Week 36 of Stitching and De-stashing

This week's 15 minutes of stitching post is a bit late to press as the author slept in this morning (Courtesy of a dose of Bendadryl prior to bed time. The bumper crop of rag weed has not been kind to many of us).  

Finding time to stitch was a lot easier this week. 

15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days
15 minutes stitching days Sept. = 8/8 days
15 minutes stitching days /2018 = 234/251 days
Success rate =93.23%

Finding time to stitch hasn't done much to help the stash report at the moment, mainly as I'm making block parts not blocks.  It will pay off later when I start assembling the blocks.  For now, the stash is going out pretty slowly.  

Fabric used this week:  0.21 yards
Fabric used this year:  30.41 yards

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report.  You can link up below to share how did on finding time to stitch this week. 

The rain has been very unkind to my sinuses, but the roses are loving it. 

1. Julie in GA 2. Pack Rat With a Plan 3. maggie f

4. Meloney 5. Aileen 6. Patricia

7. Mary-Kay 8. Christina's Handicrafts

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

Weekend Stitching: Magnolia Mystery Solved

It's been a low key and relaxing holiday weekend.  I'm hoping to spend the last day of the holiday in the sewing room.  We spent yesterday in Tulsa hanging out with family.  So not a lot of stitching got done yesterday.  But we were home on Saturday and I finally found time to photograph the quilt that was finished last week.  

Magnolia Mystery by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs

The Magnolia Mystery quilt from the 2017 mystery program at Meadow Mist Designs is finally all finished.  It's definitely a very bright quilt, but I like it.  Purple and yellow is one of my favorite color combinations.  Though the purple is really closer to red-violet than it is a true purple.  Thankfully you can see the true color in these photos.  The violet always photographed as almost black when this project was on the design wall.  

The background fabric is a Connecting Threads sale acquisition that's been in the stash for a few years. There was enough of it to back the quilt as well. 

The yellow flowers in the backing reminded me of all the bright yellow wild flowers we have in Oklahoma in the summer, hence the slight change in quilt name on the label.  

Other than the background, the rest of the fabrics in this project are left over from other projects.  So the green ended up as the binding because there wasn't enough left of any of the the other fabrics.   

My Magnolia Mystery quilt is lap sized.  I love the bright colors and that floral print background (see that violet photographed as black in this image). Summer Magnolias is finish number three for 2018.  This project wasn't on the UFO list, as it wasn't a year old yet, so my UFO numbers stay unchanged.  That's OK, it's always nice to keep a project off the UFO list.  It is on my list for the third quarter of the 2018 Finish Along, so I'll be linking up there come October.  For now, I'm linking up with the usual Monday linky parties:

Making Monday
Main Crush Monday
Monday Design Wall
2018 Finish Along - Third Quarter Finishes

Week 35 of Stitching and Stashing

It's been a pretty quiet weekend so far.  Which is good as I was definitely ready for some down time to spend in the sewing room.  Finding 15 minutes here and there to hide out in the sewing room has been a bit easier this week.

Here's the tally for this week.  

15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days
15 minutes stitching days/August = 24/31 days
15 minutes stitching days/September = 1/1 day
15 minutes stitching days/2018 = 227/244 days
Success Rate = 93.03%

I'm managing to find time to stitch more than 90% of the time, so I'm doing well on meeting this goal for the year. 

Wish my stash busting was going better.  I gave into another sale last week, at Craftsy this time.  So I've really, really blown my incoming stash budget.  But I've chosen to focus on the positive so I'm just reporting what went out for the week. 

Fabric used this week:  0.46 yards
Fabric used in 2018: 30.20 yards
More fabric in than out for 2018

I do hope to get at least one quilt to the finished flimsy stage this month, so there should be some backing fabric going out in September.  Fingers crossed that actually happens.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

So how are you doing at finding time to stitch each week? 

1. Julie in GA 2. Pack Rat With a Plan

3. Meloney 4. Shasta

5. Patricia

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

September One Monthly Goal and Priority List

It's been a slow paced Saturday. I slept in for a change and lazed my way through three cups of coffee while contemplating what to focus on for my September One Monthly Goal.

