Weekend Stitching: A Finished Mystery

I'm definitely not ready for Monday, mainly because I'm headed out of town on business later this afternoon.  It's only a two day trip, but covers two states in those two days.  So lots of meetings, driving and waiting in airports.  Thankfully, I'm done with business travel for the year after this trip.  

It was a nice weekend for stitching, it was too hot to do much of anything else.  I finally finished binding the Meadow Misty Mystery quilt.  

 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery
By Cheryl Brickey of the Meadow Mist Designs Blog

I love the crinkly texture the quilting adds. 

Trudy quilted big lazy flowers across the entire quilt.  I'm not going to show off the backing.  It's one of my "ugly" fabrics, but it was in the stash and was the right size.  The binding is the same light blue as the outer border.  I did have a bit of fun with the label.

The "It's a Mystery" name comes from My Guy's repeated questions about this quilt, it's not one of his favorites.  My pat answer to him about anything concerning this quilt pretty much became "it's a mystery".  So the name stuck.  Drama Teen asked if I was willing to donate this one to a charity auction her BFF mother's is in charge of.  That's likely where this one is going.  

This is finish number 5 for 2017.  It doesn't affect my UFO count because it's less than a year old.  That makes it a WIP.  But finishing WIPs before they become UFOs is a good thing.  The next mystery over at Meadow Mist Designs has started, but this month's clue was about selecting fabric.  I don't count something as "started" until I start cutting the fabric.  So last year's mystery is finished before this year's gets started.  That's always a good feeling.

It's a Mystery is the first finish from my third quarter list for the 2017 Finish Along.  So I'll be linking up there once we get to September.  Linking up this week with:

Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Monday Design Wall
2017 Finish Along

Stash Stuff for Week 29 of 2017

Hot, humid and just generally miserable.  This week's weather has been all three. It's been too hot to do much outside, temps hit 100 F this week.  The only wandering around outside I've done lately when the sun was up has been to snap a few shots of this year's sunflowers.  

Hanging out in the sewing room with the air conditioning has been much more comfortable.  This week it wasn't hard to find time to stitch 6 out of the last 7 days.  We were in Tulsa Friday afternoon and evening taking care of some of the to do items that needed to get checked off Drama Teen's "need for college list".  We got back  home pretty late and being out in the heat zapped any motivation to do much besides go to bed. 

There's a bit of fabric out this week.  

Used last week: 0.74 yards
Used year to date:  39.9 yards
Added year to date:  220.30 yards
Net added year to date:  180.44 yards

No fabric added this week, so the net added went down just a bit.  No way am I meeting my goal of using more than I buy.  But that's OK.  There has been good progress on a few other goals.  I'm on track to use more than 70 yards of fabric.  Plus I'm up to five finished quilts this year.  One more just needs binding and progress has been made on moving a few quilts off the UFO list.  The final lay out for one of the oldest UFOs, Scrappy Coffee Cups, is up on the design wall. 

 Scrappy Coffee Cups

Block patterns from Karen F. Srebro and Janet McCarroll published in Block Magic 

and  Block Magic Too by Nancy Johnson-Srebro

Sashing strips are cut ready to stitch to the blocks.  Not sure I'll get all the rows sewn together, but that's on the agenda for today.  Do you have an agenda for some Sunday afternoon stitching?  

Linking up with Quiltcreatepaint for this week's stash report and with Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.  

Weekend Stitching: Back in the Sewing Room

With a little help from Drama Teen, vacation laundry got done and put away early on Sunday, leaving me the rest of the day to play in the sewing room.  The fabric closet got a little attention, it still needs a lot more.  The last Meadow Mist Mystery quilt is almost bound, there's about 30 inches left to stitch down.  So there should be a finish by the end of the week.  

Most of the visible progress is on the Christmas Angels Blocks.

  

Four of the fifteen blocks are finished, with the remaining eleven in various stage of construction.  Before we left for vacation, I couldn't resist adding in the alternate blocks and checking out the layout. 

