Design Wall Monday - March 31

I spent some time catching up on block of the month projects this weekend.  Here's what I have to show for that effort.

Toes in the Sand is all caught up, as is my Tell it to the Stars mystery quilt.  The little block is block #5 from a block of the week project.  A very dangerous project I am finding - because while the quilt is going to quite economical if I keep up with the blocks, it does require stepping into the fabric store every single week for a year. And walking out with only the next block in the set and no other purchases is proving to require a great deal of will power.  I was successful this week, for the first time :)

Next up - Downtown (a ton of paper piecing to catch up on), and my guild mystery quilt (border time).

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Stash Report - March 30

I did manage to use some fabric this week.  Binding for 6 quilts actually makes a somewhat noticeable number.  2 3./4 yards used for binding.  And I even finished the binding on 2 of those quilts this week.  Once I find my camera, I'll post those finishes.

Of course, when you couple that with some online shopping, where an irresistible new line of fabric was spotted, the 24 yards that came in kind of negates any progress that might have been claimed this week.  I was being good - I dropped into my cart just the 10 yards needed for the quilt I want to make with it.  But when it arrived I realized I had missed one fabric.  Well,  I couldn't possibly buy just 1 yard of fabric online, because then shipping makes that a really expensive yard.  So, I added enough other fabric to get free shipping.  I'm sure someone will be happy to point out the flaw in that reasoning, but my stash is happy and I have all the fabric that I wanted for the quilt. :)

Totals for the year:
 290 1/4 yards in
 49 1/4 yards out
Total: 241  yards in

WIP Wednesday

I think I have some work ahead of me this week.  6 quilts with bindings attached, ready to be hand-sewn to the back. Then labeled and shipped off to Victoria's Quilts. (well, all but one - the bottom one is mine :) ).  I doubt they'll all get done this week, but I hope to make a good dent in them anyway.

Check out more projects over at Freshly Pieced and the Needle and Thread Network.

Design Wall Monday - March 24

My design wall is completely empty today.  However, that doesn't mean I've been idle.  I have this stack of quilts nready for binding.  Plus 2 more that I found after I took this picture.  That's what happens when you clean a sewing room, I guess :)

I trimmed up 4 of the quitls and made binding for them. And then got the binding attached to one of the quilts last night.  Wrong one, I now realize - I had a plan to have 2 of these quilts done by next Monday, and one of those I didn't even prep the binding for last night.  Back to work tonight, and I'll reshuffle the order of the quilts so I have a chance to finish those 2.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone has on their design walls today.

Stash Report - March 23

It has been an interesting week.  First the good news - I used a bunch of fabric:

1.5 yards - sashing/border for granny square quilt
1.5 yard - backing for small granny square quilt
3 yards - backing for large granny square quilt
1 yard - purple quilt

Total - 7 yards used this week.

I did buy fabric this week, but it was on sale (finish the bolt - 40% off), and its all flannel for charity backings so I feel completely justified :)
39 yards in

Totals for the year:
 266 1/4 yards in
 46 1/2 yards out
Total: 219 3/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to. 

Some progress

My Friday Night Sew-In wasn't quite as productive as I was hoping it might be.  I did get the first quilt off the long arm. But then, after loading the second one, I did not move on to the BOM projects I was planning.  Instead, I decided to quilt the second quilt.  Since I had a customer quilt on the schedule for this weekend I figured I should try to get mine off the long arm as quickly as possible, so I don't get behind. 

That didn't quite work out. I got about 1/3 done yesterday, before I ran out of steam (and day).  Today, I finished the quilting on the second granny square quilt - but didn't get anything else done since I had theatre tickets for the evening.

So tomorrow, I have to decide whether to load up the customer quilt and get it started, or pull out those BOM projects I wanted to work on.

