cutting trumps sewing

I am in the same pickle as last swap time: cutting under a pressure deadline. I promised myself I would NOT do this to myself again...however...it is always such a surprise when I allow a deadline to be a month longer away than it is in reality!

Clearly I need to put these swaps in my daily calendar! So I switched from sewing , and started cutting seriously last night.

As I am currently on my own in the house, the kitchen table is cutting station number one and a portion of a kitchen counter is cutting station number two. The narrow cutting board is now the stacking station using half the stove top/counter space. I am not planning on sharing photos of this arrangement- I am sure you can mentally "see" how I have taken over other spaces to give myself enough elbow room.

I am 2/5's through cutting as of last night. I need 780 more 1.5 inch cut squares and then consider whether I should cut extras.

Yes, I am cutting 1.5 inch squares for a postage stamp swap we do on a quarterly basis. No, I have not done anything beyond collect these lovely little stacks that I receive and have added to as I cut for the swaps.
I have been seriously considering hand stitching them together. only briefly however. but recurringly. it could happen. maybe...

I had cut three stacks from the strip twist quilt project-my starter set. I pulled leftover fabrics from the small green pail next , once those fabrics were exhausted I moved on to the bag of scraps next to it. This is stash busting on a small scale when you are cutting a couple of 1.5 inch strips from leftover pieces of fabric. I have a few more scrap containers in the house before I would need to go hit the scrap bins out in the garage.

They will end up being 50 fabric squares in 25 stacks. plus a stack for myself. They have to be mailed off this Friday.

No problem. No meetings and visiting Alice tonight to cut into, well, cutting fabric time.

Yes, last night I had a meeting two blocks from Alice and handed over 3 binders of guild job notes (3 years worth) woohoo! More paperwork finished and out of here.

Naturally I had to swing by and say hello to Alice and her parents. We set Saturday as my day to have her while they do other grown up things. She won't spend the night, but, we will have tons of fun until her mommy comes and takes her back home. I find being a grandma to be every bit as fun as I always imagined it would be- in fact, way more.

Alice is my gardening helper and we should have no interruptions Saturday to having fun in the dirt- unless it rains too hard. You never know at this time of year...FALL seems to be wanting to come right now...and I really wish it would hold off...another month please.

Anyway...I do have 6 completed blocks up on the design wall and will share once I have a few more up - plus I noticed I seemed to have not cut enough strip sets despite cutting "extra" I thought. So, I will have to do additional cutting and sewing to have enough blocks for the quilt size I want.

It's nice to be back in the quilty groove again and the blogging groove as well. I have slowly been working my way around the Liberated Quilters and catching up a bit.

So much fun stuff to look at and read!!!

The clock is ticking away and it's time to get off the computer and ready to head out the door to the day job.
What a joyful day I plan on having- hope you do the same!