A New Work In Progress System

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter with lots of fun times with friends and family, choccy, hot cross buns and much thankfulness.

I have done some stitching, a lot of machine sewing for me (not so much a machine sewer) and better still some organising.

On Thursday night I finished my bunny pincushion from the gorgeous free project by Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolly. It was just about to get it's backing to become the pincushion ready for stuffing when I suddenly decided mine is a wall hanging. I love the end result. I don't use pastels very often but with the subtle variegated threads it looks lovely in these colours.

Check out Bronwyn's blog if you haven't already. She has been very generous this Easter with the bunny cushion, two lots of egg cups cosy designs (oh I so want some of those egg cups with legs!) and also Laverne the chicken. Laverne is on my to do list, she is such a sweetie & easily made.

I have sandwiched my tablerunner & since the pic below have quilted it, added the stitcheries and am half way through the binding. Nearly finished - yippee! I'll have a photo later this week of the finished table runner - the stitcheries look gorgeous.

Now, my organisation break through. I am lucky enough to have a cutting table set up in my laundry. Not having to bend to cut is such a great thing. I gave the area a spruce up and added an area for my works in progress.

In an earlier post I have mentioned that I have so many different projects on the go that I have started keeping track of them, deadlines and post dates for swaps, on a spreadsheet. Now I also have a pretty box system that keeps all the bits & pieces together and reminds me not to start too many others before I finish some already in progress (I'm an optimist!). The boxes are from Thingz who had them all being sold at $2.00 per box. $20.00 later & I am loving my WIP system.

Those are the boxes up on my shelf. All my rulers are sitting together in the stand. The box in the corner holds a few supplies like scissors, spray, glue, roller cutter blades & Applikay Wonder. The cream & red box holds projects I'm planning on starting but haven't gathered supplies together yet. The red tin is for rubbish. The tin lid is for small off cuts to go to my bits & pieces stash bag for a future project.

Here's a closeup of my WIP system now the boxes are labeled. I'm not a scrapbooker or card maker so just printed everything on an A4 pages & cut them out with fancy scissors (the first time I have used them) then attached them with double sided tape. Easy to change as I finish projects!

It's a big step forward from having bits of projects everywhere. The magazines are sitting under the boxes & the labels state what book or magazine or blog the patterns are from. My little pink cat was a present from my girlfriend Lyn, doesn't he look very at home as the Keeper of the WIPs!

Cheeky Hun-bun decided it is his turn to sit in mums place on the couch under the Daylight lamp......

Thanks so much to all those who voted for my loo roll cover design in the Dress Up Your Roll Challenge. Due to all of your votes, I was awarded the Viewers Choice prize, an Aurifil thread pack. Can't wait to try them out. It was overwhelming all the lovely comments I got. They all meant so much to me but I was speechless when one of my favourite designers, Val Laird, sent me an email & said she had voted for me & thought my design was the best. Well, you know I think the same Val and two of those WIP boxes pictured above have your designs in them. xx

It ended up being a great competition for Tracee's with the Australian winner being Tracee from Farm Gate Creations. Her Weary Travellers Emergency Bag was a great idea (every caravan needs one!) and her design & sewing a notch above the rest of us. A well deserved win!

Now what unique challenge can Jane from Want it, Need it, Quilt think up next???? Thanks Jane.

Happy stitching

Tracee xx