Stash Report - Week 35 of 2014

It's been a rough weekend.  Drama Teen had knee surgery on Friday to repair a torn ACL.  The nerve block wore off yesterday and she's not been very comfortable since.  One of us has to stay close because she can't move very well on her own, plus there's been the 30 minute off and on ice packs to deal with.  Hopefully things will start to get better today and tomorrow.  

Since my sewing room is upstairs, I've not been able get much done there this weekend.  Though I did get Jigsaw ready to bind, I didn't get as far as actually making the binding.  Most of my "sewing" time has been spent on the computer playing with layouts for some of my UFOs.   Plus I was playing around with fabric placement for a new project I've been calling Bright Butterflies.   I bought some fabric for that project last week when we were visiting my MIL.    

Here's the layout using just what I bought.

Bright Butterflies
Modified from Bird Watching
by Wendy Sheppard
 published in July/August  2014 issue of McCall's Quilting

I think it needs more variety, so hopefully there will be time this afternoon to raid my stash for some additional fabrics.  

Here's the damage for the week:

Used last week:  0.03 yards
Added last week:  16.38 yards

Used in 2014:  18.64 yards
Added in 2014:  332.68 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  314.03 yards.  

I should be able to get some stitching in this afternoon that should help me on my way to better numbers for next week.  I'm linking up with Patchwork Times, check out all the other stash reports there.  

On the Mend

Just a quick post about Drama Teen's status.  She had surgery this morning.  

This is before surgery.  Afterwards she just looked sleepier and grumpier.  She won't need crutches after the first couple of days, which was the best case situation.   It will still be 6 months before she can go back to playing volleyball, but that's better than the original diagnosis of a year.  She's sleeping off the effects of the anesthesia at the moment.   I'm sure she'll keep us hopping the rest of the weekend.  

Thank you for all the support, good wishes and prayers.  Have a great weekend. 

Let's Book It Challenge - August Update

Hard to believe that it's almost the end of August.  It's been an eventful month in our household.  I'm hoping that September is a bit calmer.  The end of the month  means it's time to report on the status of my 2014 Let's Book it Challenge project. 

This challenge is all about utilizing those gorgeous quilting books, magazines and patterns laying around the quilting studio as they are intended, to make something.  I've been working on Poinsettias pretty much all year.  It's from the December 2013 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  

This has been my leaders and enders project for the last few months.  I'm finally starting to see some significant progress.

The quilt is made from 6 smaller blocks, today there are stacks of 5 of those blocks.  Enough pieces have been made to actually layout one of the blocks on the design wall.

 Poinsettias
By Judy Blok for the December 2013 issue
of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine

The America Patchwork version uses green, which I've replaced with the black prints.  So far, I'm happy with how it's working out.  There are still a lot of the smaller block parts to make, but I'm making progress.  

Check out Vrooman's Quilts for more Let's Book It Challenge projects.  

Wordless Wednesday - Sunny Morning Glory

Design Wall Monday - A little Progress

Traffic was horrible yesterday.  Add in the fact that the car's air conditioner couldn't really overcome the high temps, it was a miserable drive home.  We were all hot, tired and cranky when we finally did get home.  Temps are projected to be over 100 F (38 C) till next weekend.  We've gotten off easy this year with a pretty cool summer up until the last week or so.  Even so, I'm ready for it to cool down just a bit.  

Not much stitching this weekend as we spent it with family and for some reason it seems like there was a lot going on in the evenings last week.  That translates to not a lot of progress in getting Scrappy Stars sewn together. 

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

The other design wall is completely empty, which is not typical.  My Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler blocks had been up there, but I finally reached the point where there were too many blocks for all of them to fit up there.   Maybe it's time to get something new going?   I've not started anything new since February.  A quick stop was made at one of the quilt shops before we drove home yesterday and I have now have all the fabric to start Bright Butterflies. 

Modified from Bird Watching
by Wendy Sheppard
 published in July/August  2014 issue of McCall's Quilting

I'm looking forward to starting this project.  

That's it for me this week.  Check out all the other fun and cool design walls posted over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 34 of 2014

We've been hanging out with family this weekend.  My mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier this month so we are trying to spend time with her as often as possible.  She's doing really well and looks better than she has in a long while.  Drama Teen sat with her for a long while and asked her questions about her life.  It was fun to hear the stories and my MIL certainly seemed to enjoy sharing them.  So it's been a good visit.

It certainly seemed like we had a lot going on this week so I didn't spend much time in the sewing room.  Unfortunately there was time to push a few buttons on my computer.  The Fat Quarter Shop had a fabric in one of their flash sales that would make the perfect backing for Scrappy Stars.  

Durham Quilt Revival Pink Blooms

This alone would not have been so bad, but I had been lusting after Midnight by Quilting Treasures. 

