Weekend Stitching: Back in the Sewing Room

With a little help from Drama Teen, vacation laundry got done and put away early on Sunday, leaving me the rest of the day to play in the sewing room.  The fabric closet got a little attention, it still needs a lot more.  The last Meadow Mist Mystery quilt is almost bound, there's about 30 inches left to stitch down.  So there should be a finish by the end of the week.  

Most of the visible progress is on the Christmas Angels Blocks.

  

Four of the fifteen blocks are finished, with the remaining eleven in various stage of construction.  Before we left for vacation, I couldn't resist adding in the alternate blocks and checking out the layout. 

There's not enough done on the angel blocks to see the secondary pattern in this photo, but I'm happy with how it's coming together.  It would be nice to get this UFO to the finished flimsy stage by the end of the month.  Not sure that will happen as I've got a business trip the last week of the month. Even if it's not completely done, it's nice to get one of the older UFOs this far.  

My UFO count is at 18, that's the highest it's been in 7 years.  In 2012 my UFO list only had 4 quilts on it.  I've done pretty well at finishing most of the quilts I've started the last couple of years, it's the ones that I started in 2013 that are really lingering on the list. Eight of the 18 were started in 2013.   The plan is to finish 7 UFOs this year.  Doubt I get that many to the finish line, but at least I'm making progress.     

Linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday

Stash Stuff and Slow Stitching for Week 28 of 2017

Vacation was a lot of fun, but it was nice to get home and get back into our normal routine.  I've not had a lot of time in the sewing room since we've been back, but I've managed to get a few things moving.  The cutting table was covered with stacks of fabrics while I was selecting what to use for the Magnolia Mystery quilt that starts next month over at Meadow Mist Designs.  Here's what came out of that:

There's an orange in the stash that may get subbed in for the green.  I'm still undecided about those two, either would work fine. This is going to be one bright quilt. I'm going controlled scrappy with fabric C as I don't have any yardage that is the deep red-violet. The white floral print is going to be the background.   There will be a lot of it in this quilt, Cheryl tends toward the modern end of the spectrum with her quilt designs.  I'll be interested to see how these choices work out.  

Since all the fabrics were out on the cutting table anyway, I started looking for the sashing and border fabrics to use for the Scrappy Coffee Cup blocks.  According to My Guy and Drama Teen this combo is a winner. 

This wouldn't have been my first choice, I'm a big fan of blue.  But since this is intended to be My Guy's cuddle quilt and he's a fan of green, I'm going with his choice.  My One Monthly Goal for July was to figure out the final setting for this quilt, looks like I'm actually going to start on the assembly process before we get to the end of the month.  Which is a good thing, there are 18 UFOs on my uncompleted list.  Scrappy Coffee Cups is one of the oldest.  

Also on the agenda for today is some slow stitching on the binding for the last Meadow Mist Mystery quilt.  

Two sides stitched, two to go.  Not sure I'll get it done today, but definitely sometime this week.  The goal is to get this one done before I start on this year's mystery. 

It's a good thing I'm pulling fabrics for new projects, I really need to start using rather than adding.  Yep, I'm guilty of supporting the local quilt shop again.  Here's the damage. 

Used last week:  0.33 yards
Used year to date:  39.12 yards
Added year to date:  220.30 yards
Net added year to date:  181.18 yards

I added a few fat quarter's to freshen up my red, white and blue 1930's stash. 

I've been trying to reduce the number of these fabrics, but sometimes you have to buy a little to use others up.  

Between the embroidery work I took on vacation and time spent in the sewing room since I got home, there were 7 days of stitching the last week.  That means there's been stitching time 180 out of the 196 days so far this year.  A 91.8% average.  I'll definitely take that. 

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and Quiltpaintcreate for the Stash Report. 

A Vacation Photo Essay

Disclosure:  No quilts or quilting topics are discussed in this post. I just wanted to share some of our vacation photos.  

