2019 H2H Charity Quilts Challenge

It time again for Confessions of a Fabric Addict to do the Hands to Help Comfort Quilts Challenge.  Every year more and more people sign up for it and this year there are over 200 participants.  This is my third year.

This is our first check-in for this year and I've been busy!  My goal this year is to really reduce my flannel scraps.  I made an effort last year but didn't even make a dent in it.  This year I'm determined!  So far I've reduced the scraps from four large containers down to two and I'm not done yet.  I've made quite a few baby quilts for Jack's Baskets and I'm now working on lap sizes.

Here are eight baby quilts I have done so far.  My husband does the quilting on the longarm and has a few more to do in between the customer quilts.  It was a windy day but I think the pictures came out okay.

This quilt was a kit I found in my stash.  Not sure if this was the pattern or not since there was no directions in the bag just the cut strips.  I think it was from the 1990's -- glad to get rid of this one!

This feather star quilt I made for my mother-in-law in the 90's.  I'm really not in love with it so decided to donate to someone who will love it.

These were blocks left over from a project one of my customers made.  She didn't want the leftovers so after looking at them for a couple years I've finally made something with them.  YEAH!!!!!

The fabric in the middle has been in my stash for a long time.  It's really pretty and I just couldn't cut it up.  This was the best I could come up with.  The picture doesn't show the true colors which are very dark and rich looking.

And just because it is so beautiful here is a picture of my azalea bushes blooming.  Spring is here in the north Georgia mountains.

That's it for now.  More quilts to make and bindings to do.

H2H Charity Quilts

Wow!  I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote a post.  I've been busy with company (more on that in another post) and sewing.  Customer quilts for longarm quilting continue to come in so that is keeping us busy too.

This is the second year I've participated in the H2H charity quilt drive.  This year I was determined to make a dent in my flannel scraps and use up some tone-on-tone white/ivory fabric that I seem to have an abundance of.  Even though I didn't make much of a dent in the flannel I do have a plan to continue making charity quilts with it.  I was able to use up some large chunks for backings but I still have a lot of large pieces left that were donated to me.  But I was quite happy that I used up three large pieces of tone-on-tone even though there is still a lot to use.  I also used up a couple Debbie Mumm yardage pieces and some panels.  Those fabrics must be from the 90's so it's time to use them up.  So I have a total of 23 quilts to donate to Quilty Hugs (chemo) and Little Lambs (foster kids) this year.  I haven't decided which quilts will go where yet but they should get at least 10 each.

So here are the pictures:

Enjoy!

Our Longarm Room

Finally, all the bolts of fabric are unpacked, shelves are made, cutting table done and a space for a little sewing area.  I don't have straight walls so no place to hang quilts but eventually when the stairway area is done I can hang small quilts on the stairway walls.  Here are the before pictures:

Here are the after pictures:

It's very cozy.  Someday we want to put a real floor down but the painted floor works for now.  Now if we can just find time to work on the stairs we will be truly done.

Even though my main sewing space is in the house I spend a good part of the day out in the longarm room with Barry.  I still set up all the quilts and do all the trimming, as well as packing the quilts for mailing.  We've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to sew any of my own projects. When unpacking bins I found a bin full of quilt tops of mine that never got quilted.  I suspect I wanted to do custom quilting on them but never got time and still don't have time or interest in custom quilting.  Barry is just doing allover designs so I can say they are done.  Most of these are so old that I no longer have the fabrics that match for bindings so most of them will just get a solid color.  I'll post pictures of the finished quilts as I get bindings done.

That's it for this post.  Keep sewing!

Garage

What a mess the garage was.  Here are some before cleaning/moving to sewing room pictures:

Here is how it looks now.  Yea, we can finally park in the garage.

Still need to get shelves for the garage so it's easier to get to stuff but for now it's fine. I still have a ton of bins to go through.  I can't believe how much stuff I had in storage.  I have found duplicate quilt books that I forgot I had in storage and ordered again. Must be I really wanted the books.  I also can't believe all the quilt kits I have.  Boy has my taste changed in the last three years since I have a lot of kits I don't like any more.  I like the fabrics just not the quilts.  I will  probably cut the fabrics up for my scrappy quilts.

That's it for this post.  Keep on sewing!

Promoting my daughter

This isn't a quilty post but I have to share about my very talented daughter, Beth Purdy.  She just self-published a children's book called Finders Keepers.  Its a short rhyming story about conflict resolution, different personalities, and an uncommon friendship.  How can a hard working bumblebee and a lazy crow work together to solve a shared problem?

If you are interested here is the link to order it: http://www.blurb.com/books/8071703-finders-keepers

I'm working on getting pictures of my before and after move into the new space.  Keep checking for updates.

Keep sewing!

Finally Getting Moved In

Yahoo!!! We thought the day would never get here but it did.  This is what got done this month.  The drywall is done, the walls and floors are painted and the lights are hung.  The trim is being finished.

The longarm got moved in through the window opening using this lift.

We built our new cutting table/thread storage unit using IKEA Kallex units.

The bottom is a piece of mdf that we already had and we put wheels on the bottom.

  The top is a piece of melamine with shoe molding along the edge.

 Room for our batting in the back part.

Each drawer holds a different color family of thread.  I'm loving how much easier it is to find a color than before.

Well this is it for my first blog post.  Check back again for more pictures of the move.  I'll be posting pictures of our house too.  I'll even share pictures of what I'm working on -- that is if my new sewing table from Koala ever gets here so I can really get to sewing!