of that fabric.   I have the top finished and ready, waiting for quilting. 

I have been slowly working on these economy blocks and they originated in AZ as my end of the season project every year.  Once the house was ready to for us to leave it for 6 months, and my sewing room was clean, tidy and organized, I would stitch up some of these and then add them to the ones from the previous year.  It is now a complete top and ready for quilting.  I find it interesting when I look at the picture, so many yellow fabrics!!  I wonder if being in the Valley of the Sun inspired me to use yellow so often, remembering that all these fabrics are leftovers from quilts I made? 

These next quilts are ones that I brought home from the group that does long arm quilting for our modern guild.  They work with donated fabrics and create quilts and I bring them home for the labels and binding.  I did NOT make these quilts.  
 

By the end of the first week of the month, I had these quilts finished, ready for donation.  I should have led off with these but forgot that my last blog posting didn't include them because they hadn't been bound yet. The first one, a log cabin was made by Cathy in my traditional guild and she donated the top to Quilts of Valour so it is now quilted, labeled and bound. These log cabins are made from really small strips of scrappy fabrics.  I am not patient enough to work with pieces that small but it looks great.  A big thank you to Cathy. 

A quilt from from vintage florals and I cut this Five and Dime quilt from my well aged fabrics sometime last year as a project to take to Saturday sew-ins.  I worked on it at the retreat in early November and it is now finished and ready to donate.  

Bonnie Hunter's leader and ender project #2 using 2.5" strips.  The instructions on her blog are excellent and each block needs 20" of one coloured fabric and same with background.  Yesterday, during my clean up of my cutting table, I cut more of the pieces needed and now have #3 ready to work on.  

We are having a very early spring.  Our weather is fabulous with some incredible sunsets at night.  A lovely break from days (months) of dark, dreary, rainy weather.  Daffodils are starting to poke through the ground and grass is growing.  This morning I saw that the iris are starting to poke through as well. 

Off to deal with the messy table full of baskets of projects as well as kits I have cut, ready to stitch.  I will also tell you that I went through so many pages printed off that were lists for organizing your UFO's, fabric, projects etc.  I dumped them all and typed out a list on the computer of projects patiently waiting.  So many quilters are writing blogs with lists you can download.  All of the paper printed on one side is now in my printer tray and I learned that from Elaine on Crazy Quilter on a Bike blog.  I didn't take a picture but my rolling cart beside my computer is now tidy and my recycling bin is fairly full as is my thrift shop and free table at guild full.  I am down to the basics which reminded me that I really need to tackle the filing cabinet upstairs.  Am sure we have paperwork for vehicles and appliances that we no longer own.  
 

Going forward into 2026

 Here we are, already 6 days into the New Year and I am behind... still? already? so soon? Since I create my own schedule, I am in control of my tasks, activities and leisure time.  A bit of a new glitch in my well organized days.. my husband is undergoing immunotherapy sessions, every 3 weeks at the local cancer clinic to help his body fight the skin cancer cells that seem to have a full invasion of his head, neck, arms, legs and the worst is his hands.  Every 3 weeks isn't too bad except the previous week he has to have blood work done and a meeting with the oncologist.  They are to be commended on how involved the nurses and doctors are in his overall wellbeing and health.   But, of course, I do the driving and make sure I am at all the appointments because having 4 ears for listening is better than 2. 

My normal routine adopted from Stephanie of our Heartstrings group, is first week of the month is all about binding, labels and cleaning up the sewing studio including putting fabric away from projects and binding, tidying up and everything in its place.  

The second week is for the monthly challenges I have decided to participate in.  This year I am keen to follow Connie Kresin from Free Motion by the River.  She is doing both a colour and block monthly challenge.  I will also attempt to get back into making string blocks using the Rainbow scrap challenge colour.  Lots of scraps to choose from and also need to think about some scrappy log cabins.  

