Ten Tips Tuesday {Moving My Sewing Space}

As of Saturday, we are officially living in our new place! Hooray! We have unpacked a good portion of the boxes, are sleeping in our actual bed, and the bunnies are set up in their new space! But since I haven't even seen my sewing machine in over a week (I do know where it is and how I plan to set it up) I thought I would share today about packing and moving my sewing space as a part of Tips and Tutorials Tuesday.

1. Know your moving timeline.

Unless you are a professional quilter, more than likely, your sewing space is not an essential part of living (I mean it IS, but it isn't) so a sewing space is a good option to pack up and move early. I packed up my sewing space and it was one of the first things we moved. (We also needed the space as our "staging area.")

2. Prioritize what needs done before you move.

Bees, swaps, baby quilts, commissions -- anything with a deadline. I finished up my two traveling quilts and mailed them early but decided to put off my February bee blocks until after the move. (And don't forget to update your address with any bees and swap groups!)

3. Suitcases are your friends.

I packed all of my yardage into one of my largest suitcases because fabric in a box can get heavy quickly. Suitcases with wheels are your friends. I wasn't able to fit everything into suitcases but I put my lighter supplies into boxes.

4. The amount of "stuff" will surprise you.

I am very guilty of harassing my husband about his book collection, but packing and moving my fabric stash, notions, and quilts has humbled me a little bit. Even if you are the most organized person in the world (which I am not) you will still be surprised with how much stuff you might have.

5. Destash and declutter.

I have put up quilts for sale as well as offering giveaways for things that I just didn't love anymore. I also went through all of my quilt magazines and ripped out patterns I wanted to keep and threw away a bunch of old issues. Be critical of what you have and what you think you will use (or never use!).

6. Think about your ideal sewing space.

What is working in your current space? What is NOT working in your current space? For me, my wire rack shelving works great, but my plastic table isn't the perfect height and having a storage bin under my table makes things crowded. I plan to move the bin into a different location and save to purchase a sewing cabinet.

7. Project boxes/bins/bags.

I made sure everything for each in-progress project was all in one location -- box or bin or bag -- so that no part was lost or misplaced or accidentally used for something else.

8. Keep your rulers handy.

A long ruler or flexible measuring tape works in a pinch for measuring walls and aligning pictures if you don't have a metal measuring tape handy. Be sure to pack them so that they don't get snapped (this happened to me once, it was heartbreaking!) but make sure they are accessible!

9. Prioritize unpacking.

For me, getting my wire rack rebuilt and everything that I store on it back together eliminated two medium packing boxes, a large suitcase, and a bunch of smaller boxes. Packed up, it took up more space than when everything was put away. We ended up having to re-use the packing boxes for other things!

10. Reassess WIPs.

If there were WIPs that you somehow forgot about, you might potentially stumble upon them in the moving process! I had done a pretty thorough inventory of all of my works in progress, but I still found more orphaned blocks than I thought I had.

Do you have any additional tips or ideas? Check out everyone's tips and tutorials at Quilting Jetgirl/Late Night Quilter!

Top Spin {a la Leaders and Enders} + Ten Tips Tuesday

Do you ever see a new quilt pattern and think for a second and then immediately decide that you have to make it? It happens to me once in a while and it happened over the summer with Melissa Corry's Top Spin pattern on Moda Bake Shop.

I decided to convert this into a leaders and enders project. For those of you unfamiliar with leaders and enders, Bonnie Hunter has written multiple books based around leaders and enders projects, and has a good explanation of the process on her blog.

To start off, I pulled a three yard cut of a floral hydrangea and leaf print that has been languishing in my stash as my inspiration/backing fabric. I pulled out all of my green, pink, and purple scraps from my color-sorted scrap boxes and cut as many squares in the various sizes as I could. This pattern calls for 6", 5", and 4" colored squares.

Here's what I was able to cut from one pass through my scrap boxes as well as my inspiration fabric:

While what I've started off with won't get me anywhere close to a full quilt, it's at least a starting point for this quilt. For now my plan is to start sewing all of the half square triangle units with what I have cut, start assembling blocks with the units I have, and then keep repeating the process until I get the size quilt that I want. I'm planning to make a baby sized or throw quilt rather than a bed sized quilt.

Here's the large and medium sized HSTs that I have sewn and trimmed so far:

Here are some of my tips thus far on the leaders and enders (L&E) process and "controlled scrappy" quilts:

• Your choice of L&E project really makes an impact on how easy it is to work L&E into your normal sewing. For me, I'm just making HSTs, and having my squares pre-paired next to my sewing machine has made it much faster and easier. 
• I'm still finding myself falling into the habit of cutting my threads as normal sometimes, but any little bit of thread saving does help. It's becoming more and more natural.
• I'm actually not sewing both sides of my HSTs at once -- I do one side at a time so I am not going through units quite as fast.
• For a scrappy quilt, it has become obvious what colors I need to add in each size. I have a ton of purple in all three sizes, a fair amount of pink in each size, and a lot of green in the smallest size, while having none/hardly any in the large and medium sizes. I will likely comb through my larger scraps and cut a lot more green and some additional pink squares.
• This is most certainly what I would call a "controlled scrappy" quilt in that it has a specific color scheme and there were pinks, purples, and greens that I chose not to use in this quilt. I haven't decided yet if I will cut into my inspiration fabric or not -- I have three yards of it, but that could cover nearly all of the back and the binding for a small quilt.
• While cutting all of my squares, I pulled out one color at a time from my scrap boxes and then sorted out any pieces that were too small or the wrong color. With what was left, I ironed each piece and laid it out on my cutting board to get an idea of the size and tried to maximize how many squares I could cut. Typically, this involved cutting 6 inch squares, then 5 inch squares, then finally 4 inch squares. 
• Sometimes I could cut just 4 inch squares from a piece, some pieces I cut multiple 6 inch squares. I didn't try to cut an equal number of squares in each size, I just tried to maximize how many squares total I was cutting and minimizing waste.
• I find it is almost always helpful to cut a fresh edge when pulling things from your scrap bin. Even if it is a 1/16th of an inch, a nice fresh edge is always easier to align with your ruler.
• Recently, I started a "scrap bag" where I put all of my small scraps -- including things under 2 inches wide, the last small piece of a particular fabric, etc. Having this separate from my scrap bins has made it quick and easy for anything that calls for strings or small scraps. (It is literally a gallon sized kitchen bag, totally not glamorous!)
• I usually sew with cone thread but I usually have a "bobbin cone" so I don't have to unthread and rethread my needle and machine. I do my best to fill a few bobbins at a time so I don't need to stop mid-project. When sewing scrappy, I often use off-white thread.

Have you worked with leaders and enders before? Do you have any tips for me? 

Sharing at Tips and Tutorials Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and Scraptastic Tuesday!