Hi Everyone! I’m back from a much needed blogging break, and feeling energized. Thank you to everyone who reached out and to all of you for being patient while I stepped back for a few weeks. Life got a bit overwhelming and extremely busy and I had to let something go for just a minute while I played catch up.

Even though I haven’t been blogging, I have been busy behind the scenes. I’ve been quilting for customers, doing a bit of piecing on my own projects, and hubby and I just finished a mini makeover of my sewing room. Busy, busy!

So first, let’s talk about customer quilts. I won’t share pictures of all that I’ve completed because, to be honest, I don’t have pictures of all of them. I know, bad blogger person, but I just didn’t grab any shots of them. I was so focused on catching up that I just quilted, unloaded, trimmed/squared, loaded up the next one and moved on.

But I did snap several shots of the quilt above. It was a custom job for a customer who wanted the quilting in each block to be different. It was a fun one to work on! I just love the colors Laura used together to create this fun quilt. There’s lots of dots, and the yellow, black, and white just looks so fresh when combined in all the different blocks.

This little apron block is adorable. Don’t you just love that little lacy bit she added for the pocket? It is only attached on the top edge, giving the block some 3D fun. There are several blocks with 3D pieces added, but I think this one is my favorite. I kept the quilting simple in the block, using diagonal straight lines.

Then there is this simple orange peel block. The quilting makes it look like the pieces are all fluttery and ready to fly off the background. I’m going to have to remember that simple echo quilting can add a lot of personality to a block or quilt.

The center of the quilt is a large basket with lots of empty space to play in. I had fun stitching all the paisley’s around the applique flowers. If you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen this pic. It’s one of the few I have posted over the last few weeks. I love the way it quilted up!

This quilt was on my frame for almost two weeks. Not because it was that difficult to stitch but because I caught a dose of the nasty cough/cold/crud that hit the area and put me out of commission for several days. Even though I wasn’t working on it, it sure was fun to walk by my machine and see this happy quilt waiting on me. It brightened my day and made me forget I felt so crappy. Exactly what a quilt should do!

One of the other quilts I remembered to take a picture of is this lovely strip quilt by Rita. I stitched an easy edge-to-edge design called Knit 1 Purl 2, and I think the texture is fantastic. What do you think?

Here’s a view of the back:

This quilt was a fast finish. If you want the design for yourself you can pick it up from Urban Elementz. You can get it as a paper pantograph or digital panto. (No affiliation, just sharing information)

In other news, hubby and I have been busy doing some reorganization of my sewing room. I’m going to take a deep breath and share a couple before pics with you. Brace yourself, it’s not good..

And another one….

See? I told you it was bad! How can anyone be creative in the middle of this mess? I needed to make this space functional, get rid of some clutter, and do some organization. And it had to happen pronto because I couldn’t live with this for one more day!

So I jumped in and started dragging stuff out. First we took a bunch of stuff to the Salvation Army. Items like an ironing board, furniture, decorative items, and craft supplies. Then I sorted my fabrics and let go of pieces I am either no longer in love with or know I will never have time to use. All that fabric will go to my sister, who loves to make scrap quilts and will be excited to replenish her stash. Lastly, some items had to be trashed/recycled. It was amazing how much better the room looked and felt after moving so much stuff out of it.

One of the furniture pieces I moved out was the old china cabinet I used for my fabric. I liked seeing all the colorful fabric when it was stacked in organized piles, but hated seeing it when it was a cluttered mess. I was also worried about the fabrics fading from being exposed to the light. So the cabinet found another home, and hubby hung a couple of wall cabinets for me.

Now my fabrics have a home that protects them from damaging sunlight, and unless someone has x-ray vision no one can see behind the closed doors!

I added a large cutting table with lots of storage, and a sewing table for my sewing machine. Both pieces take up less space than the pieces they replaced, and have much more storage. I will share pictures of those and the room in a couple days. I’m so excited about my new organized space – I think the room deserves a post of its own.

So that’s what has been happening in my world. I would love to hear about what’s going on in yours. You can link up any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic – here’s how: