Trying to reduce my scraps

Yesterday was a stay at home sort of a day as we had showers predicted on and off all day. The temperature was still nice and warm, so much so that when I did venture out and needed to put my waterproof coat on during a shower I got very over heated. I have lots of work I need to sort for work but I'm on holiday so awarded myself a no work day. That sentence shouldn't even be able to appear when you're on holiday as everyday should be a no work day but in today's work place unfortunately it does. Anyway I awarded myself a no work day and promptly set up my sewing machine on the dining table. I decided to pull out my pre cut scraps boxes. Going back to 2016 I used to be very organised and cut my smaller scraps into usable pieces. I have boxes with 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 inch squares. I also have some strip boxes with several differing widths. These were the ones I emptied on the table  and took some time to really mix them up. I then began picking up two random strips and stitching them together. A trip to the kitchen and the ironing board and back to the machine to sew two of the new strips together. This was a fun but mindless sewing activity as I chain pieced them all. Then back to the ironing board with this muddle.

By the time I had pressed all the seams it looked a lot more interesting.

I repeated the process and now have a lot of colourful units. The strips were all the same length but not the same width so the four strip pieces are all different widths depending on what I sewed together. I'm planning on using them to produce a lap quilt similar to this baby quilt I made a while back. Obviously the baby quilt used a charm pack  and was planned whereas this will be a scrappy pattern which will be fun.

After that I need to do some household chore, so I spent some time vacuuming, sweeping and cleaning the floors. I looked on it as my exercise time since google tells me you burn 175 calories an hour vacuuming, 161 calories an hour sweeping and even ironing those seams was using up 157 calories an hour. Mopping floors uses a whopping 314 calories an hour but I only have the kitchen floor to mop but the special cleaner and finisher for the bamboo flooring we have everywhere else downstairs is a bit like a cloth broom so that will also use up calories.  Oh I forgot to mention I'm back to losing weight and getting fitter again but more about that another day.

Now most quilters have a stash of quilting fabrics and goodies and I am no exception but in addition I also have a stash of dressmaking fabrics. I really want to get my stash of all types of fabrics down to more manageable proportions and so in the afternoon I cut out the fabric to make a tunic top using this pattern.

I not making the collar part as I don't particularly like things close round my neck. I'm using this fabric which is a silky type of fabric. The downside of the fabric is that it slips and slithers everywhere when you're trying to work with it.

The colours aren't totally true to life but it's the best photo I could get. I had it all cut out quite quickly and made the bust darts and stitched and finished the side and shoulder seams before I called it a day. I love the rich colours on this fabric and it will look great with my black work trousers.

In the evening I did some very slow stitching on Earlene, certainly not enough to bother taking a photo to show you the progress. Hopefully I'll be stitching some more of her tonight. So that is what I made on my holiday Monday and since this doesn't happen very often I linking this post with Design Wall Monday and Monday Makings

The plan for today is to do a few hours for work and then get back to my sewing. I want to get the top finished but I also want to do some more scrap busting. I'm really enjoying being back sewing again and must put a lot more effort into including some sort of sewing into my daily routine. It really is so relaxing.

The sun is currently shining and there is no rain predicted for a couple of hours so before I do some work I must take Scamp out for his walk. 

Lyndsey