August Ornament

I did  a quickie ornament for August.  This is a Sue Hillis freebie, Yo Ho Ho Ho.

 

I wouldn't say this is my best stitching.  The weave of the mystery fabric is very tight, and I had a hard time stitching on it even with magnification.   To see more ornaments:  http://stitchinglotus.ca/2013/08/ornament-sal-august-check-in/

 

I have been doing a little stitching on Sleepy Hollow, but I haven't met my goal of 2 hours a week.  Still, I can see progress.  The trees are done.

 

 

 

 

Lazy Sunday Ready For Borders

Despite the beautiful weather yesterday, I managed to get the center of Lazy Sunday sewn together.

 

My color choices were dictated by my scraps, and there are some real uglies in this quilt.  But I like it more than I thought I was going to.  This is the kind of quilt you want to keep looking at because there is so much going on in each block.  I had a lot of ugly browns to use up, but you don't even really see them because of all the other colors.

My next task is to determine if the center border called for in the pattern is the right size for my quilt.  That involves a lot of measuring that I don't feel up to at the moment.

To see more design walls:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/26/design-wall-monday-26/

Stash Report

This is just a drive by post to show I'm heading in the right direction, thanks to my finish last week.

 Used this week: 5 yards
Used Year to Date:  60.375 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date:  67.875 yards
Net Added: 7.5 yards 

I was hoping to have big progress to show on Lazy Sunday, but I got sidetracked because of the beautiful weather.  When it is only 82 degrees out in August, I want to be outside!

I'm linking up with http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/25/stash-report-week-34-2013/

Dwood's Quilt Done

I got my BIL's quilt back from the longarmer and bound it this week.  I think he is going to really like the 3D space fabric.  It has just enough 'nerd' factor to keep the computer engineer in him happy.

 

 

 

This is a Swirly Girls Design called 'Inner Piece', found in Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine (vol.19 no 4). 'Inner Piece' reminds me of their 'Grand Central' pattern, only Inner Piece uses nine patches, and Grand Central uses pinwheels. This is my 4th Swirly Girl quilt. Their patterns are very easy to follow, and simple enough that they don't take forever to get done. They are also good for novelty or big prints.

My favorite part is the quilting.  I think the longarmer selected the perfect pantograph for it.

 

The back of this quilt is pin wale corduroy. It feels like velvet. My BIL's b'day is next month.  I can't wait to see his reaction.  Now I have to find the 3D glasses that came with the fabric.

 

I'm linking up with Sarah http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-lots-of-baby.html  and Amanda Jean

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2013/08/twister-quilt.html

Pieces and Parts of Lazy Sunday

I'm late to the Monday design wall post because I've spent the past 3 days helping a friend look for a new house. It was fun and exhausting!  Both of my big kids left for college this weekend too.  I will miss them, but I 'm looking forward to less grocery shopping and quieter nights here.

Last week I worked on Lazy Sunday's borders and sashing.  The blocks are done.  Just have to sew it all together. 

 

 

Here are the borders and sashing:

 

 

To see more design walls:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/19/design-wall-monday-25/

 

Last Friday I got my BIL's quilt back from the longarmer.  I hope to get the binding done this week. I usually bind by machine, but I'm doing this one by hand because the front, the back and the binding are all different colors.  I think it will look better if I bind this one by hand.    I also dropped off another quilt at the longarmer while I was there. 

Crazy Sunday Stash Report

Thanks to Goose In the Puddle, I'm down 4 yards this week. http://sewingoutofmycomfortzone.blogspot.com/2013/08/goose-in-puddle-top-complete.html

 Today I'm working on Lazy Sunday, but mine looks more like Crazy Sunday.  I  used  only scraps for this quilt.

 

There are just 2 blocks, but it is a complicated layout, and I need to get enough sewn together so that it doesn't get all mixed up when I move it off the floor tonight.  It is too big to put on my design wall.

Used this week: 4.0 yards
Used Year to Date:  55.375 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date:  67.875 yards
Net Added: 12.5 yards

To see more stash reports: http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/11/stash-report-week-32-2013/

Goose In the Puddle Top Complete

One of my goals for 2013 was to make a quilt from totally recycled fabric.  I almost met this goal.  My Goose in the Puddle  quilt top is made up of only shirts, except for one yard of  red and white checked fabric that I used in the sashing. 

 

 

This is Bonnie Hunter's pattern from Scraps & Shirttails II.  I chose this pattern because I didn't have a great variation in shirts, and they are surprisingly expensive in the second hand stores around here.  I found they ran from $2.99 to $8.99 in the thrift stores.  That seems kind of expensive to me for used clothing.  I had several shirts from my husband, brother and BIL, but I would have chosen a different pattern if  I'd had many different colors of shirts. 