There's not enough done on the angel blocks to see the secondary pattern in this photo, but I'm happy with how it's coming together.  It would be nice to get this UFO to the finished flimsy stage by the end of the month.  Not sure that will happen as I've got a business trip the last week of the month. Even if it's not completely done, it's nice to get one of the older UFOs this far.  

My UFO count is at 18, that's the highest it's been in 7 years.  In 2012 my UFO list only had 4 quilts on it.  I've done pretty well at finishing most of the quilts I've started the last couple of years, it's the ones that I started in 2013 that are really lingering on the list. Eight of the 18 were started in 2013.   The plan is to finish 7 UFOs this year.  Doubt I get that many to the finish line, but at least I'm making progress.     

Linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday

Stash Stuff and Slow Stitching for Week 28 of 2017

Vacation was a lot of fun, but it was nice to get home and get back into our normal routine.  I've not had a lot of time in the sewing room since we've been back, but I've managed to get a few things moving.  The cutting table was covered with stacks of fabrics while I was selecting what to use for the Magnolia Mystery quilt that starts next month over at Meadow Mist Designs.  Here's what came out of that:

There's an orange in the stash that may get subbed in for the green.  I'm still undecided about those two, either would work fine. This is going to be one bright quilt. I'm going controlled scrappy with fabric C as I don't have any yardage that is the deep red-violet. The white floral print is going to be the background.   There will be a lot of it in this quilt, Cheryl tends toward the modern end of the spectrum with her quilt designs.  I'll be interested to see how these choices work out.  

Since all the fabrics were out on the cutting table anyway, I started looking for the sashing and border fabrics to use for the Scrappy Coffee Cup blocks.  According to My Guy and Drama Teen this combo is a winner. 

This wouldn't have been my first choice, I'm a big fan of blue.  But since this is intended to be My Guy's cuddle quilt and he's a fan of green, I'm going with his choice.  My One Monthly Goal for July was to figure out the final setting for this quilt, looks like I'm actually going to start on the assembly process before we get to the end of the month.  Which is a good thing, there are 18 UFOs on my uncompleted list.  Scrappy Coffee Cups is one of the oldest.  

Also on the agenda for today is some slow stitching on the binding for the last Meadow Mist Mystery quilt.  

Two sides stitched, two to go.  Not sure I'll get it done today, but definitely sometime this week.  The goal is to get this one done before I start on this year's mystery. 

It's a good thing I'm pulling fabrics for new projects, I really need to start using rather than adding.  Yep, I'm guilty of supporting the local quilt shop again.  Here's the damage. 

Used last week:  0.33 yards
Used year to date:  39.12 yards
Added year to date:  220.30 yards
Net added year to date:  181.18 yards

I added a few fat quarter's to freshen up my red, white and blue 1930's stash. 

I've been trying to reduce the number of these fabrics, but sometimes you have to buy a little to use others up.  

Between the embroidery work I took on vacation and time spent in the sewing room since I got home, there were 7 days of stitching the last week.  That means there's been stitching time 180 out of the 196 days so far this year.  A 91.8% average.  I'll definitely take that. 

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and Quiltpaintcreate for the Stash Report. 

A Vacation Photo Essay

Disclosure:  No quilts or quilting topics are discussed in this post. I just wanted to share some of our vacation photos.  

Locations:  
  Seattle, WA
  Fidalgo Island, WA
  Vancouver, BC
  Deception Pass Park, WA

The view from the Seattle Space Needle (really!).

From the Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibition

From the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, B.C. (I have more than 100 photos from here, but I'll just share my favorite)

From the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, B.C. 

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia Exhibit, beautiful images projected on the walls

 

1980's Fighting Shield from Papua, New Guinea

Deception Pass Park

My favorite photo from the trip:

Two peas in a pod.  They had a great time with all the hiking. 

The last picture is My Guy's.  He's a very active nature photographer, with many of his photographs of the local wild life appearing in our company's calendar each year.  This is the one shot he was really hoping to get this trip.  

Nailed it didn't he?  

Have a wonderful weekend.  I'm off to go sew for bit now so there will be something quilty to talk about on the blog tomorrow.