Weekend Stitching: Filling in the Blanks

Monday's always come before I'm ready to let go of the weekend.  It will likely be another crazy week at work.  There was enough stitching time this weekend to level out the insanity from last week, so I'm starting with a clean slate this morning.  I'm sure it will be full by quitting time tonight and I'll need my 15 minutes in the sewing room to start erasing this week's stresses.  

Progress was made on the Twinkle Star quilt, four of the 18 blocks needed to expand the size have been completed.  

 Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

There are 33 pieces in each block.  So it takes a bit of chain piecing to finish a 6.5" block.  There is a whole set at the machine in various states of completion.  These four have already been used to fill in a some of the holes in the new layout. 

The pile at the sewing machine includes the one missing purple, one missing orange, two missing teal and just one of the missing blue stars.  The fabrics for another seven blue stars has been selected, it's just not been cut into pieces yet. I'm not going to get all the missing blocks made before the end of August, but hopefully I can finish them off next weekend. Then they'll go back into the project box and hopefully will get sewn into a finished quilt next year.  As much as I'd like to finish this one this year, there are two projects that need to be done by Christmas.  So this one will go back into the UFO pile for a bit.   

Linking up with:
Monday Making

Week 34 of 2018: Stitching and Destashing

Can you believe it's the last week of August?  Labor Day is just around the corner.  It always feels like time speeds up from this point in the year, before we know it the holidays are here and then it's just a hop, skip and a jump to the end of the year.  I'm doing my best to ignore that feeling and just focus on getting in my 15 minutes of stitching each day. 

Work is still a bit crazed, but it was easier to find time to stitch this week. 

15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days
15 minutes stitching days/August = 18/25 days
15 minutes stitching days/2018 = 220/237 days
Success rate = 92.83%

So it was a good week on the stitching front.  Last Sunday, I did manage to fit in a nothing but sewing day and that felt so good.  Too much going on for that today, but I should still get in a good afternoon of stitching.  Hope you were able to meet your weekly goals for stitching time, Mr. Linky is waiting at the end of the post if you want to share your successes. 

On the stash front, no fabric in this week and a little going out. 

Fabric used this week:  0.45 yards
Fabric used in 2018:  29.74 yards
More fabric in than out for 2018

If I can manage to get borders on three quilts in the next couple of months, I'll need backs.  Hopefully when I get to that point, the stash report will see a nice jump in fabric out. Till then, it's just a bit here and there as I finish making blocks.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

The weather has been rainy and cool the last week, which has made for some nice walking weather.  I'm not sure what this white flower is, but it was all over the local walking paths this week. 

Happy stitching this week.  Link up below to share how you've been doing on finding time to stitch.  

1. Julie in GA 2. Pack Rat With a Plan

3. Meloney 4. Patricia

5. Christina's Handicrafts

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Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Orange is a Wrap

I am ready for a weekend, it was a really long week.  I need to catch up on a few work things, but I'll wait for tomorrow for that. My brain needs a bit of a rest from budgets and emails. 

I got an early start on my mental health treatments for the weekend by heading to my sewing room right after dinner.  I wanted to finish off the orange Squared Away blocks as this is the last weekend in August. 

 Squared Away Sampler
designed by Mari (The Academic Quilter) and Angela (Soscrappy)

My paler oranges aren't as bright as I usually go.  I'm hoping these will look OK with all the other blocks.  

Twinkle Stars is up on the design wall at the moment, so there's not really any place to lay out all the Squared Away blocks.  I'll put them all up when Twinkle Stars comes down next month.  I've been wondering about how I'm going to set all these, so I did a bit of mucking about in EQ8.  This is my lead contender at the moment. 

 Squared Away Sampler
designed by Mari (The Academic Quilter) and Angela (Soscrappy)

I definitely like the on point setting, though it will need two more blocks than the plan, but I'm OK picking a couple of blocks and making two more.  I like the idea of a pastel for the sashing and the setting triangles.  Not sure it will be teal, it depends on what's in the stash.  At least I've got a good starting spot.  I usually end up stalling on finding a setting and my RSC blocks end up hanging about in UFO-land for several years.  I'm trying to not let that happen this year.    
Linking up with Soscrappy for this week's Rainbow Scrap Challenge and on Sunday with Quilting is More Fun than Housework's Oh Scrap.  

