Stash Report - July 17, 2016

Have you ever been getting ready for a retreat or special sewing time and thought, "I'm going to get so much done!  I better take extra!"?  That is exactly what I did last week.  My plan was to sew every day in the hotel room while my boys were at Space Day Camp.  My goal was to finish the two class quilts I started with Bonnie Hunter at the beginning of the month.  But surely I could get more finished, so I also packed Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Floating Hexagons, my Christmas table runner, and a Scrap Bag for good measure.  It would be terrible to have to go "buy" a "new" project while on vacation, right?

Hahahahahaa!  Silly girl!  What was I thinking?  I did sew every day (and night) in the hotel room.  I did get quite a bit accomplished, but taking just the two class quilts would have been plenty.  While in the hotel, there were still "chores" to be done.  We had a nice room with a kitchenette, and I had planned crockpot meals.  I took most of the spices, but I still had to shop for the meat and veggies while I was there.  I still had a load of laundry to do, and I had to pick up the room each morning after my little tornadoes were done getting dressed.  (Yes, they are able to do this themselves, but time in the morning was a factor.)  There were also two trips to Unclaimed Baggage that needed to happen...that was half a day times two, and well worth it!  (I may never check another bag on an airline again!)

When I wasn't on those adventures, I was in the room sewing.  This was my little setup.  It was compact and efficient.  I really liked the layout, and I made notes in my Quilting Journal about what I liked and didn't like about the setup.  Eventually, I will redo my home sewing room, and these notes will be helpful.

I started by working on Boxy Stars.  Maybe I should have started with Bricks in the Barnyard, because I think I had all of those pieces cut out already.  That was not the case for Boxy Stars.  So I spent time cutting and marking those pieces before I could sew them.  I did manage to get all of the blocks done for the quilt while in the hotel.

When I arrived home yesterday, I also completed adding the sashing to the blocks and assembling them into rows.  Today, I need to complete the cornerstone/sashing rows and add borders.

As I look ahead to the next few weeks, I'll be traveling again.  I won't take my machine, so this week I need to prepare one of my embroidery projects to travel with me.  I only need one, because I am quite sure I will not be able to finish an entire block while I am gone.  Once I have that prepared, I will work on Bricks in the Barnyard.  My goal is to keep this from becoming a UFO, and focus on piecing the rest of July.  In August, the plan is to work on my free-motion by quilting the tops that are waiting.  There are four so far.

So no finishes to help my numbers, but no fabric shopping either.  I have made significant progress on completing this top, so hopefully I am getting closer to moving my numbers in the other direction.

                                 This Week             This Year
Used:                              0.00                   25.25
Purchased:                       0.00                    67.50
Net:                                 0.00                   42.25

See how others are managing their stash this week at Patchwork Times.

Have a great week,
Joy :)

Stash Report - July 10, 2016

It's been a great week.  One of my Quilting Cousins came to visit with her grandson.  They played together well, while she and I talked and enjoyed time together.

And guests mean...cleaning the sewing room.  This was far less traumatic than normal.  The prior week I needed to get into the Closet of Doom to find batting.  To get to the closet, I had to move the cutting table.  To move the cutting table, I had to put everything else away. So this week, all I really had to do was straighten up around my machine, move the class bags from last week to under the cutting table, and vacuum.

Before and after they left, I have been working on Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.  I have now sewn and pressed all of the half-square triangles (HST) for the Churn Dash Blocks and started piecing the Nine-Patches as Leaders and Enders.  At one point during the week, I had sewn 15 chains of 11 HSTs, and had them laying on the ironing board.  My husband went in early one morning to iron a shirt, and came in to wake me up.  He said he was not going to try to move them, because he was sure he would make a mess.  I laughed at him, got up, moved them, and ironed his shirt for him.

On Saturday, we had a project day at guild.  I looked through my email, but didn't have cutting directions.  So I arrived with just a stack of Christmas fabrics.  I still managed to finish the tablerunner top, but I haven't yet quilted it.  (I have to go back into the Closet of Doom to find batting.) So I am close to another finish.

Today, I am going to finish packing for a trip.  Hubby will be staying here while I take the boys to Huntsville, AL for Space Camp.  I'll be staying in a hotel for the week, so I am taking my machine to quilt while the boys are at the camp.  To help with my quandary from last week, I decided to take my Featherweight with me, instead of my bigger machine.  That means piecing this week, instead of quilting.  My goal will be to finish the tops from last week's workshops with Bonnie Hunter, which are Boxy Stars and Bricks in the Barnyard.  Those pieces are already packed, and mostly cut.  I'm also going to pack up Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, in case I need extra to work on.  And if I have time to clear a path and get into the Closet of Doom, I'll take the batting and backing for the guild tablerunner.  I think I have all the right colors of thread, and it's very linear design could be quilted on my Featherweight.

No fabric was added this week, and I am excited that the fabrics for the tablerunner were all in my stash.  I actually picked out fabrics from my stash to make another one too.  No finishes this week either, but I'm getting close to having several.

                                 This Week             This Year
Used:                              0.00                   25.25
Purchased:                       0.00                    67.50
Net:                                 0.00                   42.25

Check out other Stash Smashers at Patchwork Times.

Have a Blessed Week,
Joy :)

Stash Report - July 3, 2016

It's July!!  I love July!  To me, it is just summer!  Kicking off with celebrating the birth of our country and red, white, and blue, leading into a vacation of some sort, and filled with hot days spent in the pool!

