. . . During . . .

Halfway through tidying my sewing room, and here's all the fabric that needs sorting and putting away:

I've organized it by project, and to a certain extent, what its provenance is. I'll show you what I mean.

The plastic boxes have fabric bought, or culled from the stash, for specific projects. Here's the list so far: The big plastic box on the top of the stack has 30s-era and English multicolored florals, plus 8 yards of white tone-on-tone floral for a scrappy floral quilt on white. Below that are some very soft peachy toned fabrics for a low-contrast log cabin quilt I want to make. There's a jelly roll on the top that might be part of that effort as well.

Below that is a box with yellows and creams, plus the focus fabrics for a tote bag challenge issued by the local quilt guild (which isn't my quilt guild -- Ms. Genius here had to join a guild that's 80 miles away just as gas prices go through the roof!); I want to piece the background and then applique over that. It'll look great if I can pull it off.

The two stacks of fabric are an immediate project to the left (this fabric will be left out -- it's been prewashed and is ready for design stages and then cutting), and a future project to the right. The left stack are muted shades of coral and cream -- a toile, some florals, a stripe -- for a baby quilt I want to do, using a pattern in Color from the Heart by Gai Perry. The right stack are florals for a Blooming Nine-Patch quilt, from Blance Young's book, Traditions with a Twist.

On the left, some blue & white fabrics I got in Stowe, and on top a pink floral I got in Williston, VT. I think they'd go well together, don't you? To the right, a focus fabric I got in Williston as well, with some fabrics I got to go with it, and some fabrics I just pulled from my stash. A future project, to be sure, but at least I know what I want to do. Just need to design it, cut it, sew it, quilt it, and bind it. Next week, maybe (cough cough)...

A bad photo, color-wise, of some really lovely green fabrics I've pulled from my stash. I want to make AmandaJean's star quilt, which she's been doing as a sampler on her blog. I've got a link to the most recent block here. The pins are to help me remember which fabrics I thought could go together where a block needs both a light and a darker color.

Stash fabric. Some of it is recently purchased, some of it is going back into the stash after coming out for some project or other, and some of it is a recent addition by virtue of the auction at my guild.

Watercolor swap fabrics on the left, scraps from the guild auction on the right. The watercolor fabbies are going straight to the washing machine for this month's swap; the scraps are going into the closet. Someday I'll do a million-piece, no-two-fabrics-duplicated quilt. But not this year decade.

Of course, no sooner had I taken these photos and nearly finished putting everything away, but the mail arrives and . . . you guessed it! More fabric! Including the real indulgence of the month: an entire fat quarter set of April Cornell's Portugal. Yummy! (You can see it in the After photos, if you are very clever.)