Weekend Stitching - Vintage Tea Time Finish

It's been a couple of weeks since my last Monday post.  I've been working in my sewing room, but the amount of progress that was post worthy just hasn't been there lately.  It just seemed silly to write about finishing up one block.  Thankfully, I have a finish to blog about today.  

This weekend I finally got around to photographing the McCall's Mystery quilt that was finished Easter weekend.  

Vintage Tea Time (McCall's Mystery Quilt) From McCall's Quilting Magazine
Jan/Feb, April/May issues

This quilt was started in January of 2012 and was my third oldest UFO. So it's nice to have it off the UFO list.  When I saw the pattern in McCall's quilting it seemed like a great way to use up that tea pot print that had been languishing in my stash.  

Usually I have problems coming up with names for my projects, not this one.  My Guy has been referring to it as the "Old Ladies Quilt".  He's not fond of the tea pot focus fabric.  He agreed that "Vintage Tea Time" was an appropriate alternative.  

Trudy used a floral motif in yellow thread for the quilting. 

It's a bright and sunny quilt.  I really like how the blue borders frames and contains all that bright yellow.  Not sure where this quilt is going yet.  It's a bit big for a donation quilt, but hopefully I can find a some place where it will be loved and appreciated.  

Linking up with 
Making Monday
Main Crush Monday 

Weekend Stitching: Completion of One Monthly Goal for March

We had a pretty relaxed Easter weekend.  Drama Teen has one more day off of school, but My Guy and I have to go back to work this morning.  At least my big project at work is winding down, just the report writing is left.  So I'll be spending lots of time at the computer this week.  

Since we ended up staying home for Easter weekend, I was able to get in some significant time in the sewing room.  Enough time that I was able to finish stitching down the binding onto the McCall's Mystery quilt. 

I didn't finish until about 9 PM last night, so there wasn't time to get good pictures.  That probably won't happen till next weekend when I have time to do some staging.  But I was able to get  decent shot of all 4 bound corners.  This is my first finish for 2016 and the third time I've met my one monthly goal. 

Picking one goal a month has been really helpful to me.  It helps me focus on getting at least one project moved ahead.  I tend to work on multiple projects at a time, so the focus on one helps me set priorities in the sewing room when I only have a limited amount of time to stitch.  So far in 2016 that's resulted in finished top and a completed quilt.  I will definitely be picking a goal for April.  

Linking up with 
Red Letter Quilts for One Monthly Goal
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
and 
Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday

Slow Stitching and Stash Management for the 13th week of 2016

It's a rainy morning here at Life in Pieces. No Easter egg hunts for us.  Which is OK, we have no little ones to hide the eggs for anymore.  Though Drama Teen asked last night if the Easter Bunny was still going to visit her.  It's the only day we've ever let her have candy for breakfast and she's still enough of a kid to not want to give that up.

On the stitching front, Friday has been the only day this week I had any significant stitching time in the sewing room out of the last two weeks. But I made do with some hand stitching when we were in Texas.  

  
This project is my "road work" project, it goes along on most of our road trips.  I don't typically work on it at home where time in the sewing room usually wins out.  This afternoon's hand stitching will be finishing up the binding on the McCall's Mystery quilt.  There's just one side left to stitch down. I should have a finish before the end of the day.  

I did get a bit of machine stitching done this week and finished up one of the star blocks for Allietare.  Yesterday evening, I figured out how to fix the error in the second brown vintage dress block, so it's done too.  That was it for fabric usage this week. 

Used last week:  0.21 yards
Used in March:  0.86 yards
Used year to date:  16.98 yards
Purchased this week:  7 yards
Net used for 2016: 9.98 yards

This week's addition to the stash was planned.  There are 4 graduation quilts on my to do list for May 2017.  The stash didn't have the right purple fabric with enough yardage to make the Zombies in Paris quilt.  So these two purples came home with me yesterday. 

As soon as the McCall's Mystery quilt is finished up, I'll start on this quilt.  So these should start going back out soon.  One other fabric made it home, but it's also destined for one of the graduation quilts. 

I have most of the fabrics for the Math Quilt this piece is intended for.  It's probably next in line after Zombies in Paris. So this fabric should start going out before the end of the year.  I'm trying to finish a quilt before I start a new one.  I won't make any headway with the project count, but I'm at least getting some of the UFOs off my list. 

