Sunday 31 July 2011

Stash Report - July 31

Not a lot of quilting has gone on in my house this week.  But I did pass a significant milestone when I finished the dragon quilt yesterday.  The past 2 weekends have been spent on road trips, taking my oldest son to tour universities, so he can decide where he wants to go next year.  It is hard to believe it's that time already.

I missed the stash report last week, so I'll combine 2 weeks into one today.

Used this week:
1 yard for border, binding and backing of the dragon stained glass
1 1/2 yards for the current progress on the blue quilt
1/2 yard for lotto blocks
Total this week 3 yards out

Totals for this year:
Overall, 15.75 yards in, 50.25 yards out.
Net for the year:  34.5 yards out.


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

Saturday 30 July 2011

Dragon!

The dragon is done!!  I really didn't think I'd be able to do this, but I actually finished this UFO this month.  It was about 1/4 finished when I pulled the bits out of storage, after Judy drew #2 for her UFO challenge on July 1. At the time, I fugred I'd be happy to make some progress, and at least have this back in the "in progress" pile rather than "ufo".  But once I got to working on it, I remembered how much I enjoy stained glass quilting.  And it came together much more quickly than I expected.

The quilt is now complete, except for the minor detail that I put the hanging sleeve on the bottom :(  So I guess I'll be unsewing that and trying again tonight.  I debated how to finish this one.  It is a wall hanging, and the foundation for the stained glass adds a bit of weight to it, so I decided it really did not need the added bulk of batting in there.  I finished the back with a simple muslin to hide the myriad of stitching from the bias, and then bound it with the same fabric as the outer border.

Once again I have to thank Judy for her UFO challenge.  I don't know when I would have pulled this one out, if not for that encouragement.

Monday 25 July 2011

Design Wall Monday - July 25

I spent Saturday taking my son on a tour of a couple of universities, as he has a big decision to make this year.  Thank goodness for air conditioning in the car.  It was a steamy day, but nice and clear for driving which was good.  The trip ended up twice as long as expected, as we added a second destination half-way through, so not much quilting was accomplished on Saturday.  I made up for that on Sunday.  Got a head start in the morning, before the heat set in too deeply, and then it cooled off again in the evening, so the sewing room was again tolerable.  Looks like the heat has broken for a couple of days, so hopefully more sewing is in the near future.

My design wall this week has some progress which I'm very happy with. The dragon is complete, and the blue quilt is starting to take shape.  I'll have to find a way to get a better picture of the dragon.

For more design walls check out Judy's blog.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Accountability Challenge - July 20

I'm loving this summer.  Hot and steamy, and thousands of mosquitoes.  But it is summer, and mostly sunny, and life is good.  I am eager to have son #2 home from New Jersey at the end of the month, but in the meantime son #1 and I are hanging out. OK, maybe not together - he's hanging out with his friends, I'm hanging out with my quilts.  But overall a nice relaxing summer, and we do say hi to each other occasionally :)

The steamy weather and bugs are keeping me inside more than I expected, but that is allowing me to make lots of progress on my quilting.  Last week I set 2 goals:
1. Finish the head of the dragon stained glass
2. start on the blue quilt.

I'm thrilled to say I overachieved this week.  The dragon stained glass is done.  Just borders to do (which is on my list for this week) and then I'll have to figure out how to finish/quilt it.  I blocked it last night, so I should be able to add the borders this weekend.

And I did indeed manage to start on the blue quilt.  One block is complete, and cut lists are ready for the rest of the blocks.

So my goals for this week:
1. add borders to the dragon
2. finish the blocks for blue top (that's probably optimistic)
3. pull a quilt from the pile and make the backing and quilt it
4. mail quilts


Check out Bari's blog for more accountability reports today.

Monday 18 July 2011

Design Wall Monday - July 18

Lots of progress on my design wall today.  I have actually finished all of the stained glass on the dragon.  Still a number of edges to tack down, but the fabric is all in place now, and the dragon is complete. 

The other blocks on the wall are for this month's block lotto.  A fun, easy block to help me transition from the intricacies of stained glass to some more traditional quilting. I'll be cutting into the fabric for my blue quilt any day now.

Here's a closeup of the dragon quilt.  I have to say a great big thank you!! to Judy at Patchwork times.  If not for her UFO challenge, I don't know when this dragon would have been dragged out of the closet.  Once I got back into it, things went quickly however.  Just some final stitching and the borders to do now.  It's hard to believe, but this might actually be done before the end of  the month.


