Week 19 of 2018: Stitching and De-Stashing

Happy Mother's Day to everyone.  My Guy made my favorite chocolate scones this morning, so I got a great start to my Mother's Day.  My plan for the day is to catch up on the email and blog reading, then sew for the rest of the day.  Before I get to that though, it's time to look at how last week went on the stitching and de-stashing front. 

Finding time to stitch was a challenge this week.  We moved the Scientist in Training out of the dorm, then she and I had a short girls weekend with my mother, sister and niece.  We had a great time, but it left me scrambling to fit in a few minutes of stitching each day.

Days with stitching time this week:  7 out of 7 days
Days with stitching time this month:  12 out of 12 days  
Day with stitching time this year:  124 out of 132 days
Success rate:  93.94%

The goal is to find time to stitch more than 90% of the time. So far so good for 2018.

The stash report is going OK as well.  My sister and I did make one quilt shop run during our girls weekend.  I limited myself to just a few fat quarters and a few patterns.  

I really like the Cottage Blossoms mini, Rainy Monday is a candidate for a quilt for my bed. But I have to get My Guy's approval for that.  Here's the damage:

Fabric used this week:  0.49 y
Fabric used in 2018:  23.00 y
Fabric added in 2018:  7.25 y
Net fabric out for 2018:  15.75 y

I allowed myself 5 yards a quarter for 2018, so I'm still on track with my stash busting goals for the year. 

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report.  You can link up below for the weekly stitching time report.  

1. MartiDIY 2. Meloney

3. Aileen K 4. Shasta

5. Christina's Handicrafts 6. Deana

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Not in the Pink Yet

My Mother's Day started on Thursday this week.  We moved the Scientist In Training (and her BFF) out of their dorm rooms.  Then the SIT and I took off for a very short girls weekend with my mom and sister.  There's been a shopping expedition, lots of eating out and a boatload of laughter so far.  This morning the plan is for Krispy Kreme, a quilt shop excursion and then lunch. The SIT and I will head home after that. 

So there's not been a lot of stitching this week as I've been sleeping in hotel rooms since Wednesday.  There are plans for a Mom's Day of nothing but stitching.  I'm looking forward to that.  The pink scraps will definitely find their way to the cutting table.  I'm looking forward to making the next set of scrappy blocks. All the yellow Squared Away blocks were finished before I left home on Wednesday. 

    

The middle one is edging more towards orange, but it's a nice contrast to the other tow.  I couldn't resist putting all the blocks back up on the design wall to see how well they played with each other. 

  Squared Away Sampler designed by Mari (The Academic Quilter)

This is the first time I've made a sampler with different background fabrics. I'm not sure I like it.  The goal was to use up the different background scraps that were just sitting around the sewing room. I'm trying to reserve judgement till all the blocks are done and the final setting has been decided on. 

That's it for my scrappy stitching this week.  I hoping I'll have at least one pink block to share next week.  Linking up with Soscrappy today and with Quilting is More Fun Than Housework on Sunday. 

Weekend Stitching: Christmas in May?

It was a beautiful weekend, spring is definitely here.  We worked outside most of Saturday morning (and are still feeling it this morning).  Sunday morning was housework with a heavy dose of sewing room time in the afternoon.  The plan was to get all of the Vintage Dress blocks sewn together.  That got done, now to figure out what to do for the border. 

 Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

As much as I'd like to be finished with the dresses, I'm beginning to think this one needs pieced borders.  I'm going to play with that idea this week, plus raid the stash to see if there is something that makes a great frame on it's own.  Creating the frames with the sashing took a bit of time, but I really like how it worked out.   

Now that Vintage Dresses is in one piece, I can have the design wall back to play with this month's OMG.  For some reason, the dark green photographs as black when the blocks are up on the design wall. The quilt is really red and green.  

The blocks are all done, but the layout needs to be finalized before I can start stitching the rows together.  This is close to final.  There may some more shuffling around of the angel blocks this evening, but I'm hoping to get a start on sewing the rows together tonight after work.  

Linking up with:
Monday Design Wall
BOMs Away

Week 18 of 2018: Stitching and De-stashing

I'm a bit slow on the get-up-and-go this morning.  We spent a large part of Saturday on garden clean up.  So I'm a bit stiff and sore this morning.  Plus the allergies have kicked in big time. Due to all of the above, I'm just not moving with my normal grace (?) this morning.  So this week's finding time to stitch and stash report is a bit later than normal. 

It was a good week for finding time to stitch, though a few nights it really was just 15 minutes.  But that's better than zero minutes. 

Days with stitching time this week:  7 out of 7 days
Days with stitching this month:  5 out of 5 days
Days with stitching time this year 117 out of 125 days
Success rate:  93.6%

Since most of the stitching has been on the sashing for the Vintage Dress blocks, the stash report is pretty unimpressive.

Fabric used this week:  0.23 y
Fabric used in 2018:  22.51 y
Fabric purchased in 2018:  6 y
Net fabric out for 2018:  16.51y

Still there's more out than in, which is the goal for 2018. Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report.  

Since we were out in the yard most of the day yesterday, I had to take photos of the roses which are just about ready to bloom.

We'll have lots of roses in full bloom by next week.  The phlox is just about bloomed out, but still looks pretty.

Lastly, the Mexican Heather has come to life with the warmer temps and sunshine.

I love our Mexican Heather plants.  They sit in full sun all day, but still look pretty well into summer.  Tolerating full Oklahoma sunshine all day is no mean feat, it can be absolutely blistering. 

That's it for me this week.  I'm off to tackle some laundry and figure out what to do with the SITs stuff that came home last weekend. At the moment it's all lying on her bed, which she'll need when she gets home next weekend.  

You can link up your progress (or not) on finding time to stitch below.  

1. Melissa G 2. Meloney 3. MartiDIY 4. Julie in GA

5. Mary-Kay 6. maggie f 7. Aileen K 8. Shasta

9. Emily @ The Darling Dogwood 10. Christina's Handicrafts 11. Deana

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

May One Monthly Goal: Storms and Christmas?

We had our first really severe storm of the spring last night.  The one advantage of the cooler weather this year is that we haven't had any tornadoes. Oklahoma usually has about 20% of our annual tornado strikes in April, but there were none last month. May storm season certainly got kicked off with a bang last night.  Lightening struck the tornado siren closest to our house and it went off about 11 PM last night.  At least I now know that the siren will wake me up.  My Guy slept through it.  

Since it is a new month, it's time to decide on what to tackle on the UFO list and link up with the May One Monthly Goal.  

This month's goal is to do a little early Christmas present sewing.  All the blocks are made.

 The final layout has been planned.

The goal is get this project to the finished flimsy stage by the end of the month.  That may be a bit of a challenge as we've got some family stuff planned.  We'll just have to see how it goes.  Any progress would be good.  

The angel quilt will be my number one priority this month, but I can't work on just one project. Here's what else is in the works for May.

1.  Christmas Angels (May OMG)
2.  En Provence - bind
3.  Vintage Dresses - finish to flimsy stage
4.  Magnolia Mystery - prep for quilting
5.  Squared Away - finish yellow blocks
                                finish pink/rose blocks
6.  Inverted Star - finish yellow blocks
                             finish pink/rose blocks
7.  On Ringo Lake - leaders and enders project

It's an ambitious list and not all of it will get done. But I make better progress during the month with a set of ordered priorities. 

Linking up with Patty over at Elm Street Quilts for this month's One Monthly Goal.  Wishing you good luck and ample stitching time to finish your May OMG.