Weekend Stitching: Invisible Progress

It was nice to have a weekend at home for a change and even better to have some time to recharge after a busy week.  My plan was to have a nothing but stitching day on Sunday.  Other than the dash to  church in the pouring rain and an afternoon coffee break to hang with My Guy for a bit, it pretty much was a NBS day.  

The rub is that all the sewing hasn't yet made an impact on the state of the design wall, but you can tell there was a lot of progress based on what's pinned and waiting to be stitched at the sewing machine.

That's the beginnings of 6 Twinkle Star blocks, this month's one monthly goal.  After making the decision to not sash the quilt, it needs 18 more blocks to be large enough for the intended recipient. To decide what colors to use in the blocks, I played around with the layout on the design wall. 

Twinkle Stars, Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

The Scientist in Training wanted it laid out with the colors grouped.  So after playing around a bit, this is what I decided on.  So I need 3 more red, 2 purple, 10 more blue, 2 more teal and 1 more orange.  I'll get serious about where each block goes once all the blocks are finished.  I'm hoping to have all new blocks finished this month.  Then this project will probably go back into it's project box till next year.  

There was a bit of progress on the Inverted Star project too.  The first round of white borders are on, but since Twinkle Stars is up on the design wall, I don't have any pictures of that.  The gray sawtooth stars for the next border are all finished. 

All that's left is the 5 brown stars and 3 or 4 more various color stars to have enough for the next border.  My plan is to lay out the blocks for the border and then decide what additional colors are needed to fill in.  I'm really hoping to get this project done by October so it can go to Trudy for quilting as it needs to be finished by Christmas.  

Linking up with the usual Monday linky parties.
Making Monday
Design Wall Monday

Week 33 of Stitching and Stashing for 2018

It's been a pretty strange August on the weather front.  We've had rain off and on all week, with 100% chance of rain today. Typically the first half of August is 100+ temps and so dry that the landscape is brown.  Not true this year.  Since it's going to be so yucky outside the plan is a NBS day (per Barbara of Cat Patches that's short for a Nothing But Sewing day).  August hasn't been a stellar month for finding stitching time each day, but at least this week was better than last week.  It helped this week that I have some slow stitching to work on. 

After a couple of 15 minute sessions this week, I've only managed to turn one corner of the Magnolia Mystery Quilt.  I'm hoping to get in some more stitches on that today.  You can check out who else is working on hand stitching over at Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts. 

Between work and sinus headaches, time and energy were in short supply this week.  It's week's like this that finding the motivation is such a challenge, but I'm always glad to see the progress when I succeed in finding my way to the sewing room.   

15 minutes stitching days/week = 6/7 days
15 minutes stitching days/August = 11/18 days
15 minutes stitching days/2018 = 213/230 days
Success rate = 92.61 days

How did your efforts go at finding time to stitch this week?  You can link up and share at the bottom of the post.  

The stash report is a mix of the good and the bad.  My resistance broke this week and I ended up adding quite a bit of fabric.  The local quilt shop had a 35% off end of bolt sale.  Combine that fabric with the Connecting Threads' order that came in this week and I ended up almost doubling the incoming numbers. It's at this point that reporting my failure to maintain a fabric diet demotivates me from tracking the stash, so from here on out, I'm just focusing on what I used.  

Fabric used this week:  0.61 yards
Fabric used in 2018: 29.29
More fabric in than out for 2018 

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Here's Mr. Linky if you want to share how motivated you were on the stitching front this week. 

1. CathieJ 2. maggie f 3. Pack Rat With a Plan 4. Julie in GA

5. Mary-Kay 6. Shasta 7. Aileen 8. Deana

9. Patricia 10. Christina's Handicrafts

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Weekend Stitching: Where Was I?