So to kick it off, I pulled out my Quilting Cousins Patriotic Tablerunner.  I taught this as a class last year with my Quilting Cousins.  Unfortunately, their were many miscuts of fabric, and I gave a couple of cousins some of my demo pieces.  It left me without enough of a couple of the fabrics to make mine, until I found some more at a shop in January.  So this past week, I pulled it out and put it together...Just in time for the 4th!

I also spent many hours at my cutting table this week.  I started by working on Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Charlotte Angotti.  At the beginning of the week, it looked like this:

All the pieces are now cut, and the sewing has begun.  Today, it looks like this:

Towards the end of the week, this happened!

I got to take 2 classes with Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville.com.  On Friday, it was all about Boxy Stars, which is a free pattern on her website.  I managed to get this far during the workshop:

On Saturday, we raised the roof with Bricks in the Barnyard from Scraps & Shirttails II.  I sat at the "Fun" table, so we weren't really the "Productive" table.  This (and a couple of border pieces) was all I got sewn together during the workshop:

Now, I'm in a quandary.  The Quiltville classes were so much fun and I am excited about them, but they are packed away from bringing them home.  The pieces I cut this week for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun are sitting out in my sewing room.  Next week, I'll be traveling with time to sew in my hotel room.  Do I leave the Quiltville quilts packed up and take them with me, or do I pack up the other and take it with me?  On the other hand, I also still need to make my older son a messenger bag, finish two projects for my Mother-In-Love's birthday on the 15th, and figure out if a different top thread will fix my free-motion quilting problem!  I don't know the answer yet, but first things first...finish the binding on the patriotic table runner!

I'm so glad to have a finish this week, and no fabric purchases.  (I did however, purchase several books and pens from Bonnie.)

                                 This Week             This Year
Used:                               2.50                   25.25
Purchased:                       0.00                    67.50
Net:                                 2.50                   42.25

See more Stash Busting progress at Patchwork Times.

Blessings,
Joy  :)

Stash Report - June 26, 2016

Where has the month gone?  I am certainly enjoying these summer days with my kiddos, but it is moving on by!  They left yesterday to spend a few days with their grandparents, so I am trying to get caught up.  Since my last post, I've had some drastic stash movement, but not in a positive way.

I agreed to make my oldest son a new bag to carry at church.  Since he will be entering the youth group in a few months, he and I decided he needed a "cooler" bag.  I did a little surfing, and came up with a messenger style bag.  I used the Connor Messenger Bag pattern from punkinpatterns.com as my inspiration.  Since he is a little bigger than the pattern writer's son, I needed to make some adjustments.  My son also asked for some things that were not in the original design, like a zipper, pen loops, and snaps.  For the outside of the bag, I am using some old uniform pants I had.  I wore holes in several pairs, and I was saving them to use as backing for a denim quilt I want to make one day.  Since it is a heavier fabric than regular cotton, it should hold up and wear nicely.  He also wanted it lined, so we went shopping and he picked out the celestial star fabric.  We didn't know which color carabiners we would be able to find, so we bought a yard of each of the three colors they had.

We found carabiners in red and green, and he chose the red.  Since I wasn't sure about the modifications I wanted to make for the bag, I used the green to make a mock up that we will give to his little brother.  It turned out ok, but I definitely learned some things that will come in handy for making the finished bag for my older son.

I'll be working on the older son's bag later this week.  Tonight, I would like to finish a purse for a friend who has a birthday this week.

At the end of the week, I will be taking 2 classes with Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com  I'm excited about the class, but I wonder if I am the only person who has to buy fabric to take her class?  She's known mostly for her use of scraps, but I don't seem to have many.  I guess that means I am a judicious cutter, I don't sew enough, or a little of both. I'm still excited about taking her classes.

The first is one of her free patterns called Boxy Stars.   My husband claimed this quilt, and asked me to make it in blues/blue-greens.  I plan to use the white with blue rings as the background, and the blue/greens as pieces.  I bought extra of the blue with gray, so I could use it for a border and binding.   I'll also be increasing the size of this quilt, so he can use it on the couch.  I'll need to get some of the pieces cut before the class on Friday.

The second class will be Bricks in the Barnyard from her book Scraps & Shirttails II.  I'll be using the gray strip roll as my light pieces, the black strip roll as my dark pieces, and the yellow/green as my accent pieces.  Each of these strip rolls have 50 2.5" strips, which is equal to about 3 1/2 yards of fabric each.  I'll be making this quilt larger than is in the book, and I'll have to cut them down this week too.  I have some other blacks/grays I may toss in the bag in case I need them.

My numbers are taking a nosedive, since I purchased so much fabric for these 2 classes.  I have the one messenger bag finish to offset a little, but it would really help if I could get my last quilt top quilted and bound.  My free-motion machine and I have had a disagreement about the top, and so far the machine is winning.  It is looping really badly on the back, regardless of where I set the tension.  It seems to be piecing just fine.  I am going to try buying a different thread for the top, before I throw in the towel and take it to the repair man.

So my number are:

                                   This Week             This Year

Used                                     1.0                   22.75

Added                                  25.25                  67.5

Net Used / Added                     24.25                  44.75

Check out how others are managing their stashes and what they have been up to at Patchwork Times.

Have a Blessed week,

Joy :)