Midnight by Quilting Treasures

I had to order a few yards of my two favorite fabrics from that line.  No plans for this, but I'm sure it will get used at some point. 

So here's the damage:

Used last week: 0.72 yards
Added last week:  14 yards

Used in 2014: 18.61 yards
Added in 2014: 316.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  297.69 yards

Next week won't look much better as I'm planning on buying a few pieces to go along with the Butterfly Panel that came home earlier this year.  I just don't have all the bright colors I want to use in my stash.  

See all the other stash reports over at Patchwork Times.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - The Red Star

It's amazing how the rhythm changes around here when school starts back up. This year Drama Teen definitely has more homework than she's had in the past. Some nights it's more than she can get done before bed time, we've left her up working at the dinning room table a couple of times.  And this was just the second week of school, we've been told it gets worse.  

Between volleyball commitments and chemistry tutoring, it's been hard to get into the sewing room this week.  I was pretty productive last Sunday and finished up the red Inverted Star from last month. 

 Inverted Star
by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

I'll have to figure out what color to make for this month, since I pretty much used all my green scraps when we did green earlier this year.  Probably won't decide what to replace the light green with till December when all the other blocks are done.  Same with the butterfly blocks. 

That's it for me this week.  We've got some family stuff going on this weekend, so I probably won't get much time in the sewing room.  I should make up for it next weekend since we'll have Monday off for Labor Day.  

There's more scrappy fun over at Soscrappy if you've got time for a second (third?) cup of coffee.  

Wordless Wednesday - A Different Perspective

Tuesday Archives - Fat Quarter Quilts

I've been enjoying Val's Tuesday Archives.  It's been fun to look back over the quilt's I've made trying to find one that fits the week's theme.  The process has reminded me of the stark terror that used to accompany a trip to the fabric store to pick out fabric for the next quilt class.  Looking back, I can see that maybe there was good reason to be terrified, my choices weren't always wise.  That's OK, I still love those older quilts.  

Case in point is the first quilt that ever lived on our bed.  The class instructions said to pick 24 fat quarters.  No other guidance, just pick 24 fat quarters.  I'm guessing that you could buy fat quarter bundles at the time, but I didn't know what such things were.  So I came to class with my set of fat quarters and eventually ended up with my first "scrappy" quilt.  This is as close to a "random" design as I've ever gotten.  I had to put all the block parts in different bags and make myself blindly choose the components for each block.  It was a really good learning experience.  

Spring Break
from the book Spring Cleaning published by Atkinson Designs

I love all the fabrics used in this quilt, the border print is still one of my favorites.  My Guy isn't fond of floral prints, so this quilt didn't remain on our bed for more than a couple of years before being replaced with with a T-shirt quilt he particularly liked.  

That's it for me this week.  Hop over to Val's to for more Tuesday Archives.  

Design Wall Monday - UFO Progress

It's so hard to head off to work after such a nice relaxing weekend.  Once the necessary chores were done, I was able to spend two solid afternoons in the sewing room.  In addition to sewing, there was some scrap cutting and fabric organization going on as well.  I've still got a long way to go on the organization, but doing a bit every time I'm in the sewing room is starting to make a difference.  

Last weekend my oldest UFO was moved out of it's box and back on to the design wall.  Some time was spent during the week rearranging the blocks, taking some out, putting others in till the final layout looked balanced.  The original pattern called for neutral setting triangles, but none of the fabrics used for the star backgrounds seemed to work.   After looking at how much fabric was left, I decided that the red border fabric would also work as setting triangles. 

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

I'm really happy with how it's coming together. 

That's it for my design wall this week.  See more design walls over at Judy's Patchwork Times.   

Stash Report - Week 33 of 2014

It's been a slower week, mainly because Drama Teen is back in school.  My Guy is home after two weeks in Texas.  He was not amused by the yard. Typically by this time in August, the yard has quit growing due to the heat.  But we've had more rain, as well as cooler temperatures, in July and August than is typical. 

The rain has done such nice things for the roses, but it has meant more yard work for both of us this year.  Still it's been nice to have a break from the 100 F plus weather that's normal for the first couple of weeks in August.  

Even with the nice weather and the increase in yard work, I've managed to hang out in the sewing room.  More so than I have in recent months.  Getting Jigsaw off the design wall seems to have inspired me.  Or maybe it's that Scrappy Stars is so close to being done as well, I'm more motivated?  Which ever it is, there's a bit going out this week.  Even better there is nothing in. 

Used last week  0.86 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used in 2014:  17.984 yards
Added in 2014:  302.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  284.41 yards

Not a bad week. I did have to order backing fabric for Scrappy Stars, so there will be some in next week.  It should go right back out though.  