Last week was busy. Between work stuff and family stuff there just wasn't much time for stitching.  After spending the previous weekend moving the Scientist in Training out of her summer school digs, this weekend was spent moving her into her new digs for this school year. 

This year she opted for an on-campus four bedroom apartment shared with three of her friends.  Her bedroom is a nice size, a great improvement over the closet she lived in over the summer.  They have a nice sized living/dining room, but the kitchen is pretty tiny.  Only two of them have moved in so far (both have on campus jobs, so had to move in early). The last two will not move in till Wednesday.  Moving in early was nice, we missed all the madness of no parking places, crazy busy traffic and packed resturants.  

When we got home late Sunday afternoon, I wandered into the sewing room.  I hadn't really been in there since the previous Sunday.  So where was I?  This is what was laying by the sewing machine. 

The gray pieces are Sawtooth Stars for the Inverted Star border.  The orange strips and HSTs are the beginnings of this month's Squared Away blocks.  The red and black almost 9 patches are the centers for the On Ringo Lake blocks (the current leader and enders project).  The wider white strips are for the first border around the Inverted Star Blocks.  Before I left the sewing room all the various pieces are were pinned and are ready for a good sit down session at the machine.  

Since Twinkle Stars is this month's One Monthly Goal and it's almost the middle of the month, it was time to get those blocks out and back up on the design wall to figure out what's next.  I had planned to sash these blocks, but both My Guy and the SIT liked it better without sashing. Plus the SIT wanted to see how the blocks looked laid out in rainbow order.  So I gave that a try and ended up with this. 

Twinkle Stars, Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

This works out nicely.  The only problem is that without the sashing the quilt is a bit small for the intended purpose.  So the plan is to add another row and column of blocks.  So I need another 17 blocks before setting this one together.  The Twinkle Stars is another college graduation quilt, but I've got a couple of years before it needs to be finished.  Plenty of time (famous last words).  

That's it for me this week.  Linking up with the usual Monday morning linky parties. 

Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Monday Design Wall

Week 32 of Stitching and Destashing

It's been one of those weeks.  It's not all been bad, but there's been a lot going on that's kept me out of the sewing room this week. It wasn't a complete bust on finding 15 minutes to stitch, but it was close.  

Here's how my stitching week went.  

15 minutes stitching days/week = 3/7 days
15 minutes stitching days/August = 5/11 days
15 minutes stitching days 2018 =  207/223 days
Success rate = 92.83%

I've still got an "A" for the year, my goal was to manage 90%, so that's still on track at least.  You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how your stitching week went. I hope yours was better than mine. 

The stash report isn't quite so bad as I did get in quite a bit of sewing time last Sunday.  

Fabric used this week:  0.44 yards
Fabric used in 2018:  28.68 yards
Fabric purchased in 2018:  64.41 yards
Net fabric in for 2018:  35.73 yards  

So at least there wasn't anything new in this week.  Though I need to stay away from Connecting Threads, their Christmas fabric took over my brain one day last week and there's some on order.  There are just some fabrics that are sneaky like that.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the stash report. 

Not only was I AWOL from the sewing room, there wasn't much computer time last week, so I'm behind on reading last week's linky party blogs.  I'll get to that this morning (I hope).  Have a great stitchy week!

1. Julie in GA 2. Meloney 3. Shasta

4. Aileen 5. Patricia 6. Deana

7. Christina's Handicrafts

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Weekend Stitching: Best Laid Plans and Such

It was a busy weekend.  The Scientist in Training is home for a week. We moved her out of the dorm on Friday, but she can't move into her new on campus apartment till next Saturday. Thankfully, one of her roommates was allowed to move in two weeks ago because she works on campus (Why the SIT can't move in as well is beyond me).  We were at least able to leave some of the bigger items (like her bookcase) in the common area of the apartment, so we didn't have to drag all of it home and then drag it back. Then Saturday was back to school shopping (and tax free weekend as well).  So I didn't get much stitching time till Sunday afternoon.  

