Decluttering at 10,000 Stitches Per Minute! Week in Review 1/17/25

Monday! New Fabric and Weekend Progress

Friends, I hope, like me, you are keeping the victims of the California fires in your thoughts and prayers. What monumental losses.  I’ll keep you posted on any quilt drives I hear about. Or if you know of one, leave a comment below.

What a fun weekend for me! So many parties in my mailbox. What’s a Mailbox Party? They are goodies that arrive by mail! Some I ordered, but some are “surprise parties” like the freebies I receive from Etsy shops. Don’t you love those? I gave away a Lori Holt Hometown Holiday 5″ square bundle on Friday. Free to me means free to you! Thanks for the giveaway from LouAnn’s Sewing Basket on Etsy. Speaking of giveaways, be sure to tune in to the live on Fridays where it’s always Giveaway Friday!

First thing in my mailbox, the fabric for the borders arrived for Lori Holt’s Prairie Home Sampler quilt and I’m doing mine in Sherri & Chelsi’s Laguna Sunrise. I think it will be beautiful! The fabric is from Fat Quarter Shop. So pretty! This keeps me excited! The dark taupe in the box will be the backing, then left to right is the binding, outer border, inner border, and 5 yards of background fabric. I can’t wait to start this! The official start date is March but I’m going to begin sooner. I hope you join me!

Also in my mailbox: Fabulous sewing-themed t-shirts from AllieMThreadworx. These are high-quality shirts and very comfy.  She has such a great variety, so use this link to get to her site. Allie, Thank you!

The Vintage Christmas along with the Fat Quarter Shop is also underway and I finished the Candles block. Click here to read about EACH OF My Quilt A-Longs.

We looked at my designs by DBJJ Valentine ITH Mini Quilt which challenged my needles (I recommend a 90/14 for that dense decorative stitch around the heart), but it came out great. So cute.

Keith was part of a Block of the Month (BOM) called Vortex from Legit Kits last year. He finished it this week and he is right to be proud of it!  Wow, it came out great. Be sure to catch the founder and owner Mike O’Dell showcasing Legit Kits on Shark Tank on Jan 24 on ABC!

My Brightly Sampler, Week 5, Mosaic Square is done!

I do a live session every Monday at 9 AM EST so we can do that square together, so check in live, or catch the replay. While this is a live, it’s not as chatty as The Stitchuation Room because this is a working session to put these blocks together.

And now Robin, to the Bat Cave!

Tuesday– The Bat Cave cleanout! There are no bats in my bat cave. Just BATting.  I wanted to do a little rearranging in that closet on a live, so you could hear how I think things through as I declutter. Often, I ask myself, ‘If this (insert object’s name) were to spontaneously combust would I run out and buy it again? If I need it again, can I replace it?’ There are some tough decisions as we go through our things, but our spaces are finite, and there’s only so much it can hold. Join me on the replay and get ready to be motivated!

Wednesday -Purge! One thing’s for sure, when we clean up, the mess can get worse before it gets better, but I stuck with the closet declutter and got the job done. I was rewarded as we often are by finding things I had misplaced but found things I simply had no use for. I hope these two days inspire someone to declutter a bit. The rewards are great. Sometimes the hardest thing is getting going. Start small. Have cookies nearby if needed.

Embroidery Thursday was a demonstration using Brother Design Center (IQ Design for you Baby Lock folks) from start to finish for embellishing quilt blocks with machine embroidery. In the image below, I created the holly berries in Design Center.

I avoid hand-stitching at all costs so I’ll always look for a way to do those pesky hand stitches that the designer wants you to do such as sewing on buttons or doing some lettering using my ‘power tool with thread’.

If you want to see beginning embroidery tutorials, I have LOADS of Beginner Embroidery videos on YouTube and my older videos are all pre-recorded so I get right to it without all the chit chat of the Stitchuation Room lives.

Look for the blog post of 2025 Quilt-A-Long where I post links to the patterns and the fabric and everything if you want to follow along. It’s January so you’ve got time!

Friday My byAnnie Computer Carrier 2.0 progress! I have been enjoying the computer bag project and I gave my 2 cents about tips to help quilters work through a byAnnie project. We looked at the many pieces and pockets. It’s almost ready for construction! I know what I’m doing this weekend. I love this Moda line called Land of Enchantment from Sariditty.

Many viewers write to ask when we are starting the ‘Quilts’ Wall Hanging. We’re starting this January 30^th! You still have some time if you want to do this right along with us. You can get the pattern or pattern & kit from Two Chicks Quilting. I’m going to use this project as an opportunity to show you how to Snapplique using letters from Brother Canvas or you can use the fonts in the ScanNCut.

We are SO close to having 80,000 followers! When we hit that magical number, I’m giving away a SewTites Rotary Cutting Mat and 6.5″ Magnetic Square Ruler – a $179 value courtesy of Lady M, a benefactor of my channel. Please subscribe to my You Tube channel because only subscribers are eligible to win. Plus, it helps build my site. I am so grateful for all of you!