Woke up to this on Sunday morning. Blech.
It didn’t help that I’m still under the weather with that cold. I’d planned on getting to church to sing with the choir but my throat was still a little uncomfortably sore and I had an alarming tendency to start coughing when I talked too much, so I figured singing probably wasn’t the best of ideas. And a little more rest and hot tea wouldn’t hurt.
So we had a slow morning at our house.
In the afternoon my energy level had picked up a bit so, although I went to my sewing room to work on my current project more, I ended up starting to organize and pack myself up for quilt retreat this coming weekend. Yep, you heard me right—I’m going on a quilt retreat! Woo! It feels like it’s been forever. I will have my current project, of course, but I like to have options, so I took a little time thinking through new projects I could do that are retreat-appropriate.
Knowing I wanted to use up some of my strip stash, I went to my strip drawer and...well...it was a stinkin’ mess. I hadn’t looked at it in a long time, other than piling more strips on top of it when I was cutting up scraps. It was in bad shape. I ended up spending about an hour, maybe more, pulling out all the strips, laying them all out again to see what I had, and re-stacking them in their color piles.
I also broke down about three or four Jelly rolls—I had a couple that were collections of batiks, and a couple that were solids, so those got divided up into the rest of my stash. Jelly rolls that are fabric lines stayed together for now.
For retreat, then, I found a table runner pattern that will be a nice seasonal one with one of a Christmas fabric jelly roll I’ve had for probably at least 8 years, plus I was able to pull all the accompanying fabrics from my stash. Bonus. I have another jelly roll pattern (throw quilt size) from another magazine that will use up the bulk of my batik strip stash, plus a black background fabric from my stash. I also have two fusible applique kits I’ve had for years that I’ve always thought would make good retreat projects, so those are coming with me in case I make a complete left turn in interest and energy while I’m there. But I think I’ll probably stick with the strip projects because it’ll feel so good to use up so much of that stash!
I did get one more block done in my current WIP, plus four blocks partially done, and a few more even less partially done. I was chain piecing in units and just ran out of steam before I could finish up any more full blocks—my brief energy spurt faded quite suddenly. Oh well, I thought: I’m going on retreat!