Design Wall Monday - More Puzzle Pieces

After a day of freezing rain, sleet, and snow there is no school today and we have a delayed start to the work day.  So I get another hour and a half at home before I have to head in this morning.  The text blast from work also instructed everyone to wear jeans and sensible shoes due to the cold and slick streets.  

We didn't go anyplace due to the weather, so you think I'd have gotten quite a bit of stitching done.  I did spend quite a bit of time in the sewing room, but a lot of that was searching for teal scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  In the process I did a bit of organizing of the scrap bins.  I spent more time on that than I intended.  

Three more Jigsaw blocks are finished, so the flimsy is more than half way done now.

There are two more blocks partially assembled at the sewing machine. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along. The color graduations aren't perfect, but the flow is there.  Drama Teen loves it and since it's for her, that's really all that matters.  

What little progress there has been on other projects has been posted.  So that's it for my design wall today.  If you are in the path of this most recent winter storm, stay dry, stay warm, and stay home to stitch.  The roads here are really treacherous.  

I'm linking up with Judy over at Patchwork Times.  I hope to get to check out a few posts before I have to brave the cold and head into work this morning.  

Stash Report - Week 9

I'm already on my second cup of coffee, laundry has been started and it's snowing outside.  Other than the snow, it's a pretty typical Sunday morning in March.  I hope to spend what's supposed to be a pretty snowy afternoon up in the sewing room.  Recent weekends have been taken up with Drama Teen's volleyball tournaments, so not much stitching has been going on the last three weeks.  

I'm engaged in an ongoing struggle to get my stash organized.
Tweaks here and there have made some big improvements in making my stash more accessible. The hope is once I can see what's in the stash, it will get used.  Those efforts paid some dividends this last week.  I have a stash of Hollywood and Vine by Three Sisters for Moda that I fell in love with a while ago. (More than 8 years ago by my estimates, some places on eBay call it "vintage").

The right-most fabric on the bottom is Paris Flea Market (no idea if this is from the same time frame or if it just got put with the rest). This stash wasn't pressed and folded, but it was out on the shelves where I could see it. So when I came across a pattern while recycling my quilting magazines, I knew the absolute perfect fabrics for the project were in my stash.  None of this "vintage" stash is in this week's report, but I'm sure it will be making it's debut there soon.  

Used last week:  0.31 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used in 2014:  4.18 yards
Added in 2014: 33.5 yards

Net stashed for 2014:  29.32 yards

Check out Patchwork Times for more stash talk.  

Something Old, Something New - March Update

It's cold and it's icy with more of the same projected for the rest of today.  And then there's the possibility of snow on top of that for later today.  It's a good thing we have no place to go.  I'm looking forward to just staying home.  There's some laundry that needs to be done, but I'm hoping to spend this afternoon stitching.  Yesterday we were in Tulsa cheering Drama Teen on in a volleyball tournament.  The third in as many weeks.  Thankfully we have a three week break before her team plays again.  

It's the second day in a new month, so it's time to follow up on my efforts to finish the old and start something new along with Lynn over at Never Too Hot to Stitch.  

My "something old" goal for February was to get Jigsaw to the finished flimsy stage. I didn't get all the way there, but I did make good progress. 

pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

The "something new" goal was to start this Tonga Atlantis Kit.  

I pulled the kit out, stuck the pattern up on the design wall and stared at it most of the month.  Now I'm not sure I like it.  So the whole thing went back in the NewFO drawer for now.  Instead, I opted for a pattern that would use up some of my oldest stash fabrics. 

The pattern is called Poinsettia Allure by by Judy Bloc from the December 2013 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.  In going along with Lynn's theme of learning new techniques, I'll have to learn how to use templates to make this pattern.  

So I pretty much blew both the "something old" and the "something new" goals set at the beginning of February.  I'm hoping I can do better with my March goals.

1.  Get Jigsaw to the finished flimsy stage
2.  Don't start anything new

Goal one is probably attainable now that almost half the Jigsaw blocks are made.  It may be harder to not start anything new this month, but I've got 21 projects on my WIP/UFO list and I'd like to get it back down closer to 15. 

Check out all the other something old/something new progress over at Lynn's Never Too Hot to Stitch.     

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - No Teal Yet

It was a long and busy week.  I had hoped to get in more stitching time than I did, but some weeks that just doesn't happen.  I can only hope that March will be better.  

I've been working on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler blocks in between the Jigsaw blocks.  Only one of the pink sampler blocks got finished.

I think this one is called 4 corners.  There are two others in the assembly stage over at the machine.

So progress, it's just been slow going.  I did finally finish up all the blue sampler blocks this week. 

I'm happy with how all of these turned out.  It will be fun to mix in all the pink blocks when those get done.  

That's about all I've managed in terms of scrap sewing.  The sampler is helping be get my scraps better organized.  I had pretty much just dumped scraps into a drawer.  I've been cutting up and sorting the smaller pieces into zip lock bags by size.  The larger pieces are getting folded up and put back in the drawer neatly, sorted by color.  
No teal blocks yet.  I'm going to have to dig deep to find any much teal.   Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some time to dig out what's there. 

Check out all the cool ways you can play with scraps over at Soscrappy.  

NewFO - February 2014

February definitely flew by, it's hard to believe that the first of March is tomorrow.  I do most of my stitching during the weekends, but those were pretty full this month with things like Science Fair and volleyball tournaments.  It's hard to start a new project during the week, so I wasn't sure there would be a new project to post over at Cat Patches NewFO linky party.

The planned NewFO was supposed to be this Tonga Atlantis Kit using a pattern by Heidi Pridemore.  

But suddenly the pattern just didn't look as appealing to me as it did in July. I still love the fabrics, so a session with EQ is needed to see if an alternative develops.  

With the Tonga Atlantis project off the list, at least for now, plans for a February NewFO were pretty much off.  Then I found time one evening to reduce the stack of quilting magazines sitting by the recliner and this pretty in the December Issue of Patchwork and Quilting caught my eye.  

Poinsettias Allure designed by Judy Blok
from the December 2013 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting

It set the wheels to turning.  There are a few pieces of Hollywood and Vine by Moda in the stash that I take out and pet occasionally  but have never found just the right project to use them in.  So after a few hours playing around in EQ, I think they've found a home. 

This pattern uses templates, something I'm not very good at.  I was going to redraft the instructions, but there is just enough fabric to make the quilt according to the instructions.  So I'm going to learn how to sew with templates on this one.  Since the decision to make the quilt came so late in the month, there's not much progress to report.  I did get some of the templates made and started cutting pieces from one of the fabrics.  

Poinsettias brings the number of  projects on my WIP/UFO list to 21. As much as I enjoy starting new projects, it's time to whittle that list back down to around the 10 to 15 level.  So there probably won't be a NewFO for March.  I plan to concentrate on finishing up a few of the NewFOs that were stared in 2012 and 2013.   

Check out Cat Patches to see all the other newbie projects for February.