WIPs - Catching Up

I'm finally starting to get back into a routine again. The three day weekend really helped me to get back on track in the sewing room after my week away on a business trip.    Said business trip and the project associated with it "helped" me get way behind on this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  I finally finished all of March's yellow blocks on Monday. 

These Twinkle Star blocks have been such fun to make.  After admiring the yellow blocks for a bit, I couldn't resist putting all the finished blocks up on the design wall.  

Twinkle Stars, Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

Some of the yellow stars get lost when they are added in with the other blocks.  Those may need to be redone, but I'll wait till all the blocks are done before I make a final decision on that.  Otherwise, I'm happy with how it's looking.  

April's rainbow challenge color is purple.  All the fabric is picked out for those blocks, but none are finished as yet.  I'm hoping to have those done by Saturday so I'll be all caught up and ready to work on the green blocks for May. 

Check out all the other WIPs over at  Freshly Pieced, Esther's Quilt Blog and My Quilt Infatuation. 

Wordless Wednesday - Green with Ivy

Design Wall Monday - A Bit of Stitching

It felt so good to be home and relaxed this weekend, versus driving in strange cities and running through airports like I did last weekend.  Normally I don't mind the travel, but the trip last week included a pretty grueling meeting schedule.  I'm really glad to be in the wrap up stage of this project.  

After 4 weeks of focusing on work stuff, I'm way behind on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  This month's color is purple, but I still haven't finished up the yellow blocks from last month.  However, the last two are in progress and the other 5 are up on the design wall.

Twinkle Stars  -  Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

I really like how these turned out.  I'm hoping to finish up the last 2 yellow blocks today and at least make a start on the purple stars today.

Grand Illusion is still up on the big design wall.  I made a set of blocks wrong, so had to un-sew and then re-sew a few of the smaller blocks.  So not as much progress as I would like.  

 Grand Illusion - A Bonnie Hunter Mystery

The last block for row 3 is almost finished.  I'm only making 5 rows, so just 8 more blocks to make after that one.    

My Guy and are off work today.  Not sure what his plans are for this morning, I'm planning to spend the morning in the sewing room and checking out the other links posted over at Judy's Design Wall Monday post.  

Stash Report - Week 17 of 2015

It has been almost two weeks since my last post.  Most of that time I was either getting ready for or actually on a business trip to the West Coast.  Due to scheduling conflicts, I had to stay in Seattle last weekend.  Most of the time I had to work, but I did take last Saturday afternoon off and drove out to Deception Point in Tacoma, WA.  

The weather was absolutely beautiful and I really enjoyed my walk along the waterfront.    That's Mount Rainier there in the background.  From Seattle, I flew to San Francisco, then on to Los Angeles.  After eight days on the road, I am happy to be back home.  Now I just have to write up my reports, but that won't be as intensive as all the prep work that kept me busy and out of the sewing room for much of  early April.

I got home late Wednesday, but didn't make it back to the sewing room till Friday evening.  Most of what got put together on Friday, got taken apart on Saturday, so there's not much to report in terms of fabric going out.  

Used last week:  0.09 yards
Used in April:  0.65 yards
Used year to date:  11.95 yards

My usage isn't spectacular, but I've done really well at keeping the incoming numbers to zero for the year.  So at least I'm not adding to the stash this year.  

I'm hoping to get some good stitching time in this afternoon and tomorrow.  My Guy and I are off work on Monday.  The only firm plans we have is to take Drama Teen to get her driver's license. I do hope to spend at least the morning in the sewing room.  But to do that I need to go tackle the laundry.  Even though I washed pretty much all the laundry before I left, the piles are back to being almost mountainous in stature.  How does that happen so soon?   

Have a great week.  You can check out other stash reports over at Patchwork Times.  

Wordless Wednesday - Bee Spring

Design Wall Monday - A Little Progress

It was so nice to have a weekend at home.  The piles of laundry have been temporary vanquished and there was still time left over to get in a bit of stitching. 

This year my quilting plan is to focus on fewer projects in hopes I'll make a bigger dent in my pile of 22 UFOs/WIPs.  At the moment that means I'm working on Twinkle Star blocks for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Twinkle Stars  Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

Poinsettias is my leaders and enders project. It doubles as my long term Lets Book It Challenge project.

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

My "get'er done" project is last year's Bonnie Hunter mystery project, Grand Illusion.  

Grand Illusion  A Bonnie Hunter Mystery

I'm making pretty good progress on the blocks for row 3.  I'm only making five rows of blocks, that should use up most of the pieces I've already got cut out and/or assembled into the smaller blocks.  I'm still not sure if I like this one or not.  The more blocks I make, the better I like it.  

Unfortunately, I won't get much done over the next two weeks.  I've got a project at work that will be taking a lot of time.  This weekend was my calm before the storm.   I'll be pretty scarce over the next couple of weeks.

Have a great week and keep stitching.  I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday over at Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Week 15 of 2015: Stash Report and Some Slow Stitching

It was nice to be home over the weekend with no place we have to be.  Laundry isn't quite under control yet, but the remaining piles aren't quite so menacing.  I got a bit behind when we took off to Branson, MO for Spring Break and then a week later headed back to Missouri to celebrate Easter.  I picked up a new project at work right after we got home from Spring Break that has some very tight deadlines, so there have been a number of 12 hour days in my schedule.  

All of that has conspired to limit my sewing room time pretty severely.  But I was able to get in some decent stitching time yesterday so I actually have something to report as outgoing for this week. 

Used last week:  0.28 yards
Used in April:  0.28 yards
Used year to date:  11.58 yards 

Even better, still no stash additions for 2015.  I've been ruthless about deleting all the fabric shop emails and even passed up a chance to visit my favorite quilt shop when we were in Missouri for Easter.  My family was in shock that I turned down that opportunity.  I'm really trying to make some type of dent in the stash this year.  

Though I've not had a lot of time to sew when I've been home, traveling did give me an opportunity to work on some hand stitching.  I've made some progress on my embroidered medallion quilt.  

I started this project in 2012, I'm going to need to kick it into gear if I hope to ever finish it.  

The sun is up, so I need to get back to those piles of laundry.  Too bad clothes don't wash them selves.  

An Unplanned Break

Life happens.  It's happened a lot over the last three weeks.  It's not all been crazy, hectic work schedules.  There has been some relaxing family time away from home in there as well.  But both the much needed family time and the crazy work schedule have kept me off the computer and out of the sewing room for several weeks.  I could have worked around the planned family time, but when I ended up with an unexpected project at work with a looming deadline, something had to give.  I'm still in the thick of things with the project at work, so I'll be scarce for another couple of weeks.  

I've not had much of a chance to enjoy the beautiful spring weather, but I did take a break for Easter weekend.  We visited My Guy's family and went for a lazy walk on the family farm last Saturday.  The daffodils were thick and oh so pretty.  

I do hope to catch up with a few blogs as well as spend a bit of time in the sewing room this weekend.  Hopefully that will translate into something worthy to post about next week.  Have a wonderful weekend.