The One Monthly Goal for August was to get the Twinkle Star blocks up on the design wall to establish the final layout and to get all the sashing strips cut. I was showing My Guy and the SIT my plans for the quilt, neither liked the EQ version with the sashing, both liked it much better without. Then, the SIT asked me if the quilt was going to be big enough for her friend's bed (Twinkle Stars is another college graduation gift).  It's not. So could I make more blocks?  Yes. Let's do that.  So now the plan is to put all the blocks up on the design wall and decide what colors to add. I mistakenly thought this quilt was ready for assembly.  Thankfully, this friend isn't graduating for a couple of years.  

So what did get done this weekend?  The binding is sewn on to the front of the Magnolia Mystery quilt.

So I'll have some hand stitching to do the next week or so. That's good as I'll be struggling to find my 15 minutes each night to sew.  Handwork is much easier to squeeze in. 

The Inverted Star blocks are all stitched together. 

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

The strips for the first border have been cut, next step is to get them sewn on.  Inverted Star needs to be finished this year. It's a college graduation gift that needs to be done by December.  

In addition to getting the center all sewn together, the black sawtooth stars for the border are also finished.

The gray stars are in various stages of assembly at the sewing machine and I've just started cutting the pieces for the brown stars.  So this project is still moving right along.  

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

Week 31 of 2018: Stitching and Stashing

It was a busy, busy week in a lot of ways.  Finding time to stitch, even just 15 minutes, was a challenge. 

My week got gobbled up with a special evening meeting, project deadlines and moving the scientist in training out of the dorm after summer school.  So it was a really busy week and my stitching report shows it. 

     15 minute stitching days/week = 5/7 days
     15 minutes stitching days/July = 31/31 days
     15 minutes stitching days/August = 2/4 days
     15 minutes stitching days 2018 = 204/216 days
     Success rate = 94.44%

It wasn't a horrible week, just not a great week. The days I did find time to stitch, it really was just 15 minutes.  Some weeks are just going to be that way.  July was a really good month, but August will probably see a lot less sewing room time.  We've got some family time planned for one weekend this month.  On the work front, a new project was approved.  This one has a very tight timeline, so I expect some late work nights this month.  You can link up at the bottom of the post if you want to share how you managed to find stitching time this week.  

The stash report mirrors the stitching time, it really wasn't one of my better weeks. 

     Fabric used this week:  0.28 yards
     Fabric used in July:  3.27 yards
     Fabric used in 2018:  28.24 yards
     Fabric purchased in 2018:  64.41 yards
     Net fabric in for 2018: 36.17 yards 

At least there's a bit going out for the week and with nothing coming in.  I'm linking up Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

I hope your stitching week was much more relaxed and productive. You can link up here to share how well you did on finding time to stitch last week.  

1. Pack Rat With a Plan 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA

4. Meloney 5. Patricia 6. Aileen

7. Christina's Handicrafts 8. Deana 9. Deana

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One Monthly Goal for August 2018

It's been a busy week without a lot of stitching, which unfortunately is going to the theme for August.  A new project was approved at work on Friday with a very aggressive timeline.  Add in the family time already scheduled for a couple of weekends, sewing time is going to be in short supply this month.  That makes it a challenge to pick August's One Monthly Goal. 

My 2018 quilt plan says that the Twinkle Star quilt is the project for August. 

Twinkle Stars
Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

Twinkle Stars was my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project for 2015.  I finished the final 4 blocks last year, but I apparently never put the blocks back up on the design wall so I could photograph the whole set of 72.  The plan is to set these together with a 1" sashing and corner stones.  That's a lot of sashing to cut and stitch. With the sewing time restrictions this month, getting this to the finished flimsy stage is not happening.  So my goal for August is to figure out the final block postions and cut the sashing strips so it's ready for assembly the next time this project comes up in the rotation. That should be doable.  The point is to move the project along.  Thankfully the deadline for this quilt isn't till graduation season next year.  

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts for the August One Monthly Goal.