Hop over to Judy's blog to see what everyone else has on their design walls today.

Sunday 17 July 2011

Stash Report - July 17

I didn't expect to do very much quilting this weekend.  I had plans for my gardens, and it is a beautiful sunny weekend so I expected to spend the majority of it outside.  Yesterday morning I headed out  to get started.  And I quickly returned inside for the bug repellant. My goodness there were a lot of mosquitoes out there.  And stubborn ones. Even with the repellant on, they continued to attack. I don't think I lasted more than 1/2 hour outside, before I surrendered and came back in.  Hot, sweaty, and covered in bites.  I spent the rest of the day inside - which had some good effect for my quilting progress at least.

I'm now at a point where I can officially count the fabric for my dragon.  He's not very big, so 1 yard used this week.

Totals for this year:
Overall, 15.75 yards in, 47.25 yards out.
Net for the year:  31.5 yards out.


Check out Judy's blog for more stash reports.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Accountability Challenge - July 13

I kept my goals simple last week.
1. spend at least 60 minutes working on the dragon.  Maybe that will get me back in the swing.
2. clean the sewing room
And I achieved both of them. The sewing room was ready when my guests arrived (a day early).  OK, not perfect, but good enough for spending a couple of nights there.  And I have spent much more than 60 minutes working on the dragon. It is coming along quite nicely now, and I'm back into my stained glass groove.

For this week, I'd like to say finish the dragon, but that's not realistic, so I'll aim to get his head completed.  I also want to start on the blue quilt.  I'll have to figure out how to do that without completely interrupting the progress on the dragon, but I have a couple of thoughts.

Check out Bari's blog for her accountability challenge this week.

Monday 11 July 2011

Design Wall Monday - July 11

My design wall has my July UFO on it this week.  This one has been a challenge to get started on.  I mentioned my trouble finding the bits and pieces last week.  And then when I finally took the plunge, I discovered that I didn't have any of the fusible web I needed to make more bias tape.  That took a few days to resolve, and I finally bought some on Saturday morning, after trips to 2 local quilt shops. But now that I'm fully supplied, I actually made some significant progress on the dragon.

I spent a lot of time on Saturday working on this, in between getting ready for my visitors to arrive.  Now that I'm back into the swing, I remember why I like stained glass quilts.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls this week.

Sunday 10 July 2011

Stash Report - July 10

As expected, I did not do a lot of quilting this week.  But I did use 1.5 yards for the border and binding of the pink quilt.
Nothing came in, and nothing else went out this week.

Totals for this year:
Overall, 15.75 yards in, 46.25 yards out.
Net for the year:  30.5 yards out.

Hop over to Judy's blog for stash reports.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Accountability Challenge - July 6

Yesterday I said that I had 2 choices, as I headed back to my sewing room - clean, or work on the dragon quilt.  Can you guess which one I did?  It did not involve fire breathing creatures.  I think this is a sign of how much I don't want to tackle that challenge :)

Last week, I dutifully posted my accountability report.  And today when I went back to look at how I did, I realized that I didn't set any goals for this week.  Was my subconscious trying to tell me something?  Two weeks ago I had these goals, of which 50% were complete last week.

1. quilt the indigo quilt - not done
2. bind UFO #9 - 1/2 done
3. finish the linked squares top - Done

Of course my goals were pretty much the same, so maybe that's why I forgot to update them.  I did finish binding the UFO.  And the linked squares top now has borders.   I decided not to quilt the indigo quilt yet, as I need to consider options for the quilting.  So, I guess I can now consider all these goals complete, or at least off the list for now.

This month I have a couple of goals - make progress on the dragon, and piece the blue top for my son.  I'd also like to quilt at least one, preferable 2 of the quilts overflowing out of my work in progress bin.  But, I am going to try to set realistic goals, and this week I do have visitors coming from out of town, so the sewing room has to be cleaned up.  So my goals for this week:
1. spend at least 60 minutes working on the dragon.  Maybe that will get me back in the swing.
2. clean the sewing room

If I keep it that simple, I'll definitely make progress on Mr. Dragon.  And since I don't want to cut the blue quilt before the guests arrive, I think that will do for this week's goals.  Stay focused.  Keep it simple.  And get it done.

