Spring Cleaning

Just as I am coming to terms with this snowless winter we are having, we get a few flakes Friday night that are stubbornly refusing to melt off my deck

Go figure.

True confessions.

My sewing room is a pit.

Not just a pit, but a pit of dispair. Fabric piled all around, on the floor in multiple spots, on my sewing table, on the cutting table, on the quilt machine, under the quilt machine.

Books are likewise scattered like paper in the wind.

Trash can overflowing.

It is so much a pit, I refuse to photograph it lest the quilt police come pounding on my door with a warrent.

Until now.

I got the spring cleaning bug and went to town. Now there's not a scrap of stray fabric out of place, my books are shelved, patterns put away, and things are mostly dust free!

So you ask, where's the "after" photo?

Not on your life.

I know it won't stay this way long (keeping it real!) and I don't want any evidence to remain that could show I can keep things neat and tidy. Don't want to be forced to keep it this way all the time, because sometimes a bit of a mess is what inspires us.

So in that vein, I was inspired by my stack of batiks that had been on the floor for, well, lets just say over a year(and that is being very conservative, but so much less embarassing than the truth!). As I was cleaning and tidying and picking things up I discovered the reason why those batiks were still on the floor... I didn't have room for them in my fabric closet!

Whats a girl to do??

Make a quilt of course!

Or two. Well, actually I had to cut out three quilts to fit the fabric in the closet. And in a weeks time, between working, working, checking out my friend's new hot tub (ahhhhh!!!), and working, I managed to put together two quilt tops and am ready to piece the third.

The fun part is that all three quilts will start out with the same 3" strips (thanks Barb for the idea!)...

...and end up being three totally different quilts! Right now I have a queen size and a full size ready to go on the quilt machine and that last stack of strips are just itching to be sewn together.
I'll post pictures once they are all quilted and off to their new owners (double bonus, I'm gifting all three to people who have been waiting patiently for one of my quilts!).

Well, the sun is out, the breeze is light, and I have new Ibex hiking pants I'm dying to try out. So what if it will be 65 degrees tomorrow and only 45 today? I'm off to hit the trails! Happy sewing or spring cleaning or doing nothing to you!