Orca Bay Mystery Clue #7 progress

I am loving the look of these Sunset/Sunset colored Flying Geese units. But I am not loving all the bulk of the seams. I have not pressed them yet. I may have to "whack" 'em with a piece of wood to get them flatter. I am honestly not sure if I am going to continue making these units. As you can see, I have not cut all the string blocks in half yet. I may end up doing my own thing with these units.

Update: I missed a step...did not use the Companion Angle ruler to trim the string blocks. Once I did that the units are much more to my liking and I am plugging away now a much happier quilter!

 But then again...I may just plow on ahead...bulky seams be dammed.

 I made many more "Birds in the Air" units than Our Bonnie originally told us to make. I am glad I did since she asked us to make 4 more units this morning. I am so there already.
Are you ready for the next photo?
Hold on to your hat....

I am an OCD gal. I have a large mason jar with nearly every "dogear" I have ever trimmed off a unit in my entire quilting life. This small container is stuffed full of the dogears from this project only.
I know.
I am odd.
My guild members laugh at me and tell me to get a life. But I love the look of that mason jar with the colored bands that are a history of my quilt life. I did meet another quilter in blogland who has "SEVERAL" jars full of her own dogear trimmings. I am not alone in this obsession.

 I spent the rainy morning in the cutting room. I have a drawer of 3 1/2" strips precut. One side of the drawer is colors and the the other is neutrals All I had to do was pull all the neutrals out and give them a nice press with my Reliable Digital Velocity iron.
( I love this iron. It is heavy but does the job so nicely )

 And since I wanted to be efficient, I cut into all the strips in that drawer. I have many more than I need for this mystery. (both quilts of course)
But I figured that I might as well cut extra and I am sure I will use them somewhere.
They do not fit in the pencil case. In fact this picture was taken only halfway through the cutting process. I have twice as many done now. I may skip the first part of clue#7 and work on the other section instead. That will take the pile down a bit. HA!

Just a picture I failed to post while making the Quarter Square units. I saw on the Yahoo group that a quilter had squared up her units by only trimming on two sides. Not centering the ruler and trimming on all four sides. Been there...done that. I feel for her. Even with the EZ rulers there were a few that were oversized here in Subeesew's world. I did trim all four sides by centering the ruler. That must have been caused by the strip width. Some were a thread or two over the cutting line. I figure that bigger is better sometimes. It is so much easier to trim units to size.
Some of my strips that I received in the last red and black/white swap were cut too small. They were not a true 2 1/2" cut strip. That is just the difference between quilter's rulers and cutting methods. I think their rulers must have slipped while they were cutting. I spread my fingers wide and brace the ruler to the table with my little finger. I push it right up against the ruler and I "walk" my hand up the length of the cut. And some quilters use their cutting mats as the cutting guide. I never do that. Yet some of my guild members use the cutting board lines. It works great for them as all their strips match. But to try and add them to another quilter's stack is really a bother. Oh well...not a big deal. I noticed this when we were cutting up kits to sew on Project Linus quilts. Our guild made 100 quilts in the last year alone for this worthy project.

 Here is a peek under my cutting table. In each drawer is a basket that can be removed without distrubing the strips. These get filled as I work. The strips do not stay in these drawers very long. I have larger containers for the strip sizes all sorted by size and color. Of course...OCD Me!

 And while I was sitting on the floor I took a picture of some of my shelving and fabric bolts. I can get down on the floor just fine. It is getting up that I have issues with. It is a bummer to get old. My head is still young!
And yes, there are rulers hanging from the ceiling of the room. They are very handy.

 I love my Digital Velocity iron. It is made by Reliable. It has a removable filter that gets nasty leak causing minerals before they enter the steam chamber. I get a nice steam facial when I use this iron. I only use it for fabric prep not during piecing. It is way too big and heavy for that.

And this is a closet in the cutting room. I cannot get into the closet. Those are empty hangers. And the stuff way in the back of the closet is Cross Stitch supplies and yarns. The big clear container is stuffed with BATIKS! I love BATIKS!