Stash Report - Jan 24

I managed to stay out of the quilt shops again this week.   Actually, that's not quite true.  I picked up some rules yesterday for my next quilt,  and an OTT-lite so I can see what I'm doing at night.  But I did manage to escape without buying any new fabric.

I've made some good progress on the current quilt, and thus made a nice dent in the stash this week.

5.5 yards used for my son's quilt
1.5 yards used for backing on a baby quilt

Total this week
7 yards out
0 yards in

Total this year: 13 yards in

Slowly edging my way in the right direction.   Check out Judy's blog to see other stash reports this week.

Quilt Guilt

Thanks to Judy's quiltathon, I got a lot of quilting done this past weekend.  Finished one quilt, and have 2 others in the binding stage.  

Do you think that unfinished quilts try to make us feel guilty?  Now that I've acknowledged their existance, a couple of my UFOs are sending out waves of guilt, crying "finish me next!".  I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out.  There are some notable UFOs still hanging around, although not as many as before.

The Hawaiian quilt has not left its corner all week.  It sits quietly and emits waves of guilt when I pick up any other hand sewing.  The dragon is sleeping not-so-quietly in the box I packed it into last year.  It's starting to rumble for air and sunshine, and I swear the box is leaning farther out of the closet every day.  And yet I avoid them.

I'm quite sure that if I take the Hawaiian off the frame and quilt it unframed, it will go faster.  But I worry that this would change the look of the quilting, so I have not done that.  And thus it sits, and waits.

The dragon is stretched thin, fabric wise, so I really need to move forward on that so I can figure out what extras I need to buy.  Ooh, a shopping trip!  Could that be incentive to finish this one?  Nope.  Not yet, apparently.

Ah well.  Since it's Wednesday today, here's an update on my Accountability Challenge.  My goals for this week do not include dragon nor Hawaiian projects.  This week, I hope to finish the binding on at least one of the 2 quilts from last weekend, and to make some more blocks for my son's quilt.

Here's the UFO list:
- a Hawaiian wall-quilt that's been on my frame since 2005
- a picture quilt from my 2005 trip to Mexico
- a set of 3 wall quilts (need final embroidery and to be hung) (started in 2008)
- a stained glass dragon (started in 2009)
- tumbling blocks (started in 2009)
- reversible quilt (started in 2009)
- kaleidoscope quilt (started in 2009)
- bargello quilt (Sept 2009)
- Star mystery quilt (needs quilting binding) (Sept 2009)
- Morning Splash (needs quilting binding) (Nov 2009)

Pop over to Bari's blog to see what other quilters have been up to this week.

Design Wall Monday - Jan 18

It's been a busy weekend for me.  Judy's quiltathon was great inspiration to get some stuff done.  I concentrated mostly on finishing projects (1 quilt done, 2 ready for binding), but I did start a new project and I made some progress on my leaders & enders project too.

First, a block I just showed on my last quiltathon post. This is the start of a quilt for my youngest son.  I sure hope he likes the colours.   There's a long way to go on this project, so this first block is my incentive to continue.  I expect you'll see it a few more times before the quilt is done :)

And a few more half-sqaure triangles from the leaders and enders. Green this time.   Still not sure exactly what the end result is going to look like.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what other quilters have on their walls today.

Quiltathon - Day 2

It's been another fun day of quilting, at Judy's virtual quiltathon.  I started the day by pin basting a couple of quilt tops that were ready.  Didn't actually quilt them however, because I had other plans for the sewing machine today.  Nice bright backs, and the orange one is pieced from stash, which will help next week's stash report :)

After setting those aside (where they quickly became a bed for one of my cats) I started on my son's quilt.  It's been a while since I made a full size quilt rather than a throw.  It took a lot longer than I expected to sew 32 strips together and then cut them into sections.  This is where I was at noon, all set to create the 4-patches.

The afternoon got the 4-patches created, and I started looking at the next step. That's when I realized that my ruler and their instructions didn't match :(   So I measured and debated, and thought about it.  And finally decided that I could resize the blocks to make this work.

Hopefully the overall size will still work out, or I'll have enough fabric to make an extra row of blocks to increase the size.  But, after all that thinking and redesigning, I have these piles on my work table.  The triangle blocks are 3-3/4 inches, rather than the 4-1/2 inches from the pattern.  And hence the small block on the left was resized too (which is good, because their fabric requirements were cut way too close and I wasn't going to have enough of the center fabric for the original size block)

I put this sample block up on my wall - as encouragement to keep going on this quilt next time I get into my sewing room.  I must thank my friend, Canuckgal, for her help picking the colours for this quilt.  I think it's going to look great in my son's room.

Thank you Judy, for hosting a great weekend quiltathon.  I can't wait to participate again.  Now, I'm heading off to make some banana bread before the kids return, and then I'll settle in for the night with one of the quilts from yesterday, to work on the binding.

Stash Report - Jan 17

This has been a pretty good week for my stash.  Thanks to Judy's quiltathon (which is still going on), I've done a few yardage-intensive projects and managed to decrease my stash by a fair chunk.    And, since I've been busy quilting today, there were no fabric store visits to increase the stash.  Here's this week's stash status.  Check out Judy's blog to see how other quilters have done this week.

Fabric out this week:

3 yards - New leaders for my quilting frame
4.5 yards - backing/binding for star mystery
1 yard - cat pillow
1 yard - border/binding/sleeve for bargello quilt
2.25 yard - borders and backing for baby quilt

Total out this week:
11.75 yards

In this week - Zero

Net this year:  20 yards in

Quiltathon - Day 1 complete

I'm having a great time with Judy's quiltathon this weekend.  Day one is just about over for me, because it's getting late.  But I'll be back tomorrow, hoping to make even more progress.

The big news for today is completion of the bargello quilt I started last year.  I even got the binding hand-stitched.  This quilt didn't end up exactly as I imagined it, but with a little bit of imagination I think the waterfall effect is there.  For a first attempt at a bargello, which I designed myself, I'm pretty happy with it overall.

Check out Judy's blog to see what other quilters were up to today, at the quiltathon.  And join us tomorrow for more updates.

Quiltathon Progress

Despite my late start this morning, I've made excellent progress with Judy's Quiltathon.   Three quilts ready for final binding stages, and my banister is now clear of hanging treasures :)

I'm glad I picked quiltathon weekend to tackle these, the first one in particular.  I needed to finish the quilting on my Stars mystery quilt.  But this was not at all as easy as I had hoped, and I considered giving up a few times this morning.  First, I must admit that my feathers leave a lot to be desired.   Practice is required.  Then I broke four needles, trying to finish the feathers.  Not fun, especially when I didn't want to have to go shopping and give up a couple hours of quilting time.

And then I had what I thought was a great idea, to do some detail quilting in the middle of each star.  Lovely idea, but there were 23 stars, so that took a lot longer than I expected.   But I think it came out nicely (better than the feathers, anyway).

So why am I so happy I tackled this frustration today?  It was quiltathon day, so instead of tossing in the towel (quilt?) and plopping my butt down in front of the TV, I persevered and pushed through the frustrating parts.  Because I planned to quilt today, and I was going to quilt today, and I was going to finish that quilt before I started something else.

Now I'm going to take a break, find something for dinner, and do some hand-stitching on the bindings tonight.