Favorite Things Friday - 1/7/2011

It's not quite Friday here, but it's coming (thank goodness!!!!).  My first week back at work after the Christmas holiday hasn't been bad, but kiddo's first week back at school after the break has been one drama filled evening after another.  Though I think we've reached a calm interlude this evening.  I'll savor the sanity while it lasts, which probably won't be long. 

OK, back to Friday and favorite things.  I collect a lot of fabric (as my stash reports for 2010 often attest).  There are a lot of different fabrics in the stash, but one of my favorite motifs is butterflies.  So over the last several years, I've collected quite a number of fabric prints with butterflies and/or or butterfly wings.  Here's a few of my favorites:

 

 

 



This isn't all my butterfly fabrics, but it's all I had scans of on the computer. Do you collect a certain kind of fabric or fabric motif?  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of my faves, but they'll find a home in some project at some point I'm sure. 

Hop over to Quilting in my Pyjamas to see other cool favorite things. 

Quilting ABCs: PIGS, UFOs (PhDs) and WIPs

Jill over at Ramblings of a Fabric and Yarn Obsessor, has proposed a Year of the PIGS support group. All you have to do is answer a question twice a month and share your deepest, darkest secrets about your PIGS and UFOs.  Well maybe not those kinds of secrets, but tips and techniques you've found to tame all those PIGS which are hogging shelf space in your closet.   (PIGS are Projects in Grocery Sacks.  Those projects you have the pattern and the fabric, but stalled on start up). 

Jill's question for this week is "How do you store your UFOs and PIGS separate from your fabric stash?"  

I use various storage containers for PIGS, UFOs and WIPs.



The top bin with the vinyl window contains all the purple and yellow fat quarters that are being used for the purple and yellow scrap quilt (a WIP/UFO).  The little yellow sticky note tells me what project the fat quarters are associated with. The bottom gray container has the patterns and fabric for 5 or 6 PIGS.  Both of these containers reside at the back of my sewing room closet.  I use the same gray containers for some of my fabric stash. 

These "Super Satchels" are stored on a shelf in the sewing room closet. They contain UFOs and PIGS.  You know, out of sight, out of mind?  All the fabric associated with a project is in these satchels. One of the UFOs has more than one satchel for that reason.   

Here is the one PIGS that is actually in a sack of sorts.  It's one of those Minky strip quilts and it stays in the bag so as not to shed all over the other projects. 

I have more satchels which sit on the chest in the sewing room.  These are the WIPs and UFOs that I'm actively working on.  Once I finish sewing the binding on a quilt, I empty out the satchel.  Extra yardage gets rolled back into the stash.  Scraps go into my scrap bin.  I don't do any preparation of the scraps, but I'm going to start cutting the smaller scraps into squares, strips and bricks for scrap projects this year.  The recently vacated satchel usually has a new project in it within a day or too, so they don't stay empty for long. 

So that's how I store all my past, present and future projects.  Check out Jill's post to see other storage solutions. 

Design Wall Monday - Jan 3rd

Today is my last day of holiday vacation (Corporate decided today was our day off for New Years).  I'm hoping to spend most of it in my sewing room.  Kiddo is back to school today.  She's up and scowling at her bowl of cereal this morning.  I'm sure I'll get up tomorrow and scowl at my bowl of cereal too!  It's going to be hard to go back to work after 2 weeks off.  I'm not going to think about it till tomorrow. 

On to Design Wall Monday.  Even being off work all week, I don't seem to have much to show for it on the design wall.  I finished block 4 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along and have started on block 5. 

Layer Cake Quilt Along Block 4



Layer Cake Quilt Along Block 5

 I'm not sure I really like block 5. Trying to use 4 fabrics was worse, so I just stuck with 2. 

I had hoped to finish up 2 other quilts which just needed binding during my holiday vacation.  I've got the binding sewn on the front of one and have started had sewing it to the back. 

I've got about 2 more sides left to sew down before it's finished.  This one will probably be my first finish of 2011.  The other quilt has to be trimmed and squared before I can start binding it.  Maybe I'll get to that one later this month. 

For 2011, may your design wall never be empty, may you finish all that you start, and may all your UFOs become completed projects.  Yeah, I know, not likely, but you have a dream a little.  It's the beginning of a new year, anything is  possible!

Hop over to Judy's Patchwork Times and check out the other design walls. 

Stash Report: January 2nd

A new year.  A fresh start.  My stash busting goal for 2010 was to use more fabric than I bought.  It didn't quite work out that way, I ended 2010 very much in the red.   This year the focus will be on managing the stash, with the aim of using more than I buy.  The goal is to just finish in the black.  I've given myself a "stash enhancement budget" of 10 yards/quarter (or a little over 3 yards per month).   I have holes in my stash that need to be plugged so I can make new quilts, plus I like fabric too much to realistically expect myself to not buy any all year. 

So how did the first week of 2011 go?  Here's the stash report:

Used this week: 0.78 yards
Added this week: 0 yards

Used year to date: 0.78 yards
Added year to date: 0 yards

Net used for 2011:  0.78 yards

Not as much sewing as I had hoped for the last week.  Even though I was off work, so was my guy and kiddo.   Plus the house needed some serious attention.  Between work, weekend volleyball games, and weekend swim meets this fall and winter I missed a lot of house cleaning time (I'm not sorry for spending my time that way, but at some point you do have to deal with the chaos!) 

Whatever your stash busting/enhancement goals are for 2011, good luck with them.  Click over to Judy's Patchwork Times to see the first stash reports of 2011. 

First Photo of 2011 - Foto Finish Saturday

Happy New Year!  Today's Foto Finish post is supposed to be about new beginnings.  Here is this week's effort:

We are early risers at my house (we actually slept in till 6:30 AM this morning).  I wanted to capture the start of the new year, so I put on my coat, gloves, and scarf (it was 15 F this morning) and walked to the end of the street to catch the breaking dawn.  I love seeing the sun come up.  It's one of my favorite times of the day to photograph.  Not so much in the winter, I'm pretty much a fair weather sunrise photographer!   Even so, watching the sun come up, seeing the sky change from black to midnight blue, to just the hint of peachy pink at the horizon, turning yellow orange as the sun gets higher just takes my breath away.   Hope your 2011 has dawned bright and clear this morning.

Check out the other great beginnings over at Cat Patches Foto Finishes.