Locations:  
  Seattle, WA
  Fidalgo Island, WA
  Vancouver, BC
  Deception Pass Park, WA

The view from the Seattle Space Needle (really!).

From the Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibition

From the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, B.C. (I have more than 100 photos from here, but I'll just share my favorite)

From the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, B.C. 

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia Exhibit, beautiful images projected on the walls

 

1980's Fighting Shield from Papua, New Guinea

Deception Pass Park

My favorite photo from the trip:

Two peas in a pod.  They had a great time with all the hiking. 

The last picture is My Guy's.  He's a very active nature photographer, with many of his photographs of the local wild life appearing in our company's calendar each year.  This is the one shot he was really hoping to get this trip.  

Nailed it didn't he?  

Have a wonderful weekend.  I'm off to go sew for bit now so there will be something quilty to talk about on the blog tomorrow.   

Weekend Stitching: A Little Handwork, A lot of Walking

Since we were on vacation all last week, there's not been a lot of time in the sewing room.  I did take some hand work along for the ride and made some good progress on that. 

I only work on this project when we are away from home, so I'm not sure when it will get finished.  At any rate it's nice to have something to stitch on in the evenings while we are winding down from vacation activities like 5 mile hikes.  

I did spend some time on my OMG for July.  The July UFO is my Scrappy Coffee Cups blocks made as part of the 2012 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  These blocks haven't been made into a quilt because I was out of the white background fabric and couldn't figure out how to set them without additional fabric.  I did a bit of playing in EQ over the last few days.  I tried a scrappy border and just didn't like it.  After playing around with borders and such, here's the most likely possibility. 

  Scrappy Coffee Cups
Block patterns from Karen F. Srebro and Janet McCarroll
published in Block Magic and Block Magic Too by Nancy Johnson-Srebro

It's not that different then what I started with, but the sashing is narrower.  Plus I've added two borders of white tone on tone.  Hopefully there is another white tone on tone in the stash that reads the same as the background fabric for the blocks.  Since it won't be right up against the blocks, it shouldn't be as noticeable that it's not the exact same fabric.  The actual color of the sashing and borders will be determined by what is in the stash.  I really like the blue borders, but My Guy likes green.  This is going to be his recliner cuddle quilt.  I'm going to stick with tone on tone fabrics for the borders no matter what color they end up being. 

On a completely unrelated note.  Twenty five years ago on July 11th, we said our I do's.  Happy anniversary My Guy!  

Looking forward to the next 25!

Linking up for:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall

Stash Stuff and Slow Stitching for Week 27 of 2017

It's been a fast week.  Not because work has been busy, but because we've been on vacation this week.  It's true, time does fly when you are having fun.  Not to rub it in, but this has been the view from where we've been staying all week.

   
After the madness of June, getting a week to kick back and have fun was a much needed battery recharge. 

Not much happening in the sewing room, but I did bring some embroidery work with me. 

I've made quite a bit of progress since the last time these butterflies made an appearance on the blog.  

No fabric usage to report this week, but I did do my bit for the local quilt shop and bought a few fun pieces to take home.

Drama Teen liked the sea creatures and I thought the stripe would make a fun binding for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts (should I ever finish one!).  There's also a set of blue fat quarters to use for this year's RSC blocks.  As much as I like blue, I don't have much in the scrappy portion of my stash, so these fat quarters will get put to good use later this month.  I also fell in love with the display version of the Gigi's Thimble pattern, it would be great for some of those big prints at home that I don't quite know what to do with.  And a quilting book to read on the plane ride home.  I was very restrained on the fabric purchases, they had some really cute fabrics.  It's a good thing space in the luggage is a limited.  

So on that note, here's the damage to the stash. 

Used last week:  0 yards
Used year to date:  38.79 yards
Added year to date:  219.05 yards
Net added year to date:  180.26 yards

I'm dreading getting back into the work groove next week.  Good thing I'll have some sewing room time to help ease the transition. 

Linking up with quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report and Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts.