Saturday, January 31, 2009

Stashbusting Report Week 5

Well what a week! I did great as far as stashbusting, bust did do a bit of shopping. The "Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?" fabric arrived at my local quilt shop. I of course just had to have some. I picked out (gasp) 9 yards of fabric...in my defense though it is for the top and the backing. I think I have picked out a pattern for it, and will post it when I am for sure. We love reading all of the Eric Carle/Bill Martin Jr. books to Sophie and I have the Hungry Caterpillar fabric all waiting to be made into a quilt.


I did finish making all 5 little people bags for Sophie's toys. I made it so that there is plane fabric for the plane and Noah's Ark fabric for the Noah's Ark set and so forth. So far she has really enjoyed playing with the bags more so then the toys themselves this week. I totally over analyzed how to make these bags....they have no exposed seams and have a functional drawstrings. This used 2 and 1/3 yards of fabric.















I did finish the Moda Quilt Pink II quilt top. I am so excited that I finished this top before Valentines Day. The pieced border gave me mild fits, but I think that is simply because I hate putting borders on quilts. Not sure when I will get it quilted, but it is a little bigger than I like to on my machine. Who knows, maybe I will get adventurous. This used 3 more yards of stash!















I also made 56 four patch blocks for the leader/ender quilt that I am working on. I have really enjoyed working on this and seeing the pieces come together. It is really amazing how quickly this quilt is coming together.















Ok, here is this weeks results...


Fabric in this week: 9 yards
Fabric in YTD: 15.5 yards (eek!)



Stashbusted this week: 6 and 1/3 yards
Stashbusted YTD: 11 and 1/3 yards


Net: + 4 and 1/6 yards

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Stashbusting Weeks 3 and 4

I am reporting the stashbusting for Weeks 3 and 4. I was in St. Thomas last week for my sisters wedding so I could not report!



I kinda fell off the wagon this week.....well to put it mildly I did buy alot of fabric! I got some fabric to make "Little People" Bags (they are simply drawstring bags to hold all of Sophie's Fisher Price Little People. I wanted to get matching novelty fabric so that Sophie would learn to put her toys away properly! I hope to start on those tomorrow and will show some pictures then.



So...here it goes..



Fabric in Week 3 and 4: 6.5 yards(GASP!!!!)

Fabric in YTD: 6.5 yards



Stashbusted Week 3 and 4: 3.5 yards

Stashbusted YTD: 5 yards

Net: +1.5 yards

Hope to do better next week!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Pics of Wallet for Mom

My mom and I are working on some wallets, I will be back later to edit all the info, but both Mom and I are visual people so I took a few pictures for her!










Thursday, January 22, 2009

Back from Sunny St. Thomas!

No stash report last week as on Saturday, Ryan, Sophie, and I were on the wonderful island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. My parents live on island and my sister was getting married. She was a beautiful bride and her husband looked equally dashing in his Navy Dress Whites. While we were down there, my Mom (also a quilter) and I were out shopping and we went to a wonderful little children's boutique featuring local artisans around the island. They were potentially interested in carrying a few of items. Go Mom! We also set up a blog for her so when I get the go ahead I will post a link to it!


So, before I left, I did finish up the 25 quilt pink blocks. They look great and tomorrow while Sophie is sleeping I hope to get them sewn into a top. I need to make the half square triangles for the border, but that might be next weeks goal. I also made quite a few more leader and ender blocks....


While we were away, my machine went into the shop for it's annual cleaning and tension repair. I am pretty hard on my machine and now it is purring like a baby! I love sewing on it right when it gets back from the shop. No major repairs, but I think they did bend my needle threader back into place which makes me super happy.


Today, I made two blocks for 7 quilts that the HGTV quilters are making for the fireman of Gastonia, North Carolina. These gentlemen for the past several years have been drawing the winners for our HGTV raffle quilts. Right now, HGTV Quilters are raffeling off 23 quilts with all of the proceedes going to the Ronald McDonald House in Dallas, Texas. The goal is to raise enough money to sponser a paving stone. The Ronal McDonald House is a wonderful organization and I am proud to be a part of raising money for it.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Some Pictures....

I made six more blocks for the Quilt Pink II quilt. I also finished cutting the entire quilt (except for the borders). Hopefully I will get the remaining 9 blocks made tomorrow and sewn together on Wednesday! All of the half square triangles are cut, but need to be marked and pinned. They should go together fairly easily.

This block is done with the stitch and flip method. So, being the resourceful quilter I am, I sewed another line to produce a "bonus" triangle. This is something I always say I am going to do and then never do. I am so happy I did it this time, and I think I will make a doll quilt for Sophie out of the scraps. As the squares are small, untrimmed about 1.75 inches maybe? I want to keep the pattern pretty simple, but am experimenting with different design possibilities.



I finished all of the A units for the Nickel quilt. The pattern I am doing is in The Nickle Quilt Book by Pat Speth, called Four Patch Plaid. I am amazed how quickly this is coming together just by using this quilt as my leaders and enders. Next I start on the four patch units!

Thats all for now, busted though 1.1 yards of stash today!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Stashbusting Week 2

Well week two was a bit more productive than week one! I managed to bust through a total of 1.5 yards! Yeah!

I worked on my "Quilt Pink II" quilt. I coveted the the pretty rolled up fat quarters last year and my dear friend Doreen got them for me for my birthday. I have just started working on it and completed 10 of the 25 blocks. I also got another 13 cut out from the fat quarter bundle and only have two left to cut out. In case anyone else wants to do this pattern, there is alot of fluff built into the pattern. I have been saving the "bonus" triangles and hope to make a doll quilt for Sophie for her birthday in May. This busted a yard of stash.

Second thing I worked on was one of my goals. I started a leader/ender project using precut Thimbleberries and Civil War Repros. I had accumulated a lot of 5" squares from nickle swaps on line, and am just now getting around to using them. I picked which squares I was going to use and managed to get 24/46 of the first unit made! I can not remember the name of the pattern right now, but will update it when I take pictures. I was amazed how quickly this quilt was growing as all of the cutting was done! This busted 1/2 yard of stash!

I would like to also give some credit to Judy Laquidara. Her blog Patchwork Times is a great resource for all quilters. I have only been following it for a while but she has been a great inspiration for busting through stash. She also has several "Quilt in an Hour" quilts and is currently having her first Quiltathon. Check her out!

So No fabric purchased this week!
No fabric purchased this year!

1.5 yards busted this week
2.0 yards busted this year

I will be back to post some pictures later...

Susan

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas String Quilt Finished!




I finished binding my Christmas String Quilt last night. I am so glad to have it finished and no longer a UFO. Ryan washed it for me and I love how the quilt puckered and hid my uneven quilting! After being washed it does not look half bad. I am pretty impressed if I do say so my self. When Ryan and I were talking we think that this is the largest quilt I have ever machine quilted myself. It is not huge, maybe 50x70 inches, but I did it myself. Best news is that I used all stash for this project. It has even been Marcus approved by him hiding under it and Sophie approved by rolling all over it!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Stashbusting Report Week One

For Week Ending Jan 3, 2008

No fabric purchased

1/2 yard stash used

Net -1/2 yard

One Small Step...

Ok, I was really not digging the Christmas String Quilt, but I had made a promise to my self to finish anything I started in 2008: hence the internal guilt to finish the quilt. So, while Ryan and Sophie were in VA I finished putting the top together, layered and basted it, and got the middle quilted. I hit a standstill there. My excuse was it was the holidays and I had company visiting from out of town, but truth be told, I did not want to finish this project.

I had a few moments tonight, so I sat down at the machine and said "I am going to stipple the borders." Mind you my idea of stippling is calling my nearest long armer and seeing how fast she can fit it in her schedule. But in an effort to be a more well rounded quilter and more economical at that, I really wanted to improve my machine quilting skills in 2009. Things started out ok, and then it started sounding like a train was running over a Mac truck. My stitches were fairly even, but I thought to my self this can not be right. So, I ripped out what I had done and retried. Same Mac truck vs train noise.With a new bobbin, cleaned bobbin case, needle and adjusting my speed it only sounded like Mac Truck vs train for only about half of the time. I never noticed this sound with my old darning foot, (it was plastic, but my new one is metal). So, I am guessing I need to work out my speed and hand movements. To be on the safe side though I am going to take my machine in next week while I am out of town and let it get a check up.

But what I am excited about is that I did finish it tonight. It is stippled in the borders and the binding is machine sewed on. It is still a far cry from my favorite quilt ever made and the quilting certainly won't win any awards, but I am proud that I perservered and finished. So, Doreen, there might be hope for me after all!

Once I get the binding sewn on, I will wash it and take a picture and mark it as a UFO finished!

**This was also a GREAT stashbuster! I made all of the blocks I sent in to the swap from stash, my borders, back and binding were completly from stash. The batting was even stash batting! I will only count the binding as stash used for the week, because I started the process earlier, but still I am a half a yard down with no fabric purchased this week!