My long-arm quilting machine is still in pieces. We have decided on a location – the end of our master bedroom, which is way bigger than we need to sleep in. That has freed me up to use the 3rd floor in our new Memphis home as a sewing studio (without the long-arm). This level of our home is height challenged – it wouldn’t accommodate the long-arm without reconfiguring the light bar, a prospect that filled me with dread. Without the long-arm in this room, I could set up my 4 x 8 foot table, which is 100 percent cutting surface. Bliss.
It makes me sweetly happy to go to this floor to do yoga (no one, whether Hubby or AirBnB guests, can surprise me) and leave my yoga mat in the middle of the floor when I finish, or to sew. Yes, I am sewing!
For a few years I have enjoyed several “crochet-along” projects. I’ve completed several crocheted blankets in this fashion. Feeling a hankering to sew, but not motivated to go searching among my still packed away unfinished projects, I started searching to see if I could find any “quilt-along” projects. I found one that piqued my interest and it is daunting: one quilt block a day for 365 days. The blocks are small; they finish at 3 inches square. That appeals to me, too. I’ve wanted to tackle a miniature quilt; I’m not sure whether 3-inch blocks qualify as miniature, but they satisfy me right now. Kathryn Kerr created this project, and it is available here.
My first 15 blocks look like this.

These blocks are all supposed to read “dark.” I decided to use some complimentary color, while trying to keep the value dark, so that the intricate piecing would not be lost. I’ve actually only sewn twice so far. The blocks are pretty tiny and each one completes quickly, so it works fine to do several in one sitting. I am again thankful for my 3rd floor sewing studio, where I can leave the project on the table and quickly pick up where I left off the last time.
I’m using my stash for this project. Yes, that is the stash that I seriously considered leaving in Oregon as we struggled to fit all our belongings into the moving truck. Years ago I organized my fabric into 24 color families; it will be easy to pull from my fabric bins to create this scrappy quilt (I hope).
Will my long-arm ever see the light of day? Yes, for sure. But it will wait until someone other than me can help Hubby carry the heavy pieces from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor where it will live. I look forward to quilting on that long-arm for myself, rather than for customers, for now. Although, as 2017 proved, you never really know.