End of My Sewing Slump?

I confess. Other than our 3rd Sunday Project Linus group meeting last month, I did no sewing or quilting for 7 weeks. This started around the time I brought home a huge stack of library books. But that is not the only cause.

7 weeks ago, I got out the purple and black striped knit that I've planned to make into winter pajamas for 3 years. I laid the fabric on the cutting table, got out the pattern pieces, and determined that I didn't have enough fabric. I've had this problem before and cut the sleeves on the crosswise grain (instead of lengthwise). Not this time.

I cut out the pajama bottoms, the biggest piece, since these are long pajamas. Then I tried to arrange the remaining fabric in the most efficient cutting arrangement, but there was no way to cut all the pieces of the top. Not even piecing the sleeves would solve the problem.

So it lay on the cutting table. And laid and laid. Two weeks ago while visiting my mom, I stopped by the FM Store to browse and noticed some purple knit. I got enough for my pajama sleeves and finally laundered it a couple of days ago.

Yesterday I cut out most of the pajama top. Today I cut the cuffs for the sleeves. Here's the stack of pieces all ready to start sewing/serging. The purple sleeves don't match the rest very well, but it's good enough for sleeping.

I want to get a couple of quilts ready to tie at our Project Linus group next Sunday. We had a large group tying blankets last month and they are expected back. This morning I cut 10 inch squares in half and started stitching half square triangle blocks.

I cut 2 sets of squares. One set is 8 white on white squares and 8 red with bears. The second set is 8 yellow tiny gingham check squares and 8 large bear print squares. I have 4 pairs of triangles left to sew together. The other 28 are trailing out the back of the sewing machine and down into a pile on the floor.

Below is the view from the machine I do most of my quilt piecing on. The arrow points at the TV screen downstairs. My TV is usually on and this works great for watching favorite old TV shows as I piece.