Daisy Chain Mystery: Still Mystified

The second clue in the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt along over at Little Bunny Quilts was released yesterday.  

Clue two calls for more 4-patches, scrappy ones for this step. 

My tans are a bit bland.  Hopefully the bright red in clue one will keep the quilt from looking too bland. 

The first two clues look good together.  Can't wait for clue 3!  There's still time to catch up, clue 2 went to together really fast.  Hope you decide to stitch along.  

Weekend Stitching: Finally a Finish

Spring finally made an appearance this weekend.  Temperatures hit the high 60's with lots of sun.  Even better, it's spring break time so the Scientist in Training made it back to town Friday evening in time for dinner.  This is her first trip home since the start of spring semester. It's been nice to have her home, though she's spent most of Saturday crashed out on the couch and then most of Saturday evening working on homework. She'll be home all week, so we've got plans for some fun stuff.  Consequently stitching may or may not happen a few days this week. 

While the SIT was napping there was time to finally get photos of my first finish for 2019.  

 Inverted Star (Second Star to the Right)
 Inverted Star block by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads available from Blueprint 

Setting by Kate, Started January 1, 2014, Finished March 11, 2019

Inverted Star (aka Second Star to the Right) is now finished!  I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out.  The Inverted Star blocks were my 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project.  The Sawtooth Stars were stitched as part of my 2017 RSC projects.  So it took a while to get this one done, but the extra effort was definitely worth it.  

  
Trudy did a wonderful job with the quilting.  I've haven't washed this one yet, but it's going to have lots of wonderful texture once it's out of the dryer.  Here's how it looks from the back. 

The backing is an older Connecting Threads line that I ordered when it was on sale. It's as bright as the front is.  

The borders were quilted with simple loops. I didn't have enough of the white used for the Inverted Star blocks to make the borders so I had to use another white from the stash.  They match well enough that you have to look hard even when you are up close to notice that the quilt uses two different tone on tone whites.  

The label has been posted on the blog before, but just to wrap it all up, here's the rough copy.  The SIT wrote a very nice note for her writing buddy.  The quilt was intended as as college graduation present, but the SIT decided to wait till Christmas to gift this one. There's a quilt in progress for the other writing buddy in her group. That quilt is on the list to finish before the end of the year, so she'll be able to gift both quilts at the same time.  

So one finish in the books and a second one almost finished.  Not a bad start to 2019.  Linking up with Monday Making, Monday Design Wall, and Main Crush Monday.  I'll also be linking up with the First Quarter 2019 Finish Along once that is posted. 

Week 11 of 2019: Stitching and Destashing

Weekends at the end of rush around weeks are so nice.  My big work project for the year had things due this week, those got checked off the list on Friday.  My Guy spent his week overseeing the 5th grade science demos for 16 elementary schools (850 students).  I worked both the morning and afternoon sessions on Thursday, then helped with break down and clean up. The demos are a lot of fun, but it was a mental work out keeping the larger groups engaged and out of trouble during my demonstration. How the teachers handle a class of 26 kids every day is beyond me.  

With all that going on last week, it would have been easy to completely give up on finding just 15 minutes to stitch each day. 

I got home late a couple of nights due to project work and running errands for My Guy.  It would have been so easy to just collapse in the recliner each night, but knowing I have to post my success/failure on this front is usually enough motivation for me to get up to the sewing room for at least a few minutes. It was actually a decent week on that front. 

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days

15 minute days/Mar = 16/16 days

15 minute days/2019 = 72/75 days

Success rate = 96%

So definitely not a bad week, though there were a couple of nights where I just barely made my 15 minutes.  Still I was able to see progress on a couple of projects.  You can share how your stitching went this week by linking up at the bottom of the post.

The stash report doesn't look too bad this week. 

Fabric out this week = 0.71 yards

Fabric out in 2019 = 16.91 yards

More out than in for 2019

I'm doing better on using fabric this year then I did last year. So I'm happy with that.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

On a completely unrelated note, the weather is slowly starting to improve.  It's been nice enough a couple of evenings for some short walks. I took the camera with me on my first walk of the spring and found this guy hanging out down the road.  

