Progress Report: Sewing, Organizing, etc.

I miss my design wall.  I like those cheap plastic table cloths with the flannel backs and used the last one (plastic side up) for a grubby household project then threw it out.  I keep forgetting to buy a new one.  I've been reduced to pinning my work on the living room curtains.  Here's a pic of the 130 scrappy 9-patches, ten rows of thirteen blocks sashed and waiting for the row sashing to connect them all into a quilt top. 

As I sashed and connected, I ran some of those 1.5" x 6" strips through my machine as a leader n' ender, trimmed each one at 5" x 18" and made up thirteen strip lengths as I sashed the 9-patches.  This seemed like a reasonable length to start with, one which I can increase by combining later.  I can see why string piecers use paper or muslin as a backing or foundation.  These little pieces stretch and get wonky easily.

I'm still re-organizing, sorting through the last of the bags and boxes, and sitting down with a stack of magazines, books and patterns at the end of every day.  I'm being ruthless and brutal in eliminating the paper print-outs and some magazines.  I find that I bought some magazines, not because of the patterns shown, but because I liked the colour choices of the quilts in the pictures.

I'm also dutifully trimming HSTs from that box of over a thousand. I can get twenty trimmed in the time it takes my coffee machine to drip a fresh pot of coffee. Even if all I trim is twenty a day, it will take no more than two months to go through the whole box. From where I'm standing, that's a much more attractive option than spending hours at the cutting mat, ending up with sore feet and an aching shoulder.