Stitching Stuff: Week 15 of 2022

It hasn't been the best week for long stretches of stitching time, but I've managed to work in some sewing time each day this week.

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 9/9 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 91/99 days
• Success rate = 91.92%

Even a few minutes each evening means progress and helps maintain some semblance of sanity with all the other stuff going on at the moment.  My goal for stitching time this year was to find at least 15 minutes, 75% of the time. I'm doing much better than I expected. But it was April last year when my stitching time went south. Hopefully I can do better this year. 

It's been a while since the subject of stash management has shown up on the blog.  Best I can tell, the last stash report posted was way back in 2020.  Turns out I'm really lousy at stash management, I love fabric way too much. Posting my excesses on the blog didn't really stop me from indulging in new yardage whenever the fancy struck. But I've been doing better at asking, "Do I really need and will I use a given yardage?" before pushing the buttons on the computer. So my metrics for 2022 don't look so shabby. 

  

I've actually used more fabric than I've purchased for the first time in 7 years.  The 12 yard purchase was some red, yellow and purple tone on tones to refresh that part of my stash, I don't have a lot of those colors. I do have a Connecting Threads fabric order that should show up this week, but it was purchased to be the backing for the Macaron Mystery quilt, so hopefully most of it will go back out before the end of the year.  

What's been more motivating for me on the stash management front is to see how my fabric usage compares to past years. 

Last year wasn't a good year for fabric usage. I'm doing better this year, fabric out is already more than half of what it was last year and less than 1/3 of the year has passed. I've tried over the years to use the data I collect in my Excel sheet to determine what drives fabric usage. Believe it or not stitching time doesn't correlate well with fabric usage.  Even the number of quilts finished in a given year isn't a wonderful correlation. 

If I was better at data analytics maybe I could figure out the multivariate factors that drive fabric usage.  For now, I'll stop with the nerd statistics and ask you how did your stitchy week go?   

1. Julie in GA 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. Melissa G 5. karen

6. Ivani 7. Frederique 8. Andre at Quilting and Learning 9. DawnyK Week 14 10. DawnyK

11. DonnaleeQ 12. Jennifer in Indy 13. Quilting Gail

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Stitching Stuff: Week 31 of 2020

August brought cooler temps and sunny skies after a week of cooler, but humid and rainy days.  The first and second week of August are usually when we see our hottest temperatures of the summer. That could still happen, the weather here changes pretty quickly.  But we'll enjoy the cooler temps while they last.  I probably should have done some yard clean up, but I really wanted a day of stitching time. So I spent the better part of Saturday in the sewing room to top off my weekly sewing time.  I'm getting back to a more normal routine so getting in some stitching time most evenings is easier. How are you doing at finding 15 minutes or so to stitch each day?  

My week wasn't perfect.  

15 minute days/week = 6/7 days

15 minute days/July = 29/31 days

15 minute days/2020 = 189/214 days

Success rate = 88.32%

I ended up working late on Friday to finish  up some stuff and the SIT came home wanting to celebrate the end of summer semester with a girls night out.  So I didn't make it to the sewing room.  That's OK, I'm sure I made up that time with all that I got done on Saturday.  

Since it is a new month, it's also time for a stash report.  

Fabric used in July = 2.25 yards

Fabric used YTD = 31.60 yards

More fabric in than out for 2020

A pretty anemic fabric usage month.  I've been sewing a lot, but I've been working on pieced borders for Frolic and Unity and I don't count those until they get sewn on.  August should be a really good month. I'm adding borders to two quilts and should be counting the backing for at least two quilts by the end of the month.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the regular stash report.  

How you are doing at working in some stitching time each week?  

1. Chrisknits 2. Julie in GA 3. karen 4. July Bits and Bobs

5. Sherrie 6. di 7. Shasta @ High Road 8. Meloney

9. Katie Z 10. Amanda 11. Quilting Gail

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2019: The Year in Stitches

Just a few more hours left in 2019, in some parts of the world it's already 2020.  I've already posted about my stitchy goals for 2020 to go along with Quilting JetGirl's Planning Party post.  But I didn't include my 2019 accomplishments in that post.  So before the calendar turns over to 2020, here's a summary of this year's accomplishments. 

1.  Quilt Plan Progress.  The plan included 12 quilts to be finished and six new projects to be started.  

Four quilts from the plan were finished:  Inverted Star, 2018 Christmas Mystery, Christmas Angels and Vintage Dresses.  

Twinkle Stars went from a set of finished blocks to an almost finished flimsy.  

Eight new quilt projects were started:  Wild and Goosey (2019 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Quilt), Daisy Chain Mystery, Storm at Sea, Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt, Mosaic Mystery, 2019 Christmas Mystery Quilt, Winter Quilt Along, 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Frolic.  There were six new quilts listed on the original quilt plan. Two from that list ended up not happening, so actually there's only two new projects that weren't planned for in 2019. 

2.  Stitch for 15 Minutes Every Day in 2019 and host a Sunday Linky Party.  

Ended the year with 332 days of stitching time out of 365 days, for a success rate of 90.96%.  My target for the year was >90%, so just met that goal.  

Posted 52 weekly 15 Minute to Stitch linky parties.  

3. Sew from the Stash.   

Wild and  Goosey used up a lot of triangle scraps, while the Sensational Summer Scrappy quilt used up a number of 2.5 strips.  Daisy Chain and the Winter Quilt Along projects used up left over fabrics from other quilting projects.  Storm at Sea, Mosaic Mystery, and Frolic used stash fabrics.  The only quilt that used new fabrics was the 2019 Christmas Mystery.  So not bad performance on this particular goal for 2019. 

The only major fail for 2019 was finishing off projects. I would have liked to had a few more finishes, but four finishes are better than none at all. So I'll be happy with that success.  Finding time to stitch went well most of the year and using stash fabrics went pretty well too.  So I'll call 2019 a success and work harder on getting more finishes in 2020.  

Stash Management - Week 25 of 2016

Yesterday was a very long day.  Drama Teen had to be at the airport by 4 AM in order to catch her 5:10 flight to Washington, DC.  We decided to stay in Tulsa as it's about an hour drive to the airport from here and we weren't in the mood to have to be up at 2:30 AM.  It was bad enough getting up at 3:30 AM.  We didn't make the flight arrangements for this trip.  DT was fortunate enough to win a scholastic award that included this trip, so we were  at the mercy of the organizers on the flight arrangements. 

So while I did get in some stitching on Saturday, a 3 hour nap ended up taking up a lot of my stitching time.  That was a pretty significant theme this week, stuff taking up stitching time.  Tuesday was a work dinner, Thursday was spent on last minute shopping for DT's trip and and we left after work to spend the night in Tulsa.  So not a stellar report.

Days with 15 minutes of stitching time this week:  4 out of 7 days
Days in June:  13 out of 18 days
Days this year:  140 out of 170 days.

I'll make up for the lack of stitching time later this week, I'll have next Friday off. 

Even with fewer days in the sewing room the steady progress did result in the finish of a few Zombie blocks, so there is a bit going out.  

Used last week:  0.62 yards
Used year to date:  33.63 yards
Purchased year to date:  25.75 yards
Net used for 2016:  5.53 yards

Not as good as last week, but the amount going out is going up.  It may be slow, but it's been pretty steady.  

I'll close with a sign of the wet spring we've had here in Oklahoma.  

A fat and happy dragonfly.  This guy was running from the lawn mower one house over.  

Have a great Sunday.  Check out all the other stash management stories posted over at Patchwork Times.