Inspiration Needed

I've had a really productive week with my long arm, and finished a few quilts lately. But now I need some inspiration for the next one.  It's a lovely embroidery quilt, and I know what to do in those sections. But the borders and sashing have me stumped right now.  So I loaded it up, and hopefully magic will strike overnight and I'll have a grand plan tomorrow :)

In the meantime, I figured out a fabric that should work for the floral blocks I brought home, so I think I'll try to turn them into a quilt tonight.

Design Wall Monday

I completely forgot to post this morning.  I do actually have something new on my design wall, although it might come down in the same state it went up. I picked these blocks up off the scrap table at guild last month, figuring I could easily turn them into a baby quilt for charity.  However, I don't have any fabric in this vein.  There are 10 blocks, so could possibly set them on point, if I come up with something for setting triangles. Or I can take apart one block and turn it into sashing strips, since it is made up of 6 horizontal segments.

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

Stash Report

I guess I can't count fabric out, if I never counted it in. This is my challenge quilt from the retreat a few weeks ago. I picked up an extra package of fabric, in order to make the top and bottom borders for the quilt.  Top is done, at about 52x74" - unless I decide it needs another border - and will get added to my ever-growing pile of tops to be quilted.

I have had a productive time with my longarm lately - finished two quilts this week, and another one well under way.  I have one of my own that I need to get quilted, so I can take it back to the shop as a sample for a class I'll do in the fall.  Have to fit that in somewhere, so I'm trying to get ahead of my schedule right now.  However, the 3 quilts arriving today could make that challenging.

Fabric came in this week.  The LQS had a finish the bolt sale, and I just could not resist the pile of neutrals I found.  There is no way I'm ending this year in the black, but let's just consider it part of my retirement plan.  What I buy now, I don't have to buy later :)

Stash totals for the year:
402 1/4 yards in
68 1/2 yards out
Total: 333 3/4  yards in

 Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports.

Stash Report, April 20

This week was a really good week for my stash,
thanks in large part to the retreat I was on last weekend.  2 quilts finished at the retreat (and 2 others almost done).  One quilt completed and almost bound in anticipation of show & tell at the retreat. Plus my one-block wonder quilt is now complete, all the way to borders.  So that's 19.25 yards out.

Backing and binding for "A Little Diversion" - 5 yards
one block wonder - 5 yards
brights - 3.75 yards
two-colour quilt - 5.5 yards

That makes 19.25 yards out. A really good week, thanks to the retreat I was on last weekend.

However, a couple of sales more than countered that gain, by adding more to my stash.

27.5 yards flannel
3 yards black & whites
11.5 yards just because

That's 42 yards in.

Stash totals for the year:
337 1/4 yards in
68 1/2 yards out
Total: 268 3/4  yards in

 Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports.

Design Wall - April 14

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm just back from retreat. So I put up one of the projects on my design wall. This was the Saturday night challenge. It was a lot of fun to make - the star blocks are made from 10" squares and the extra backing fabric was also included in the kit.  I want to make it rectangular rather than square, so I'm going to add a border top and bottom of smaller stars I think.  I bought an extra kit to make sure I could match the fabrics, and there should be plenty for what I want to do.

The retreat was loads of fun, and I'm thrilled that the local shop does this every year. As usual I didn't think to get my camera out during the retreat, but Ali took plenty of great photos which are on the facebook page now.

Here's one more project I worked on at the retreat. The fabrics don't show well in the photo - they are all various coordinated prints and the green in the border features in many of them.  You can see the other 2 quilts I finished at retreat, in yesterday's post.

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

Retreat

I just got back from a retreat weekend.  As usual (I go twice a year) it was a fabulous time, filled with laughter and friends, new projects and challenges, and lots of quilting.  When I arrived Thursday afternoon, my plan was to check into my room, do some stitching on a binding, and try to find some other attendees to join me for dinner. But the hotel is so wonderful, they allowed us to setup and start quilting right away, even though the retreat didn't officially start until Friday morning. So when I arrived, I joined some other early birds and we got right to work :)

The fun didn't stop all weekend, but I managed to stay committed and finished 3 of my own projects plus a challenge project that was presented on Saturday night.  Here are 2 of my complete projects.  First my least favourite.  Lots of people seemed to like this one, but it is much busier than I had expected.  I think if the grey was lighter it might be better.  I am going to try to find a plain border for it, in the hopes that might calm it down.

And this one is my favourite of the ones I made at retreat.  It worked out just like I hoped. The green border was a late addition, and it could perhaps have a multi-coloured border rather than the plain one.  But overall I really like this quilt. The other option for next time is to replace the half-slashes with just empty space and float the quilt with a single plain border.

And while at retreat I was reminded once again that quilters are such generous and helpful people. For every tool I managed to forget (and there were plenty) someone was always willing to lend one.  And people lent me aids and had lots of suggestions for dealing with my sore back.  The most useful one - stop quilting for a while! was the hardest advice to take :)  Hopefully next time I can be more organized, and less grumpy about my back.

Design Wall Monday - April 7

My design wall is still covered with my One Block Wonder quilt.  I think this is the layout I ended up with (lots of pictures on my camera, and I don't want to go back upstairs to check :) )

While that gels, I've been working on a baby quilt, from some of the fabric I picked up at the guild silent auction last Monday.  This one is draped over my ironing board, for lack of space on the wall.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design walls today.

Stash Report - April 6

There was a silent auction at quilt guild on Monday night, and I picked up some fabric there.  It was to support the guild, so how can that be wrong?  I got 2 different panels plus coordinating prints, which should be enough to make a couple of baby quilts. Plus some additional miscellaneous fabric for another small quilt.  5 yards in, all for a good cause :)

Nothing to report out this week, but my One Block Wonder quilt has gone through a few alterations.  I think this may be the final arrangement, although now that I see it on the blog there are 2 blocks on the left that seem a bit out of place.

Well, there's lot's of time to adjust it.  Gardening certainly won't be taking up my time for a few more weeks at least.  Here's a look out my front window after a full day of rain on Friday.  Lots of snow still to melt around here.

Stash totals for the year:
 295 1/4 yards in
 49 1/4 yards out
Total: 246  yards in

 Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports.

New project

I need a new project like I need a hole in the head, but I have all this fabric to use up :)  I bought some fabric a while back to make a One Block Wonder quilt, so I pulled it out and started cutting this week.

First, I did take the time to read the book I bought, and learned that I maybe should have been a bit more careful when picking the fabric :)  But it's just a test, so we'll see how it goes.

I did fortunately have enough fabric - 9 repeats in fact, when all I needed was 6.  So I'll have some leftover for borders.  I also pulled the brown fabric in the first photo from my stash - I think it will make a nice accent border.

I was considering splitting the quilt into segments, with the brown dividing them, but when I laid everything out and calculated the size, I think the quilt is going to be just right without stretching it.

I think this is the final layout.  I'll leave it up for a day or two, to decide if anything needs to move around. I really like the left side, but right is a bit less organized.


I'm linking up over at Fort Worth Fabric Studio today.

March Finishes

I actually finished 2 quilts in March!  Given my track record for this year, that's pretty amazing :)

The blocks were gifted to me at a guild sew-in day so I wanted to make charity quilts from them.  Calculating sizes, based on the requirements from Victoria's Quilts, I made one additional block of my own, to turn the 46 blocks +1 into these 2 quilts.  All the sashings, borders, and binding came from my stash, and the backings are flannel.