Design Wall Monday - Oct 10

Happy Thanksgiving, to all my fellow Canadians!  We celebrated yesterday, because I like to have a day of rest before heading back to work, after making the big dinner.  I've put my long weekend to good use.  First, the star is done!  It still needs a border, but the center is complete.  And it's going to take a rest off my wall for a bit, while I ponder how I want to handle borders.

I put the pack of 10 fat quarters that came home on Saturday to good use.  Here they are, all cut, sewn, and arranged on my wall.  I've decided on a 2-sided quilt for Hallowe'en.  One side will have the panel I showed yesterday, with a row of blocks down each side.  And the reverse will be 30 orange/black/white blocks.

And the best news?  I re-read the October Monochromatic Challenge post, and I found that it is 2 colours plus a background.  So, here is my orange & black with white background, quilt for October!  Yay!  I didn't think I was going to have a chance to play with the monochromatic group this month.

Check out Judy's blog to see what other quilters have on their design walls.

Stash Report - Oct 9

I went out today, and did some damage to my stash report.  I needed inspiration for my next quilt, since the star is almost done.  I also grabbed a quilt that's waiting for backing, and took it along to see what I could find.

Backing successful - and off the sale table, even.  50% off more than makes up for the fact that they didn't have wide backing in a suitable colour.  4.5 yards in with this purchase, but it will be heading out relatively quickly, I hope.

I also found my inspiration.  A Hallowe'en quilt, which may make use of this panel I was given a couple of years ago (or may not - it depends how to colours look once my blocks are made.  The block pattern has been chosen, so I'm ready to go as soon as I sew the last few seams on the star quilt. 2.5 yards in.

So that is
4 yards out - star quilt
7 yards in - backing and fat quarters
For a total of 3 yards in, this week.


Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 28.75 yards in, 71.50 yards out.
Net for the year:  42.75 yards out.

Check out Judy's blog to see what everyone else did with their stash this week.

Another Finish

My final tic-tac-toe quilt is done!  This was my August UFO, and the blocks have been in my hands for over 18 months.  The back is pieced, with some additional blocks from the lotto.  I'm glad I finally got motivated to finish this one, thanks to Judy's UFO challenge.

I LOVE this colour.  I've actually had the blue in my stash since 2005, when I first started quilting.  Bought it because I loved the colour, but never found anything I liked with it.  These mixed tic-tac-toe blocks were perfect.  And the six on the back were chosen because they worked so nicely with the blue.

Seeing stars

I've been sewing together 4" blocks tonight - it's like I've escaped from the land of Lilliput :)  I've finally reached the out edges (before the borders, anyway) of my star.  As I moved out, I increased the size of the background blocks, since I decided to do a scrappy white background, rather than attempting to do more colourwash.  I thought that might detract from the star (and I was really tired of 1" blocks, I have to admit).  So, the farther out from the star I moved, the larger my background blocks are.  All the way up to 5"x4" (there's an odd number of 1" blocks in the star).

The right side is all assembled into 8" squares, and ready to finish.  Still a bit of joining to do on the left, but if it falls off the wall tonight, I have some hope of being able to put it back without pulling my hair out :)

I haven't decided on border treatment yet.  My head tells me that a colourwash 1" border is the way to go, but I don't know if I have the energy or the scraps to do that.  I'll see what the quilt says to me once it's all in one piece.

Design Wall - Oct 3

Three guesses what's on my design wall.  And if you've been reading my blog, you probably don't need the first two :)  The star is still there.  I spent a lot of time this week finishing my tic-tac-toe quilts, so the design wall didn't see much activity for most of the week. But I completed quilting the second quilt yesterday, and managed to spend several hours working on the star.  As my back can attest, it's a lot of work sewing those itty bitty pieces together.

I don't think there's actually a lot of difference that you can see in this picture, over last week.  But trust me when I say I did a lot of work today.  I've started adding the background pieces now, and I'm working my way out to a point where I have nice orderly (large) squares to work with for the final assembly.  You can see some of the background squares in the lower section, because the design wall there is brown rather than white.

I have one more quilt basted and ready to go, but I haven't decided how I want to quilt it yet, so the star will get some concentrated attention this week, while options for quilting my indigo quilt stew in my mind.

Check out Judy's blog to see what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Stash Report - Oct 2

This week I have been concentrating on finishing, and since I already counted my backings, that doesn't leave me much to say today.  Only 1/4 yard out - BOM and friendship quilt squares.  I let my son take my car yesterday, before I realized that my local quilt shop was having an event.  So I didn't manage to get there. Sad, but probably just as well for the sake of my stash report :)

On the finishing front, things are going very well.  Two quilts completed, as I mentioned yesterday.  Binding is 1/2 done on another, and the quilting on a fourth is 15 minutes from complete.

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 21.75 yards in, 67.50 yards out.
Net for the year:  45.75 yards out.

Check out Judy's blog to see what other quilters have been up to this week.

UFO Challenge

It's the first of the month, and Judy has pulled the number for this month's UFO challenge.  #5 - that's my Christmas napkins.   Should be an easy finish for me this month, so maybe I can also catch up on Jan or  Feb, since I joined in late.


What did I get done this month?  I did finish my September UFO - that was one of the tic-tac-toe quilts from the blocks I won in the block lotto a year and a half ago.  This quilt is composed of the last 15 blocks I had on hand.  I kind of wish it had a darker border, but I was determined to do this all from stash and I ran out of the green.  So a white border and binding were necessary.

Also finished this month was my card trick quilt.  Check the link for more details, and a view of the backing which is another card trick.  That was the UFO for August from my list.  Two complete this month, for a total of 7 so far, out of 9.

I love the fact that my closet is clearing out and some of these old projects are getting completed.  Thanks Judy, for the challenge!  And for the promise that we will continue next year.  I don't know if I'll have 12 UFOs left by then after the progress this year, but that would in fact be a good thing.