Summertime 2019 Projects Here I Come!

Who’s a crazy hermit/shop girl who’s just finished cutting 6,336 – 5″ squares?

Two hands way, way up!

Well, okay, so really Sophie Just helped with the showing off part, which is a fine job for her! The reality is that I have always loved to create kits and bundles, almost as much as I like to create with the kits and bundles them-

selves. I like to cut them by hand, stack them up, and send them off for people to create with. Two summers ago, I created a 60 piece bundle we called our Summer Sundress Bundle.

I loved it so much and made one of my favorite quilts with May Chappell’s Cross the Scraps Quilt pattern (a very quick summertime sew, if I do say so myself!)

Then last summer, I put together an even more scrappy 72 piece bundle, which involved 6 colorways.

I made several different cuts of fabric for the shop, including Sweet Sixteenths Stacks ( there are actually a few of those left in the shop here , although the 5″ stacks above went pretty quickly!). I also made a Jelly Roll Rug with some Fiddle Strips (2.5″ rolls) I cut as well.

And also a cheery little sampler quilt with a Sweet Sixteenths Stack (that’s our Woodsy version of a fat 16th).

This year’s Summertime Bundle in the shop will be in the form of 5″ Happy Scrappy Stacks, of which (as you may have noted above), are now all cut but not yet collated into their respective little stacks! That will happen this week, and I promise to share at our Shop Instagram Page when they’re up and listed in the shop.

In the meantime, even though I haven’t gotten the stacks collated as yet, I can still start on one of two projects I’ll be creating with this cheery little summertime palette. For starters, I’ll be joining Emily Dennis of Quilty Love for her Scrappy Stars Sew Along project.

I’ve followed Emily for some time, in part because she’s currently a fellow Michigander (but I think I read recently that Minnesota is gaining a new crafty resident and family, but don’t quote me on that…), but also because she’s got some pretty fresh, clever quilt designs I’ve been dying to try!

Anyway – I’m excited to finally take time to check out one of her patterns, and the fact that her Quilty Stars pattern is Charm Pack Friendly means it’s right up my alley for using a Summertime Scrappy Stack or two..

Aside from that project, I’ll also be starting a bit of a just-for-me present to myself. I recently discovered the most heavenly vintage-inspired triangle quilt project in the August 2019 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting magazine.

The above is a collage of 2 pics from my digital version of the issue (my favorite way to keep up on what’s new without filling up my shelves with issues I’ll never be able to ever part with once I collect them!), and the first three stacks of my gift to myself. Below are the rest.

If I’m being completely honest, I think I’m most excited to share (and to use!) my newly revamped, formerly quite boring, shipping station.

As you can see by the computer screen to the right and the label printer beside it (beneath Sophie’s…ahem…seat), this is the spot where we do all of our order processing. There are some shelves beneath where packaging stuff is housed, but for the most part, the top was always mostly unused except for the keyboard and mouse, because the wrapping/packaging part actually takes place off to the right (out of view).

So I decided that since my sewing studio is a whole separate space from our shop, it might be nice to incorporate a little summer stand-up sewing station for piecing and pressing and cutting blocks. It also gives me a great chance to spend time with Jane, my little Singer Featherweight friend, and to be able to whip up a block while I work throughout my day, so my summer doesn’t get away from me without my nurturing my creativity.

Anyway – I’ll be sharing more once the scrappy stacks are finished and I’ve made some progress on the aforementioned projects, but in case you wondered why I didn’t just wait to share this post until I had all my scrappy stacks collated and maybe a bit of a start on my triangle quilt, I have only to ask one question –

Have you met me?

I tend to be the idealist that keeps deciding to wait until I have one more thing finished so I can really share properly, which then leads to endlessly waiting just a little bit longer for something else I also ‘ought to include,’ and pretty soon, months go by and I haven’t written nor shared anything!

The thing is, I mean to write more often…I’d love to write more often…and you see – if I’ve got something more to share in a natural-progression-sort-of-way…I will write more often. At least that’s the story I’m sticking to right now.

Until next time, I hope you’re finding time for getting outside to feel the warm, summer sun, a fresh breeze, and are making progress on at least one creative something or other. Above all else, promise to take some time to nurture your creativity.