Rachael and crew are at Quilt Market!

I’m doing a deep dive into binding charity quilts here in Poland and Ken, Rachael and Sarah and Steven are at Quilt Market in Houston, TX.

I’d rather be feeling completely well - something I am not yet. I’m gradually getting better from almost two weeks ago now, when I was quite sick, but it’s taking a while.

I’m trying to bind 10 quilts a day so that I can finish up all of them by the time my husband gets back from Central Asia in about a week.

A long time ago I read the book —actually I think I listened to it as an audiobook—but it’s called Deep Work. It was a reflection on keeping away from distractions while trying to get a lot of work done. He mentioned being able to get work done, but you can do a certain amount a surface level, but when you can have distraction free time, you can get so much more done! It is so true that if you can keep distractions down and starting/stopping down, you can get more done.

I sit and look at the other projects I want to work on, and it does make me want to work even harder. Seriously. I’m so not feeling these charity quilts this year. It’s probably why I kept putting doing them off until I just couldn’t wait any longer.

But I am being asked by social workers about them (last night again!) - and I’m getting closer to being done now - so the vast majority of it is done..and that is exciting!

I’m working now on binding them as I mentioned before. I will try to get a lot of them washed tomorrow as we have cheaper time on the weekends and at night. I found a 39 minute cycle on my front loading washing machine, so that’s a big improvement over the typical 2 hour cycle on these machines.

I am throwing all the quilts into a pile from which I will pull to wash. I am at least 40 quilts behind in washing - and even here, the drying is where I get very very behind as I let them air dry.

While I already knew most of what was in the book (Deep Work) - it was another reminder to try to keep things away from my mind/body while I try to get these finished.

So far my wrist is doing fine which is my worry as when I worked hard on quilting on my domestic (in years past) - and then bound 120 quilts, I began to feel my left wrist. I’m okay still on that matter and for that I am grateful. The long arm completely takes that issue out of the equation for the quilting part. I actually forgot about my problems in other years (and that is super cool)!

Because my husband has been away for the last week, I have truly been able to just dive right into the project. For some it might be very lonely, but because I’ve been wanting to get this all finished…yesterday ;) I’ve just been working my Janome like nobody’s business and trying to not think about being alone. It has provided me the ability to focus completely! I’ve been watching a lot of things on You Tube - so much so that I’ve had to look for some new topics to explore!

I am using my scraps and I used up pretty much all those strips that were in this bag. This means I am now forced to make all my binding strips from unpressed pieces (takes longer). But that’s fine. I had wanted to use these up!

The bag is now empty.

I divvied up the tops into groups so I could use browns/ish strips on all the brown quilts, etc.

When my pile was this big, I actually pulled out all those browns and did them first.

The ones I have left to put bindings on are 4 of the blues, the blue/reds/yellows (7, I think) and then that farm panel that I have - I believe I have 7 of those very cute quilts. The colors on those bindings will be the brights - oranges, greens, blues, greens, yellow, black, etc.

So, when I get all the bindings at least sewn on the one side, I am going to be ecstatic. Truly the end will be in sight by then!

I have this huge stack of quilts thrown here that are waiting to be washed.

I also have a HUGE pile of quilts in my sewing room that have the binding sewn on on one side and have to be flipped over and top stitched to the front. Plus there are four blue ones that the binding needs to be pressed and sewn on the one side. This is getting where I am feeling it…seriously…big time. I am starting to see the end of the binding. The washing/photo taking is the next step, but that doesn’t take more than 30 min. per group of 10 (photography).

This pile is high and the ones in the back have their bindings sewn on one side and need them to be flipped over and top stitched on.  I have the three blue/red, blue/white/ blue/lt. blue that need to be bound, but the binding is made - just have to press it. There is another blue/green one that isn’t in the picture but the binding is made - just needs to be pressed and then sewn on.

Here are some pictures of previous charity quilt recipients from other years.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.

Becky Petersen2 Comments