Friday Night Sew In

I'm on my own tonight, so I thought I would join the Friday Night Sew-In over at Sugarlane Quilts.  I was planning to spend this evening sewing anyway, and now I have some accountability to get some things finished.  On the list for tonight -

1. finish quilting the baby granny square quilt for Victoria's quilts, and load up the matching adult quilt.
2. catch up on Toes in the Sand BOM
3. catch up Downtown BOM

The third one will take hours, so that's about the most I can get done tonight.  But if I get tired of BOM, I need to make up a holder of some sort for my longarm pantographs.

Purple Progress

This quilt is VERY purple. I saw this pattern (or something like it) online and wanted to try it out.  I had 4 purple fat quarters, which seemed like a good choice for a quick trial.  The FQs turned out to be really 2 colours, since the darks were both very similar, as were the lights.  So, I ended up with these blocks (plus one mirror block due to a cutting mistake on block 2).  Still loving my "Cut-a-round" ruler for making circles - although the fact that their 8" circle is 8" cut, not finished, is a bit disappointing.  Good luck finding a half-circle that fits perfectly inside another.

It will be just a little quilt (each block is about 8"), but it was fun to put together and might see light of day in a better set of fabrics and a larger setting.  Now to decide whether to add borders, or just finish this off as a little quiltie.

I'm linking up at The Needle and Thread network, and Freshly Pieced "Work in Progress Wednesday" today.

Design Wall Monday - March 17

I wanted to get my two granny square quilts done, in the hopes that they might get quilted before the next modern quilt guild meeting. Since the blocks came from one of  the members, I want to be able to show her the finished products.

Once those were done, I worked on a couple of block projects. First, my block of the week for this week.  I'm really liking this project - the neat little packages that I get each week are (so far) easy to put together, and nicely cut almost to size.  And I'm loving the colours in my blocks.

Then, I made a couple of trial blocks for a new quilt I'm considering. This is the one that initiated my splurge at the fabric shop on Saturday. The colours here are too close together in value, but this was just a sample set.  Good thing too - I cut one of the blocks mirrored, which was not the plan.  I'll have to be more careful with the final product.
I can get 4 blocks from every 3 fat quarters, and I think I ended up with 18 or 20 fat quarters in the fabric I bought.  So that will be about 24 8" blocks - 32"x48" is a bit smaller than I was hoping for, but such is life.  I can always buy more, or readjust my expectations.

Stash Report March 16

I was determined to stand firm this week, when I took back my block of the week to the qiuilt shop to get the next block.  But on Thursday they sent an email about an upcoming sale.  And there was some lovely fabric that I had spotted the week before - and resisted bringing home because I had no plan for it. But apparently willpower is not my forte :)  I went hunting for fat quarter patterns this week, found something I love, and indulged at the shop on Saturday.

Fortunately, I've been busy in the sewing room and have used 2 yards for my granny squares quilts, and 3 yards for backing on my scrappy challenge quilt.  At least it's a bit of progress, but I'm beginning to see that there is no way I'm ending this year in the black.

10 1/2 yards in
5 yards out

Totals for the year:
 227 1/4 yards in
 39 1/2 yards out
Total: 187 3/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to.

100 Happy Days

I saw a link to this site 100happydays on one of my Facebook friends' walls the other day.  I think it's a very interesting idea, although I object to their statement that 71% dropped out because they don't have time to be happy.  I think it's more likely don't have time to take a picture and post about being happy.  I really like the idea of focusing on what made me happy each day - but I'm not a shutterbug, and there's no way I'm going to whip out my camera in the middle of an activity to capture "happy" and post it somewhere.  But even in the 2 or 3 days that I was pondering the idea, I started to notice the little things around me that make me happy in the middle of a busy day.  So I decided to record my happy days, simply in a list on my phone. Not to share anywhere, but simply to make myself think about all the little joys in life.