That's it for the state of the stash.  For more on stash management, check out Patchwork Times.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Still Seeing Red

Life slowed down just a bit this week.  Drama Teen is back in school, so the madness of trying to get her to all the summer activities is over.  We are back to a much more predictable schedule.  My Guy is back from a two week business trip and will be home for about three weeks before he heads out again.  Hopefully we'll be able to maintain this reduced stress schedule until DT has her knee surgery at the end of the month.  

Not much stitching got done in July due to vacation and other summer activities, so I've been playing catch up this month with the red Rainbow Scrap Sampler blocks this month.  The last red block was finished last night. 

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

Most of my red scraps are 1930's prints and these blocks certainly reflect that.  Red isn't a color that shows up in my quilts often, so I don't have a big variety of scraps, but there were enough to make these blocks.  

I'm still cutting scraps for the red Inverted Star block.  I need 16 Scrappy Butterfly blocks to have enough for the setting that's been floating around in my head, so another green one will probably get made once the red scraps are put away.  

Check out Soscrappy for more fun projects using scraps.  

Wordless Wednesday - Sunshine on a Stick

Tuesday Archives - Favorite Quilts

It's easy to forget that I've only been blogging for about 4 years, while the quilting has been going on for about the last 13 years.   So it's not surprising that there are quilts that have never shown up on the blog.  But for some reason it always amazes me when I come across one that hasn't.  Val's Tuesday Archive theme for this week is "Favorite Quilts".  Looking back through all my finishes trying to decide on what were my favorite quilts, I came across a project from one of the first quilting classes I took.

Carpenter Star
Pattern by Debbie Maddy for Calico Carriage

Carpenter Star was probably my first experience with half square triangles, I definitely started big with those.  I had no stash in those days, so bought fabric for each project from the quilt shop in town.  That always limited my choices, but I still like this quilt even though if I were to make it now the color choices would be quite different.

There was supposed to be a class to make another of Debbie Maddy's stars.  I bought the pattern and fabric for Evening Star, but not enough people signed up for the class so it was never held. Finally in 2012, I decided the fabric had sat around long enough.  

St. Isadore's Star
from the pattern Evening Star by Debbie Maddy

I finally finished this one last May, 8 years after Carpenter's Star.  This isn't one of my favorites, but it is one of My Guy's.  He was a bit sad to see it gifted to one of Drama Teen's middle school teachers.  

It's the first day of school, so I need to get moving on making lunches and getting Drama Teen up and going.  Check out all the other fun historical posts over at Val's Tuesday Archives.  

Design Wall Monday - A Finished Flimsy and a UFO

It was another quiet weekend.  My Guy was off on a business trip and Drama Teen ended up spending most of Saturday and Sunday at a friend's house.  School starts on Tuesday, so it was their last "do nothing" weekend.  That left me with an empty house for most of the weekend.  After my household chores were done, I made a beeline for the sewing room.  I did spend some time cleaning up and running the vacuum, it desperately needed it.  Then I got busy on finishing up a couple of projects.  

The final border strip was added to Jigsaw on Saturday, so it's a finished flimsy.

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

Drama Teen loves it.  Since it's her quilt, that's all that matters.  The back has been pieced.  A good part of yesterday was spent doing a final pressing and picking off all the loose threads.  Now it's ready to go off to Trudy for quilting.  

Jigsaw has been up on my design wall for months now, so it looked very empty when I took it down.  It didn't take me long to find something else to fill up all that empty space.  

Scrappy Stars

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

Scrappy Stars is my oldest UFO (circa 2003).  The star blocks were my leaders and enders project earlier this year.  I spent yesterday cutting out the 6.5 inch alternating squares and playing in EQ to decide what I wanted to use for the setting triangles.  I need to redistribute some of the star blocks to better spread out the lighter ones.  This one shouldn't take too long to finish up as all that's needed is to cut the setting triangles and sew the rows together.  It will be nice to get this one finished and off the UFO list.  

That's it for my design wall.  You can share your's over at Judy's Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 32 of 2014

It's been a quiet weekend, which was much needed after a week of rushing around.  My Guy is off on a two week business trip, while Drama Teen spent the night over at a friend's house.  So I had the house to myself for the evening.  Enjoyable, but weird.  It's amazingly quiet when no one else is home.  

Thank you to all who sent well wishes to Drama Teen and prayers for my MIL. We've not heard anything new about my MIL's cancer.  At the moment we're thinking no news is good news.  Drama Teen fell a week ago in volleyball practice.  The MRI results that came back Friday told the very sad tale of a torn ACL.  That means surgery and no sports for up to year.  She was bummed most of Friday, but by yesterday she was researching the kind of surgeries and recovery strategies.  She wants to get the surgery scheduled so she can get on with the recovery.  