Week three is for fun and starting something new and so many ideas, it is hard to pick one.  I like to cut a few kits during this time to have on hand for Zoom and/or in person sewing days/evenings. 

The fourth week is for quilting the tops I have created.   

During the last week of December, for some reason, I kept getting distracted with other activities including making a quilt for our newborn great granddaughter, Lily.  When I looked at the 3 quilt tops I had waiting on hangers and then at the huge pile of leftover batting, it was time to make some 'Frankenbats' which means joining the leftover pieces to a size large enough for the quilt tops.  That actually took far longer than I had planned on.

I need to add in time to make/work on all of the various projects that arrived in the Advent boxes I subscribed to in December.  Fun to open all the gifts but now there is a list of small projects to complete.  

The first part of December was decorating the house.  A slow process and I have tried to reduce the decorating but I have a lot of table toppers, runners and quilts to place around the home and many of the tree decorations are from the 70's plus ones made by the kids and grandchildren.   

 This wall hanging was made for me many years ago by Ree in Alaska, a member of the Quilter's funtalk group.  Fond memories of when we had swaps between the members.  Postage was a lot cheaper and we all seemed to have lots of time to have fun.  

I dug out the box of Christmas fabrics and was pleasantly surprised that I had some of it very well organized with ideas, patterns, and suggestions for placemats, mug rugs, coasters and pillowcases. 

I also found fabrics perfect for making some insulated bowls and cut out a few with my GO cutter and got them stitched up quickly.  

 One project that I began to work on was a panel of front doors from Missouri Star in the Advent box of 2024.  These are some of the trees that had to be made. I am close to having the table topper or wall hanging finished although there are lots of leftover houses and still more doors that could be used.  I will offer these up to friends on Facebook that might be interested.  

My next project that I started... just because I wanted to figure out the pattern, was a copy of Cathy's quilt that she donated to Quilts of Valour.  I really liked the scrappy block in the quilt so decided to figure out how to make it.  

I played around with 3.5"x 6.5" fabrics, adding a 2" strip along one side.  The centers are 3".  I have no idea what this pattern is called or if she even used a pattern to make this.  I will admit that I might have to use some different blacks (why are they all so different?) because cutting those strips used up a lot of my black. 

I have lots of blocks made and separated them by colour... sort of. 

I have made a few blocks.  This was originally just going to be a test of the block but I pulled out all my scraps of Canadian themed fabrics and started sewing.  

I am now laying out blocks to sit by the sewing machine and have them handy to work on.  

And, a baby was born.  Almost a Christmas baby. And a quilt got made.  This pattern is Waverly and was the December block stitch a long with Running Doe/villa Rosa.  Simple to make and I pulled out as many pink fabrics that I could find in my stash.   I did make the blocks smaller and fewer than the pattern called for as a baby doesn't need a huge quilt.  

Quilting of tops began a few days ago and one of these is a log cabin made by Cathy for Quilts of Valour and another leader and ender #2 using Bonnie Hunter's pattern.   Both are waiting for binding. 

I am working on these economy blocks very slowly.  They are very old and were in my house in Mesa and came home tome this summer.  I used to work on them at the end of the season, after getting house in order for leaving and I would do a bit of sewing on these when all else was done in the last week of being in the Valley of the sun.

This is the leftover pile of battings, ready to be joined into making larger pieces for the quilts I make.

Some of the Christmas mug rugs made after Christmas, before I organized and sorted the Christmas fabrics to put away for the next 11 months. 

One more quilt top waiting for binding.  I had cut this kit to make five and dime blocks from well aged florals (vintage?).  

The worst part of Christmas is the clean up, decorating away, and safely storing in such a way that when the end of November rolls around, it will be easy for me to remember how I decorated.  

A belated Merry Christmas to all my friends, hopefully your have some fun new tools to use or books to read and a very healthy Happy New Year.  I started off okay with acing my treadmill test at the cardiologist yesterday.  Playing tennis three times a week must be a health activity!