Sewing Room Successes for 2015

Hard to believe it's already the new year.  I spent the last hours of the old year playing in my sewing room before I was summoned downstairs to participate in the champagne toast and a good luck kiss at midnight.  It was a very good way to end the old year and start the new.  After that, I was ready for bed.

I spent a bit of time yesterday finishing off and archiving my 2015 quilting spreadsheet, then setting up the new one for 2016.  My spreadsheet is my quilting record for the year. I tried to use a journal last year so I would have a non-electronic record, but it only lasted about 4 months before I lost interest in keeping it up.  Paper just doesn't work for me, while I've been really successful in keeping a spreadsheet since 2010.  At any rate here's what my 2015 spreadsheet had recorded for 2015. 

Four finishes.

Flame Test (2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler)
Pattern by Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy
Started January 2014, Finished  May 2015

Grand Illusion
The 2014 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt
Started November 2014, Finished September 2015

  

Experiments in Paisley (Layer Cake Quilt Along)
Pattern by Konda Lukau of  Moose on the Porch Quilts
Started November 2010, Finished November 2015

Lily Pond (Back to Square One)
Pattern by Judy Laquidara of Patchwork Times
Started June 2013, Finished December 2015

Of the four quilts only Lily Pond is destined for a new home.  It's a gift for the family that hosted Drama Teen's writing workshop last summer.  I haven't had a chance to get photos of the finished quilt, so I had to make do with the photo of the finished flimsy for this post. Three of the four were on the UFO list by the time they were finished.  Grand Illusion was a WIP at the time it was finished.  I ended 2015 with 17 UFOs, up one from 2014. 

It was a good year on the stash management front. I managed to stay on my fabric diet for the year and only added about 30 yards to the stash in 2015, while using 45 yards.  So for the first time in the six years of stash tracking, I ended the year in the black.  I'm really happy with that accomplishment for 2015.  

It may seem silly, but I also track the number of days where at least 15 minutes gets spent in the sewing room.  As I said it seems a bit silly, but it reminds me to get off the computer and get up out of the recliner to go sew.  With a full time job, an active teenager, and a spouse that travels a lot it can be hard at the end of the day to convince myself I have enough energy to sew.  My worst year ever was 2014, where I only made it to the sewing room 191 days out of 365.  I managed 213 days this year.  So 2015 wasn't my best effort, but it was better than 2014.  

So 2015 was a pretty good year.  I'm going to have to do better on all fronts if I want to achieve my 2016 quilt plan.  Wish me luck, I'm going to need it!

Weekend Stitching - Salvaging an Ugly Quilt

It was a busy weekend.  Since we have family coming for the Thanksgiving holiday, we did a lot of deep cleaning yesterday.  All three of us are off work/school this week, so we'll be back at that today.  By mid afternoon yesterday we were all pretty worn out and decided it to give ourselves a break, so I did get in a nice afternoon of stitching.  

First up, all the snowball blocks for the McCall's Mystery Quilt are now done and up on the design wall.  

McCall's Mystery Quilt, From McCall's Quilting Magazine
Jan/Feb, April/May, June/July 2012 issues

The next step in the mystery is assembly into a flimsy.  I've got all the blocks laid out on the design wall.  No pictures because my camera decided to flake out when I tried to take one.  I might just get this flimsy finished before Christmas.  

The binding was finished on the Layer Cake Quilt Along project (aka Experiments in Paisley) last weekend, but I didn't get pictures till yesterday.  

Moose on the Porch Layer Cake Quilt Along by Konda Luckau
(Experiments in Paisley)  

Sometimes experiments in the lab don't come out as you'd like, but you still learn something from the process.  That's the case with this quilt.  I've never been thrilled with how this one turned out.  The rules of the quilt along were to use very minimal background fabric and use just the layer cakes.  I wished I'd broken that rule, the blocks might have come out better. The real problem I think is that there were two colorways in the layer cake and I don't think they play real well with each other.  

In finishing up this quilt, I made it a goal to use up the the rest of the layer cake.  I did that on the back. 

The back also used up a brown black tone on tone fabric that I'd had problems finding a use for.  It works great with these fabrics.  Truth be told, I like the back much better than I do the front.  This quilt will probably end up in one of the vehicles over the winter. It does get cold enough and icy enough here that it's not a bad idea to keep extra clothes or a blanket in the car during the winter months. So this will be a great utility quilt.  With my luck this will be the only one of my quilts to survive into the next century.  I hate to think what some historian would make of this one.  

That's it for me this week.  There's more stitching stuff to see over at: 

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Monday Design Wall at Patchwork Times
Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts
Design Board Monday at Bits'n Bobs

The Stash Report and Some Slow Stitching

It's been a low key weekend so far. This is day three of my four day celebratory weekend for finishing off my big work project this year.   My Guy has proposed that we go photograph the fall foliage as it's not likely to last long now that we've had our first freeze.  So once the sun is up, we'll probably head out with the cameras for a bit.

Spending day one and two of my four day weekend in the sewing room really boosted this week's stash report.  

Used last week:  1.16 yards
Used in November:  1.16 yards
Used year to date:  39.95 yards
Purchased year to date:  24.25 yards
Net used for 2015:  15.17 yards

Fabric going out should increase for a bit as I've finished all the block parts for Poinsettias and am now making the blocks.  I'll count that fabric as out as I finish each block and sashing piece.  Plus November's Midnight Mystery clue has us assembling the pieces into strips, so that fabric will be counted as each strip is finished.  Added to the mix are the 11.5 x 11.5 snow ball blocks for the next UFO on my list, the McCall's Mystery quilt from 2012.  

Part of the yardage out this week was the binding for the Layer Cake Quilt Along project. I've been taking a few minutes each day to work on hand stitching the binding to the back. 

  
I'm just about ready to finish off corner number two.  I doubt I finish stitching it all down today, but hopefully it will be done by the end of Monday. 

It's getting lighter out, so I need to go get some warm clothes on so we can catch the first light on some of the more brilliantly colored trees and maybe catch a bit of frost as well.  

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and with Patchwork Times for this week's stash report.