It's been a very productive week on the stitching front.  Jigsaw is a finished flimsy.  No pictures yet as it's too big to photograph on the design wall.  The backing came from the stash.

I'm pretty sure this is from Connecting Threads, but I don't remember the fabric line. Drama Teen likes it because it matches the rainbow colors on the front of the quilt.  Now all I need to do is press the front and the back so I can send it off to be quilted. 

It's a good report this week, plenty out and nothing in.

Used last week:  5.04 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used in 2014: 17.03 yards 
Added in 2014:  302.3 yard

Net stashed in 2014:  285.27 yards

Now it's time to tackle laundry and a few other household chores. But I'll still find a few minutes here and there to sneak in peaks here and there at what else is going on in the world of stash busting over at Patchwork Times.  

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Color

Design Wall Monday - More Scrappy Stitching

Thankfully, it was a quiet weekend around here.  Drama Teen was pretty much couch bound as doctors orders were to stay off her feet as much as possible.  The knee is still a bit swollen, but it doesn't hurt as badly as it did.  My Guy made it home from his family visit yesterday, but leaves again this morning for a two week business trip. My mother-in-law is now under hospice care as the cancer they discovered last Monday is in-operable.  She's feeling much better and is in good spirits, for which the entire family is very grateful.  

As I was in desperate need of a sanity break, a big chunk of Saturday was spent in my sewing room.  Though I took a lot of breaks to hang out with DT and make sure she had what she needed.  I made good progress on getting the borders on Jigsaw.  Just one more border strip to add and it will be a finished flimsy.   The scrappy butterfly block for July was finished and added to the rest up on the design wall. 

Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

It's going to be a bright quilt when it's all done.  I want 16 of these blocks for the final setting, so a few colors will be duplicated.  Not sure yet how these will be set together, but I've been playing with a few ideas in EQ.  

That's it for my design wall this week.  Hop over to Patchwork Times to see more design wall marvels.  

A Catch up Post

It's been one of those weeks.  If you want to read about the quilty stuff you can skip the rest of this paragraph and the next, if you like the drama, read on.  Two family emergencies and one rush project at work made for a pretty miserable week.  My Guy's wonderful mother was rushed to the emergency room on Monday.  They discovered a mass, which is inoperable and cancerous.  They did surgery to deal with some issues that were immediately life threatening.  She's now feeling a lot more comfortable and is in good spirits. My Guy left Friday morning to go see her.  

The plan was for Drama Teen and I to join My Guy on Saturday as she has volleyball practice and I needed to finish up a rush project at work.  That plan pretty much disintegrated when I picked DT up from volleyball practice on Friday.  DT texted that I needed to come in to talk to coach.  It wasn't the coach I had to talk to, it was the high school trainer.  DT took a bad fall during practice and over-extended her knee.  She was on crutches and hurting pretty badly.  So after an afternoon spent at the doctor's office, she has an MRI scheduled for this Thursday.  We won't know how bad the damage is to her knee until the doctor sees the results from that. She's supposed to stay off her feet and regularly ice the knee until then.  The rush project?  Well that was finally finished at about 8:30 PM on Friday.  

Here's the quilting updates that should have been written this week:

My something old this month is the same as it's been for several months, to finish up Jigsaw.  This month the blocks got finished, the rows sewn together and the borders were started.  

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

Jigsaw may actually make it to a finished flimsy in August. I've just started on the the last round of borders.  For my something new, I learned how to work with fussy cuts in EQ.  I'm still working to come up with a quilt that uses a butterfly panel I bought a couple of months ago.  Here's the latest effort. 

Modified from Bird Watching
by Wendy Sheppard
 published in July/August  2014 issue of McCall's Quilting

This layout reminds me of stained glass.  The pattern is modified from a quilt in the July issue of McCall's Quilting magazine, Bird Watching by Wendy Sheppard.  This may well end up being my something new for this month.  I will probably play some with block placement and fabric colors, but I think this quilt needs to be made.

  

July wasn't a good month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I've been playing catch up with the red blocks.  All the blocks for the Scrap Challenge Sampler are in progress, but only 4 are finished. 

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

The scrappy butterfly block is also done. 

Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

This month's color is light green.  Since I don't have a lot of greens, I used pretty much all my green scraps I had when we were working with dark green. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do for this month.  

Finally, today is stash report day.  I actually have some stash going out with nothing coming in.  

Used last week:  1.36 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used in 2014:  11.99 yards
Added in 2014:  302.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  290.31 yards 

So for the first time in a long while the net stashed actually went down!  I definitely need a few more weeks of that.  

That catches me up on posts for the week and the month.  I'm linking up with:

Lynn over at Never Too Hot To Stitch
Angela over at Soscrappy
Judy over at Patchwork Times.