Today is day 4, and 3 hours of sewing not only made the happy list, but produced this (as well as progress on a couple of customer quilts).  Still need to add the borders here, but it is coming together.  Next up, the little one with the leftover blocks. That one is going to have white sashing between all the blocks, rather than coloured.  That will help me equalize the sizes, and it will be interesting to see the different effects in the two quilts.

Design Wall Monday - March 10

I finally finished the backing for my rainbow quilt.  I didn't have enough of the black, even after adding all the graduated squares into it, so I pieced a couple of other bits into the mix.  This is ready for quilting now, and I even have the black batting.  Just have to find time to fit it in, between customer quilts.

And I started a new project yesterday. I was gifted 46 granny squares at a sew-in day the other week.  So I pulled them out and started putting together a charity quilt. I made 1 extra block, and I have enough now for one large and one small quilt for Victoria's Quilts.  It is interesting though - swaps are always a challenge. These blocks range in size from 8" to 9.5" finished, so setting them is going to be a challenge. For the large quilt, I managed to find enough blocks that were close to the expected 8.5" finished size, so I'll be able to put a coloured sashing between them.

The smaller quilt is getting the cast-offs - so I'll have to do something a bit more creative, to adjust that 1.5" size difference in the blocks.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else has on their design walls.

Stash Report - March 9

I really need to get back to posting more than twice a week. Maybe one day my day job will calm down and I'll have time again.  I did however manage to find time to finish the backing for my rainbow quilt this week. That used 6 yards of fabric.  Not much else going on in the sewing room, although I did finish 2 customer quilts this week too.

Now, oh dear, what came in this week?
4 yards of Barcelona fabric for a quilt I'm planning
5.5 yards of "just because" from the sale bin at the LQS.  I suspect that this "block of the week" concept may be rough on my pocketbook, since I have trouble walking out of that shop empty handed.

Totals for the year:
 216 3/4 yards in
 34 1/2 yards out
Total: 182 1/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to.

Design Wall Monday - March 3

My design wall looks pretty much the same as it did last week.  No progress on the backing since last weekend.

But I did finish 2 house blocks, which catches me up to being only 1 month behind on Downtown.  That right-hand church is not nearly so cock-eyed as it looks.  It's actually perfectly square but I guess I wasn't too careful when I stuck it on the wall for photo-time.

Plus, I did my block of the week. Cute little 6 inch block, and the strips were already cut to size. This one was quick :)  Now I  just have to remember to take it in on Saturday and get the next one.

And, I did some necessary repairs, which did take away from my quilting time this week.  I went down to my longarm the other day, turned on the lights, and only one of the fluorescent lights came on.  Since all 4 tubes were dark, I figured it was not simply a burnt-out bulb. 

Headed out to Home Depot today, and got myself set up with a new ballast for the light fixture.  Managed to get it installed before it got too dark, and I can once again see to do my quilting.  I even finished a customer quilt today and started a new one, now that I can see what I'm doing again.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else has on their design walls.

Stash Report - March 2

I dropped by the LQS yesterday, to pick up installment one of a bock of the week.  Just a little tiny 6" block, so that should not be hard to keep up with, right?  There is incentive - if the block is finished on time, the next one is free.  If you aren't done, it costs $5 to get the next.

I'm not going to count the fabric (in or out) for that project, because it never actually hits stash. Plus, the bits are so small for each 6" block that this would be impossible to track.

However, as usual, I did not leave without adding to my stash. I found a fabric that I love!  And it looked like it would be perfect for a background with some other fabrics I picked up recently.  So, I brought home 4 yards on a whim (and luckily I was right - it is perfect).  Plus 1 1/2 yards of black&white prints for another quilt I have in mind.  Unfortunately, that one didn't work out so well, so I'll have to rethink plans for those fabrics.

I've been working on the backing for my rainbow quilt, but it's not done yet so nothing to count there.
So that's 5 1/2 yard in this week, and nothing out.

Totals for the year:
 207 1/4 yards in
 28 1/2 yards out
Total: 178 3/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to.