Weekend Stitching and July's One Monthly Goal

Another slow weekend around the house, a bit of laundry and a bit deep cleaning in the Scientist in Training's room.  She moves out of the dorms on Friday, but has to wait a week till she can get into her apartment.  So we'll have her home for just a bit before she has to head back for the fall semester of college.  

There was still plenty of time for stitching.  Enough that I met July's One Monthly Goal. 

I've not had a lot of success with my one monthly goals in 2018. I think because the time I have to sew doesn't match up well with what needs to happen to move a quilt all the way to finished flimsy.  So for July, I tried to set a more realistic goal.  This month the goal was to get the Inverted Star blocks framed and ready for sashing.  At the beginning of July, those blocks looked like this. 

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

By the time I shut down for the day on Sunday, they looked like this. 

That may not look like much work, but each block has a narrow half inch strip of white to float the block in the colored frame.  With all the framing done, it was time to sash the blocks.  The sashing strips have been sewn to each row, but the rows haven't been sewn to each other.   I might get that done by the end of July.  Then there's a 2.5" plain white border followed by a border of Sawtooth Stars. There's been good progress on those this month too.  I finished off  the five red stars this weekend as well. 

With the red ones finished, that just leaves black, gray and brown sawtooth stars left to make.  The black and gray ones are all cut out ready for assembly over at the sewing machine.  The fabrics for the brown stars has been chosen and just needs to be cut.  After those, I need to make three more stars.  I'll choose those colors after I've had a chance to get the others up on the design wall and see what looks best in the gaps.

So July has been a pretty productive month.  Linking up with:

July One Monthly Goal
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
Main Crush Monday 

Week 30 of 2018: Stitching and Stashing

So it's a rainy Sunday morning here. Though it's not one of those slow rainy mornings that makes you want to stay in bed, there was too much thunder and lightening to make it peaceful.  It's really coming down out there at the moment.  So no sleeping in this morning.  That's OK, it was time to get going on this morning's 15 minutes to stitch linky party. 

I've been using the 15 minute challenge for seven years to help me get into the sewing room every day and do something to move a project along.  Why 15 minutes?  That came from some time management book I was reading at the time.  It said something along the lines of committing to do a task that you needed to get done for 15 minutes, if you really didn't feel like doing it, you could quit after 15 minutes.  I was wondering this morning if there was a way I could tell if the 15 minutes really made a difference or not.  I've been actively piecing quilts since 2004.  From 2004 to 2010, the average number of quilts finished per year is about 2.7/year.  From 2011 to 2018 the average number of quilts finished per year is about 4.4/year.  Hmm, so maybe there is something to this 15 minutes a day.  

So here's how this week went:

      15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days

      15 minutes stitching days/July = 28/28 days

      15 minutes stitching days/2018 = 199/209 days

      Success Rate = 95.22%

You can link up at the bottom of the post if you want to share how your stitching week went. 

The stash report took a pretty big hit this week.  I gave into the 70% off sale going on at Connecting Threads a couple of weeks ago.  Most of what I bought was tone on tones in white and black to use for backgrounds in my scrap quilts.  What that did to the report is not pretty. 

     Fabric used this week:  0.64 yards

     Fabric used in 2018:  27.96 yards

     Fabric added in 2018:  64.41 yards

     Net fabric in for 2018:  36.45 yards

So I'm back in the red.  Not so badly that I can't recover, but it's going to take me till the end of the year to get there.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.  

Happy stitching to everyone this week.  If you want to share how well you did at finding time to stitch this week, you can link up below. 

1. Melissa G 2. maggie f

3. Deana 4. Christina's Handicrafts

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Rainbow Scrap Challenge: All Caught Up

I'm declaring today a NBS day (nothing but sewing, a term borrowed from Barbara who blogs over at Cat Patches).  Work has been rough with project deadlines, instrument failures, and changes in direction/programs.  A day of stitching therapy to fortify myself for next week is sorely needed.  

As far as Rainbow Scrap Sewing goes, I'm all caught up on the Squared Away blocks.

 Squared Away Sampler
designed by Mari (The Academic Quilter) and Angela (Soscrappy)

 The reds look a little dull in the photograph, but they are actually very vibrant up on the design wall.  Maybe I'll take some time this weekend to put the whole set of blocks back up on the design wall and see if I can come up with a setting plan.  

Linking up over at Soscrappy for this week's Rainbow Scrap Challenge post and linking up with Oh Scrap over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework on Sunday. Happy stitching this weekend.   

Weekend Stitching: Still Stars

It was a slow and relaxing weekend, which was very welcome.  Laundry is caught up, a bit of housework got done and there was lots of stitching time for a change. I got caught up on all the Squared Away blocks on Saturday, so Sunday the focus was on this month's One Monthly Goal.

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

Ten of the blocks have their frames.  The last two blocks are over on the sewing machine waiting to be finished up.  I might actually finish my OMG for July for a change.   

In addition to getting the blocks framed, there's been progress on the sawtooth stars for the pieced border.  

Pink, teal and a single red star have been added to the growing pile.  Somehow I miss counted and ended up with 6 teal blocks, but that's OK. The rest of the red blocks are under construction at the sewing machine and I've started on the black stars. All that is left is to make 5 gray and 5 brown stars, plus three more of various colors to have the 64 blocks for the pieced border.  So this one is moving along.  

Linking up with the usual Monday crew:
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall
Main Crush Monday 

Week 29 of 2018: Stitching and De-stashing

It's been a slow and relaxing weekend so far. Not much going on other than laundry, a bit of housework and a bit of stitching.  It's been easy to get in my 15 minutes of stitching this week, it's simply too hot to do much else. 

Here's the stats for this week:

     15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days
     15 minutes stitching days/July = 21/21 days
     15 minutes stitching days/2018 = 192/202 days
      Success Rate = 95.05%

This week it was more like an hour of stitching time each day, so things are moving along pretty well.  You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how easy/hard it's been to find some sewing time.

The stash report looks a bit better with there being a bit more time spent stitching this week. 

     Fabric used this week: 1.15 yards
     Fabric used in 2018:  27.32 yards
     Fabric added in 2018:  20.41 yards
     Net fabric out for 2018:  6.91 yards

I broke down this week and did some retirement stash acquistion.  Connecting Threads had some tone on tone whites and blacks on sale, plus a few other tone on tone brights.  So I ordered a bit for the retirement stash. That hasn't shown up at the house yet, so I'm going to enjoy being in the black for one more week.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the weekly stash report. 

That's all the sewing stuff going on.  At the moment, I'm sitting on the back patio (it's still cool enough for that right now) and watching the bees make use of the sunflowers.  

Happy stitching this week.  Here's Mr. Linky for sharing progress on finding time to stitch. 

1. Melissa G 2. Julie in GA 3. maggie f

4. Mary-Kay 5. Meloney 6. Shasta

7. Christina's Handicrafts

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