My Guy is the birder in the family.  He's identified this bird in flight as a Red Tailed Hawk. This one is half of the pair of hawks that have taken up residence in the open fields east of our house.  It's still pretty brown so there wasn't much else to photograph.  I'm hoping to see more green and a few wild flowers start to pop up on my walks as spring finally takes hold.   

So how did you stitchy week go?  You can share how you did at finding time to move a few projects forward. 

1. Chrisknits 2. Julie in GA 3. maggie f 4. MaryR @UrbanQuilter

5. Marti 6. DesertSky Quilting 7. amanda 8. Shasta

9. Deana 10. Christina's Handicrafts

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Weekend Stitching: Stormy Outlook

It was a fast moving weekend.  It was sunny but very windy on Saturday and we got a nice taste of spring, but Sunday we were back to the chilly temps with a little less wind. We braved the cold temps on Sunday afternoon to set up the annual science demos for the 5th graders in our area.  I mentioned yesterday that My Guy was recognized at a dinner last week for his role in organizing the annual program.  He'll be busy with that this week.  I'm doing demos on Thursday and maybe Wednesday afternoon if we are still short volunteers.  So it will be a busy week.  

While Sunday was spent supporting My Guy's project, I got to spend Saturday doing something for me.  I've been wanting to take a quilt class at our local shop since they opened two years ago, but for one reason or another my schedule just never lined up with any of the offerings I was interested in.  That changed Saturday with class covering making a Storm at Sea quilt with paper piecing. I can paper piece, but I'm always looking for new tips and tricks for the sewing room. 

The email with the fabric requirements came out Wednesday, with the yardages for three different sizes.  I decided on throw size and then played around with color options in Electric Quilt.  My Guy saw one of the settings he really liked and wanted me to make it bigger so it could go on our bed.  I couldn't get the same impact with the number of blocks needed for a queen, so I added borders (including a pieced border) to get the throw sized up to a queen size.  Finally Friday night I was ready to raid the stash for the fabrics.  Here's the final fabric pull.

The white is the background, with the other colors being worked into the blocks so that the colors move across the quilt in bands, like little rivers is what My Guy said.  I managed to get all but the diamond blocks made for both the upper left and lower right corners.  

Storm at Sea, from class taught by Carrie Randall (Quilter's Hideaway)

The set of blocks that are predominately light blue are in the works at the sewing machine. I made some progress on those before we headed out for set up yesterday.  The colors are so bright and look so crisp with the white.  I can't wait to see how the other blocks work out.  

I so did not need another project!  The class was a lot of fun and I'm not sorry about signing up for it. But Storm at Sea is my third new project for 2019. At this rate, I'll never get my PhD.  

I'm not doing so hot on the finishes as yet.  Inverted Star should show up on the finished list by next weekend. I've got just about 20 inches of binding left to stitch down.  

That was my weekend stitching.  You can see more works in progress at these linky parties:  Monday Design Wall, Main Crush Monday and Monday Making.   

Week 10 of 2019: Stitching and De-Stashing

It's been a busy week with not a lot of time to sew in the evenings.  There were a few days where stitching in the morning was the only way to fit in my 15 minutes for the day. 

Gym time, Ash Wednesday and an award dinner took up a lot of my evenings this week.  My Guy won an award for the work he does as the committee chair of a science program for 5 graders in the area and was also nominated for an award for one of his technical projects at work.  Even with the extracurricular activities, it was still a good week on finding time to stitch.

15 minutes days/week = 7/7 days
15 minutes days/Mar = 9/9 days
15 minutes days/2019 = 65/68 days
Success rate = 95.59%

I'm actually doing better at finding time to stitch everyday then I did last year and last year was good.  Projects are moving along, though there are no finishes yet.  Probably because some days it really is only 15 minutes. You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how your stitching week went. 

The stash report looks a bit anemic this week compared to what it has been. 

Fabric out this week = 0.67 yards
Fabric out in 2019 = 16.20 yards
More out than in for 2019

Nothing in, so that helps with the stash reduction part of the equation.  If I can end the year with more out then in, I'll have achieved my goals. Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

So how did your stitchy week go? 

1. Chrisknits 2. Meloney F 3. Julie in GA 4. Mary-Kay

5. Marti 6. di 7. Shasta 8. maggie f

9. Deana 10. Amanda

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