According to the 2018 quilt plan, Bonnie Hunter's 2017 mystery, On Ringo Lake is the UFO for September.  I spent some time in EQ this morning working up block settings. If I go with an on point setting I need 32 blocks, a straight setting needs 35.  As of this morning, I had 9 blocks completed and another 29 of the 9 patch centers completed. That would give me enough centers for 38 blocks, more than enough for either the straight or on point setting.  Here's what the 9 finished blocks look like on point without any sashing.

On Ringo Lake, Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt

I'm still playing around with sashing ideas.  If I go with the original pattern, the sashing would be yellow with black.  That makes for a very yellow quilt. I don't have to decide the layout and sashing options right away, though I would really like to have On Ringo Lake made into at least a finished flimsy before the next mystery comes out (assuming Bonnie hosts one this year).  So what's a realistic OMG for the month?

All 9-patch block centers are made, but there are no flying geese or corner HSTs to go with them.  That's a lot of block pieces to make to finish 24 blocks in a month.  With my work schedule, that's not likely. So what's a manageable goal for the month?  Each block needs 4 yellow flying geese, 4 gray flying geese and 4 HST corners. So I need 76 yellow flying geese, 76 grey flying geese and 76 HSTs to go with those centers. My goal for September is to get all those pieces made. I'll worry about block assembly in October.  

My OMG is my number one priority each month, but there are other projects in the works too.  I keep a priority list on the sewing machine with my focus on the top 3.  Once I finish one of those, I'll move on to the next project on the list.  September's priority list looks like this.

         
Just three more sawtooth star blocks need to be finished before I can start assembling the pieced border for the Inverted Star project.  Hopefully I can get Inverted Star into a finished flimsy while getting all the Ringo Lake pieces made.  I'm probably biting off more than I can stitch, but what's the fun if you don't aim for the improbable?  

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts for the September One Monthly Goal.  

August Wrap Up (One Monthly Goal Progress)

For those in the United States and Canada (as noted by Sandra of  MMM! Quilts), hope you've gotten a jump on enjoying your holiday weekend.  We don't have any firm plans for the holiday.  The Scientist in Training got home last night and is pretty much wiped out from the first two weeks of the fall semester. She feel asleep mid conversation after dinner.  Her request for the weekend was to be allowed to sleep in.  She has a two plus hour to complete chemistry quiz due tonight (assigned in class yesterday).  I really, really don't miss those parts of my college days.

Hard to believe it's the first of September, August went way to fast. The first week of August was miserable due to work deliverables, but it lined out towards the end of the month.  So it wasn't a bad month in the sewing room.  I didn't make my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for August which was to decide on a final layout and get the sashing at least made for the Twinkle Star quilt. 

Twinkle Stars
Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

I managed part of my goal for August, the layout got much better defined.  Both My Guy and the Scientist in Training both nixed the sashing plan.  A similar suggestion was made in many of the comments on the blog and on my Facebook posts, thank you for the feedback.  So no sashing.  Then the SIT asked me to lay out the blocks in a more of a "rainbow" order.  So I gave that a try.

Both the SIT and My Guy liked this layout better, so did I.  But without the sashing, this quilt is going to be a bit small for the intended use.  So how to make it bigger?  Add borders to make it bigger or add more blocks?  I wasn't completely happy with the way the colors merged, what if I added new blocks so there was enough of each color to make at least one diagonal row? 

I liked that thought.  So now the goal for August became to complete 18 more blocks.  By the time I went to bed last night, 6 more blocks had been completed, there are 6 in the works at the machine, and fabric has been selected for the last 6.  

The red and purple sections are both finished, plus one of two teal blocks is done.  Even though I didn't make my OMG for the month, I'm pretty happy with the progress on this quilt.  I didn't link up with the end of August OMG because it didn't feel right, but I did want to document that progress was made.  

There was also a finish this month, but no pictures yet.  I'll post about that on Monday.  So August was a much better month than I expected it to be.  I've already been thinking about what the plan is for September. 

Linking up with Oh Scrap on Sunday.