I also track the days where at least 15 minutes of stitching happens.  I count the hand embroidery as stitching so there were a few days during spring break where I got in some stitching time. 

Days with 15 minutes of stitching time this week:  5 days
This month:  18 out of 26 days
This year:  70 out of 86 days

Not bad considering there were two business trips and a family vacation this month.  

You can find more slow stitching over at Kathy's Quilts and more on stash management over at Patchwork Times.  

Mid-Month Progress Report

It's been a busy week, with not a lot of time to stitch.  That's been typical this month.  Looking at the work schedules, I knew that March was going to be lean on stitching time.  But there has been some progress on the four WIPs currently in rotation.  Though I don't have pictures of all of them.  

The McCall's Mystery Quilt is this month's "one monthly goal".  The binding has been sewn to the front and I'm working on getting the hand stitching done.  

I'm still working on the second brown Vintage Dress for last month's color.  This dress has lots of little pieces and it's taking a lot longer to assemble. I haven't picked the fabric for this month's purple and yellow dresses.  Those may not get started until April.  

I have made visible progress on Allietare.  

  Allietare , Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quilt

A few more red blocks are finished, just nine more left to make.  All the blue alternate blocks are made, they just aren't up on the design wall at the moment.

Poinsettias is moving along slowly.  Since it is my leaders and enders project, it only moves forward when everything else moves forward.  

So I'm still stitching, just not as much as I would like.  I'm hoping that April will be a much slower month at work and that I can pick up some steam with my stitching.  

I'm linking up with Kelly over at My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.  

Slow Stitching and Stash Management (Week 11 of 2016)

March has really roared in like a lion.  I'm not talking about the weather at the moment.  One of two business trips is done, though I'm still writing up the report.  Last week was Energy Days.  That's a science program for the local 5th graders.  Volunteers did demos for 900 kids over the course of 3 days.  As the organizer's spouse, I'm part of the set and take down crew.  I'm also the fill in for any slots where My Guy can't get volunteers.  I was ready for an energy transplant once we got all the demos packed and unloaded at the storage facility Thursday afternoon.  There's still one business trip on the horizon, hopefully I can get the report done for the last one before I have to head out for this one.  

I've been catching what time I can in the sewing room working on my one monthly goal for March.  The plan is to finish off the McCall's Mystery quilt.  The label is made, the binding is made and finally on Friday night the binding got stitched to the front of the quilt.  Now I'm working on slow stitching the binding to the back. 

I count the fabric used in the binding as out once it's attached to the quilt.  That's good because that's about all I have to report as outgoing this week. 

Used last week:  0.65 yards
Used in March: 0.65 yards
Used year to date:  16.77 yards
Purchased year to date:  0 yards
Net used for 2016:  16.77 yards

This year I've been trying to get into the sewing room for at least 15 minutes every day.  I did really well in January, fell off the wagon in February, but did pretty well at getting back on the stitching bandwagon this month. 

This week:  7 out of 7 days with 15 minutes of stitching
This month:  9 out of 12 days
This year: 61 out of 72 days

Hopefully I can keep up the momentum now that I've got it back. 

That's it for me this weekend.  You can find more slow stitching over at Kathy's Quilts and more stash management over at Patchwork Times.  

March One Monthly Goal

There's been no Internet at our house since last Tuesday.  Drama Teen broke the wires in the power supply cable for the router. It's taken us a week to find a solution that didn't involve buying a new router (that's another story entirely).  After finding a replacement power supply and buying the proper adapters, we were back on-line this evening.  

Internet is back just in time for me to link up with Red Letter Quilts for March's version of One Monthly Goal.  Work is going to require some travel this month, so there are some days I'm just not going to be home to stitch.  So in consideration of that, I'm needing an easy goal for the month.  The McCall's Mystery quilt was sent out for quilting last month. 

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

It came back from the being quilted last week.  The plan for March is to bind and label this quilt.  The binding is all cut and is almost assembled.  Hopefully I'll have it sewn to the quilt by the end of the week. 

You can check out other goals for March over at Red Letter Quilts.