Pop over to Bari's blog for her Accountability Challenge links for this week.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

All Abord(er)

The borders are now complete on the pink linked squares quilt.  The colours in this photo are odd -the outer background is actually the white part.  I'm not sure why the centers of some of those squares look so bright & white.  I used scrappy white/beige for the centers of the squares, and white tone-on-tone for the rest of the background fabrics.  I'm quite happy with the end result - and I'll get a better picture of it later, when I have someone around to hold it up for the photo.

Because this finish gave me some breathing room and some space in my sewing room, I decided to make a couple of blocks for the block lotto this month.  Wonky checkerboards - takes me back to the wonky tic-tac-toe blocks I just finished quilting.  These are really quick and easy blocks, so there may be a few more appearing on my design wall sometime this month.

And just because she's so darn cute :) This is Blossom, serving as a remote control/cell phone holder courtesy of son #1.  She looks downright embarrassed by the whole thing.

Now it's time to head back to the sewing room.  I can either clean it up for visitors coming next weekend, or get some work in on that dragon of mine.  Decisions, decisions.

Monday 4 July 2011

Design Wall Monday - July 4

I spent most of the week quilting my mystery quilt - which is DONE!  Just have to bind that one now, and I'll be able to show a picture.  But that means my design wall hasn't changed much this week.  It still has the pink linked squares quilt on it.  I did make a decision on bordering the quilt, and I started on that last night.  I think this will go quickly, and then pink can come off the wall and join the pile of "to be quilted" - which seems to be growing this year, rather than decreasing.


Also out, although not on the wall because there isn't room, is my UFO for July.  Judy picked #2, which is my dragon stained glass quilt.  I've been avoiding this one for some time - hopefully this challenge will give me the incentive to actually make some progress on it this month.


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

Sunday 3 July 2011

Stash Report - July 3

Nothing in, nothing out this week.  Lots of work done on finishing projects, but all the fabric was already counted.  But we are at the start of another month, and my UFO and monochromatic challenge projects for this month should use some fabric.  Hopefully this week, if I can get the mystery quilt done and off the machine so I can get back to piecing.

Totals for this year:
Overall, 15.75 yards in, 44.75 yards out.
Net for the year:  29 yards out.

Check out Judy's blog for more stash reports this week.

Saturday 2 July 2011

Blue Quilt

This month's colour is blue, in Judy's Monochromatic challenge.  At first I was disappointed - Indigo was last month, so blue this month seemed like a repeat.  Besides, my pink quilt is almost done, so if that was the colour for July I'd have an easy month ahead :)  Given what was picked for the UFO challenge, an easy month would have been nice.

But then I remembered that I have all the fabric bought and ready to go for my son's quilt.  So, blue it is this month, and maybe I can get this top put together.  I don't expect to quilt this one this month, since it is a bed-sized quilt.  But it would be nice to get it to the top stage, like his brother's quilt.

Friday 1 July 2011

July UFO

It's the first of the month, and time for a new quilt for the UFO Challenge.  As I was completing my June project, I was thinking about which UFO might be next.  I dearly hoped that Judy would not pick my stained glass quilt.  This project is a true UFO for me - it's been in progress for over 4 years. Or, that's how long I've owned it, anyway.  I think I bought the pattern, and it sat for a year before I opened it.  When I did start the project, I made some decent progress for a while, but it's been hiding in the closet for at least 2 years now.

So today Judy drew the number for July.  #2.  Guess what quilt is #2 on my list?  I guess it's time to pull out the dragon.

Step1 - find all the bits.  I thought I'd packed it away carefully, but the bucket contains the fabric, and the completed part.  No templates.  No instructions.  And no picture.

The template turned up easily enough, right behind the bucket on the shelf.  Instructions - check.  In a pile with another UFO.  Picture -hmmm.  That was more difficult, but it did eventually reveal itself, in a drawer of non-quilting items.  I think this quilt really wanted to remain a UFO.

I don't think there is any way this quilt is getting completed this month - see how long it is?  In fact, I reduced this pattern to 1/4 of its original size before I started.  The pattern was for an 8 foot long wall hanging - which seemed a bit excessive to me.  Anyway, I think the goal for this month is to find all the pieces.  Oh, I guess I did that already :)  OK, I will aim to make progress on this - perhaps get past the halfway mark before the end of the month.  Maybe I should invest in some of that lapel stick that quilters keep raving about.