Holiday Vacation Stitching

A lot of last week was spent in deep cleaning mode.  The master bedroom is sparkling and there is now room in all the dresser drawers to add in all the socks and sleep clothes that was under the tree this year.  You can actually walk at least half way into the attic. That part of the house still needs more work, but at least now there is room to move.  That made it a lot easier to get all the Christmas decorations put away.  

There was some time devoted to stitching. Mainly in the evenings during the week, but I got in my typical afternoons during the weekend. The main focus was on finishing up some Allietare blocks for today's reveal linky over at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville.  I finished 2 of each block over the weekend. 

Allietare
 Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quilt

I substituted blue for the red and gray, then added back the red in place of the gold.  I like how the blocks came out.   Just 4 blocks isn't really enough to show how this is going to look when it's all together.  Since the blocks are on point, I needed to do a mock up in EQ to determine how many blocks were needed to make a reduced size version that fit the QOV size requirements.  My quilt math isn't good enough to do that based on just block size. 

Allietare
 Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quilt

It looks very different than Bonnie's, moving the red fabric highlights another block pattern.  I like it.  

That's it from me this week.  I'm linking up over at Quiltville, Patchwork Times, and Love Laugh Quilt.  Unfortunately it's back to work for me today, so I won't get a chance to see many other versions of Allietare before I have to head in.  

January - One Monthly Goal

One advantage to the extended holiday vacation this year has been having time to explore a new blogs via both end of the year linky parties and checking out the blogs of those who comment on this blog.  That's how I found Heidi of Red Letter Quilts.  Heidi has started One Monthly Goal to fill the hole left by the retirement of A Lovely Year of Finishes. 

The requirement is to select one quilt related goal and finish it by the end of the month.  It doesn't have to be a finish. That's always my problem it's rare that I can finish a quilt in a month.  Since I have 8 quilts and plans to start 7, having a monthly linky where I have to show some accountability usually helps with my motivation.  So I'm going to give it a try. 


So for January, my goal is to get McCall's Mystery ready for to send out for quilting. The center is all assembled. 

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

Now it just needs the borders pieced and attached, as well as the backing pieced before it can go out to be quilted.  So that's my one monthly goal for January.  

You can check out the rules, the giveaway and the other one montly goal posts over at Red Letter Quilts.    

First Stash Report for 2016

This is the last day of our holiday vacation.  My Guy and I go back to work tomorrow and Drama Teen goes back to school.  We've had a really good holiday.  My Guy and I got lots done this last week. We've slowed down on the deep cleaning since New Years, focusing more on our regular chores, like laundry.  I did get to spend yesterday afternoon in my sewing room.  I have two blocks of Allietare completely assembled, with several more close to being done.  I won't have my top together tomorrow, but there should be enough blocks on the design wall to show what one corner will look like.  

I usually count my fabric as out when a block is completed.  So I have my two Allietare blocks to count as out for this first stash report of 2016.  

Used last week:  0.28 yards

Used in January:  0.28 yards

Used year to date:  0.28  yards

Purchased year to date: 0 yards

Net used for 2015: 0.28 yards

Back in February and August of last year, I measured the height of my "in use" fabric.  If I'm making progress on my UFOs and WIPs it should be going down.  Between February and August it actually rose an inch as I had added fabric for a backing and started a new quilt.  It's an imperfect measure, but it's a nice visual of the amount of fabric that could go out of the stash if I'd finish up all my projects.  

The stack was at 19" back in August. 

It was at 15.25" last night. 

I've completed three quilts since August, so that must account for the reduction of almost 4".  Of course not all of that fabric went into the quilts, the left over fabrics were removed from the stack and returned to the stash closet. Still it's nice to see a bit of a reduction in anything related to the stash.  

Another of my 2016 goals is to use more fabric than I buy.  In order to use more fabric, I have to get to the sewing room.  Some days that is more of a challenge than it should be.  Having to report my progress on the blog has been a good motivator for me, most of the time.  So in addition to the stash report, I'm going to start reporting how many days I've managed to spend at least 15 minutes in the sewing room.  Here's how I've done since the start of 2016.

Days with 15 minutes of stitching this week: 2 days
Days with 15 minutes of stitching January: 2 days
Days with 15 minutes of stitching this year:  2 days

That's it for me this week.  I'm linking up with Judy's Patchwork Times for the stash report.  Now it's time for another cup of coffee and a bit of blog reading before I go start the laundry.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - A New Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project

This is my first Rainbow Scrap Challenge post since November.  I got sick right after Thanksgiving, then had Christmas preparations to manage, so there's been no progress on getting the Twinkle Stars all set together.  I hope to get back to that project as soon as I finish up the borders on the McCall's Mystery Quilt.

Enough about 2015, I'm ready to start a new project scrappy project for 2016. It's taken me a bit to decide on this year's scrap project.  I started playing around with potential scrappy blocks back in September, but just couldn't settle on anything.  We've been on vacation all week, so I finally had some time to consider all the projects pinned to my Pinterest boards and to look through all my downloaded patterns. There was one pattern I kept coming back too.  After playing around with some setting ideas, it finally became THE scrappy pattern for 2016.  

Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

I've done some paper piecing but nothing this intricate.  These Vintage Dress blocks will finish at about 7" X 10".  I've played around with a couple of 5 x 5 setting options in EQ.

This setting requires finishing about two blocks a month.  That should be doable.  Plus this pattern would work well with Angela's new addition of an accent color suggestion to this year's RSC. So I'm excited about getting out all my blue and purple scraps and starting that first block.  

I'm looking forward to checking out all the new RSC projects for 2016 over at Soscrappy.  

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!