Design Wall Monday - More Borders

I'm not ready for it to be Monday. The weekend was so nice, it's hard to gear back up for the chaos of the work week.  We didn't do much, which was pretty much what we had all decided the weekend should be before it got here. 

It certainly seems like not much got done even though I was in the sewing room most of Sunday.  However, most of that time was spent at the cutting table not the sewing machine.  That will pay off this week, but for now there's not much to show off.  The third border for Scrappy Stars has been completed. 

Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

The first side of the fourth border is cut and pinned to the quilt.  I should at least get both vertical sides of that border on tonight.  

I've been calling this quilt Scrappy Stars for years, but that's not the name I want to put on the label. This quilt is intended for my mom, so I'd like to name it something a bit more elegant.  Any suggestions?  

That's it for me this week.  Check out all the other design walls over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 40 of 2014

Not much going on this weekend.  Drama Teen wants to go to a pancake breakfast this morning, so we'll head that direction in just a bit.  Other than that, nothing else is on the agenda for today.  So hopefully I can spend some quality time in the sewing room. 

The leaves are just starting to put on their fall colors here.

They will be in their full glory in another couple of weeks.  There are enough patches of color to promote the hope that it will be a pretty fall, not one where the leaves turn brown and just fall off.  Maybe by next weekend there will be enough color for some fun photography walks.  

Back to the sewing stuff.  I've been sticking with my goal of spending at least 15 minutes in the sewing room each day.  I had hoped to spend all yesterday afternoon stitching, but my sinuses had other ideas.  Instead I spent most of the afternoon felling feverish and too uncomfortable to stitch much.  I felt a bit better yesterday evening and managed an hour or so in the sewing room.  Still there's not a lot to show going out for this week.

Used last week:  0.94 yards
Used in October:  0.66 yards
Used year to date:  21.43 yards

To make my goal of using 40 yards by the end of the year, I need to use about 6 yards per month or about 1.5 yards per week.  That sounds doable.  

That's it for my stash report this week.  Check out Patchwork Times for more stash reports.  

Something Old, Something New: UFOs and Scrap Management

Somehow I completely missed the Something Old, Something New post for September.   

Thinking back that would have been posted sometime the weekend Drama Teen had ACL surgery and we had the roof damage that caused water to leak into the sewing room.  Now I know why there wasn't a post for September.  There probably wasn't much to report anyway, so I'll just proceed on to where things are now.  

In terms of something old, Jigsaw finally became a finished quilt.  

  
Drama Teen has slept with it every night since it's been finished. She obviously loves it.  

Since Jigsaw is all finished up, I pulled out the box holding my oldest UFO and started putting it together.  All the star blocks were finished I just had to cut the alternating blocks and decide on a layout.  It looked like this back in August.

As of tonight, it only needs two more borders added before it will be a finished flimsy.

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

This quilt is intended for my Mother's bed, so it needs to be queen sized.  Hopefully this one will be sent off to be quilted before the end of the month, but at the moment it's my something old for October.  

I had to really think about the something new for September.  I'm still wrestling with getting my stash organized, that includes my scraps.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler quilt has really helped me understand how to make good use of strips that are already cut, so I'm trying to get all the odds and ends into either squares or strips.  My sewing time has been pretty limited and it's not fun to just stand and cut up scraps, but I think I came up with a workable system to "cut as I go".  I've been using this blue bin to hold the color scraps I'm working with. 

  
At the back of the bin are some plastic bags that I've labeled with the various strip sizes.  

These bags serve two purposes.  At the beginning of the month, I go through my already cut strips and pull out the color I'm working with that month.  As I cut up any odd sized shapes, I sort the newly cut scraps back into these bags.  At the end of the month the strips go back into the the general strip storage, when I pull out the next month's scraps.  This keeps all the action at my cutting table and I'm not running back and forth to my scrap storage putting up or looking for scraps. Plus I know what sizes I have available.  I did a pretty good job of getting most of the orange scraps cut up and stored without it seeming like I spent a lot of extra time cutting and organizing.  

That's my update for last month.  You can see more old and new projects over at Never Too Hot to Stitch.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - From Orange to Brown, it's Definitely Fall

Everyone at my house was ready for a weekend.  I asked Drama Teen what she wanted to do this weekend, the response was "absolutely nothing".  Since this weekend is homecoming, the teachers took pity and didn't assign much homework.  After 4 weeks of playing catch up due to her surgery, this is the first weekend in a month that she won't be spending the better part of Sunday on homework.  

We are only three days into the month, but I've managed to get 15 minutes in the sewing room each day so far.  That's my goal for the quarter, to spend at least 15 minutes in the sewing room every day for the rest of the year.  

All of the last month's orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler are finished.  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm still working on all the half square triangles needed for September's Inverted Star block.

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

This one should be finished by the end of the weekend and the brown one for October started. 

All the brown fabrics have been gathered up; now to decide which ones go into this month's butterfly block.

I'm looking forward to a weekend of fun stitching.  Hope you are too.  For more scrappy fun check out all the links over at Soscrappy.  

Year End Action Plan - Stitch!

Today starts the last full quarter of 2014.  At work that means looking at this year's goals and finishing up any outstanding project work prior to the end of the year.   If I do the same with my quilting goals, it's a bit depressing.

• Finish 10 UFOs/WIPs - Finished 2 quilts
• Start 8 new quilts - Started 3 quilts, only one of which was on my bucket list
• Increase stash by only 100 yards - so over this one it's not funny
• Use 75 yards of fabric - Used just a little over 20 yards.  

I'm not going to meet any of these goals, but maybe I can not meet them by just a little less if I change my focus.  I'm pretty sure I can finish at least one more quilt this year, maybe 2.  Since I've got 20 in progress projects (UFOs/WIPs), starting new projects isn't a priority, so I may let that goal slide.  My only option on the stash management goals is to use more fabric.  Using 50 yards between now and the end of the year is probably not going to happen, even 40 yards would be ambitious.  

My plan for the next three months is to find just 15 minutes each day to spend in my sewing room. That may not sound like much stitching time but you can really make a lot of progress if you consistently spend at least that much time every day working on projects.  I've learned that the best way for me to stick to that plan is to report on how well I stuck to the plan.  So I'll be posting my progress on the 1st and 16th of each month.  Several blogger buddies are going to join in, so I'll be posting a linky party on the blog so we can encourage each other.  I even made a button.  

Hopefully getting back into the habit of spending at least 15 minutes a day in the sewing room will wake up my quilty mojo.