 

I did see a bunch of 100% cotton scrubs in bright colors that I almost bought.  They would have made a great baby quilt.  I may go back and buy those!

 

Every time I finish a top, someone asks me who it is for.  I'm not sure who is getting this one.  Maybe one of the men who donated his shirts to the cause. 

 

I'm linking up with Sarah:  http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-check-out-these.html

 

and Amandajean: http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2013/08/almost-finished.html

 

The Critical Mass of Quilting Stash

 Critical Mass is defined as  the amount of fissile material needed to sustain nuclear fission. I am coming to the conclusion that there may also be a critical mass of fabric needed to sustain quilt making and that I am close to that number.

I've only been quilting seriously for about 5 years, and I  have been working  for about a year and a half to keep my amount used numbers greater than my amount added. It is getting harder to do.  It seems about every other time I go to make a quilt, I'm missing yardage that I need for that quilt.    I work hard at using up my scraps, but then I'm missing certain scrap colors.  Right now I'm short on pink, yellow and orange, so I've added a few fat quarters in those colors. 

I have almost decided that if I break even this year in my yardage in/out counts, maybe I have the correct amount of fabric in my stash.  I'm not sure yet. 

Maybe instead of thinking of using up yardage, I need to thing of a concept my husband told me about.  He is an accountant, and I am not, so I may be explaining this wrong, but here goes:  LIFO (last in, first out) or FIFO (first in, first out).  I think my goal should be FIFO, trying to use up my old fabric first, before it goes out of style and before I get tired of it. 

Next year maybe one of my quilting goals should be to make an old fat quarter quilt, where  I pull out some of my oldest and oddest fabrics and see what I can do with them. These are just ideas now, but I hope to have a more concrete plan before 2014.

In other news, I mastered fried green tomatoes this week.

 

I had them for the first time last Friday night.  The restaurant served them with goat cheese, and they were outstanding.  Unfortunately, they were an appetizer that we got for the whole table, so I just got one.  This week I saw green tomatoes in the grocery store and thought, 'How hard can it be?'  They are pretty darn easy and pretty darn good, and I don't even really like tomatoes.  But with any vegetable, if you bread it and fry it, it turns into something yummy.  I don't think  it counts as a vegetable that way, though.

 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-fried-green-tomatoes/

 

I heard on NPR (so it must be true) that if you don't try a food before you are 35 years old, you are unlikely to ever try it, so get out there and try things while you are young.  Or if you are old like me, prove the experts wrong and try something new.

Goose in the Puddle on the Wall

I spent several hours this past weekend working on the sashing for my Goose In the Puddle quilt.  I also sewed some on one of Lazy Sunday's border strips, using the half square triangles as leaders and enders.  I don't normally use the leader and ender technique with pieces from another quilt,  but it isn't a bad method. I'm still not sure if I'm a fan, but I'll try it a few more times and see.

Here's what is on my too-small design wall.

 

To see more design walls:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/05/design-wall-monday-23/

 

 

 

Stash Report

My intention was to buy enough red shirts to complete Goose in the Puddle using only recycled fabric.  Multiple trips to several thrift store were not successful, so I ended up buying 1 yard of red and white check for the sashing.  One yard turned out to not be enough.  Stay tuned to see how I make it work. 

I also bought 10 fat quarters at a LQS that was having a big sale.  The owners had 2 quilt shops and are closing one, so they brought all their fabric from one store to another, and they are having great sales.  I could have bought yards and yards of fabric, but contented myself with buying fat quarters in the 3 colors I am most short of:  yellow, pink and orange.

I used a little flannel this week making rice bags for a friend with a sore elbow. 

Used this week: 0.375 yards
Used Year to Date:  51.375 yards
Added this week: 3.5 yards
Added year to date:  67.875 yards
Net Added: 16.5 yards

I took my BIL's quilt to the longarmer this week, and am working on the last clues to Lazy Sunday.  I hope to have yardage used to report soon!

And the best news of the week:  I won a $50 gift card to a LQS yesterday!  I'm not sure how I'll spend it, but don't worry, I'll come up with something!

To see more stash reports:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/08/04/stash-report-week-31-2013/

Ornament Exchange

I received my ornament exchange in the mail yesterday.  I love what my partner chose.  It looks like a PS ornament to me, and I think I've seen it before, but I haven't time to go through my old JCS Christmas ornament magazines to find it. 

 

Here's a close-up:

 

 

In her note, Patti said she had a hard time with the finishing, but I think it looks great.  I do know how she feels, though, trying to make gifts perfect.

 

 I have the same feeling when my points in my quilts don't match or my machine binding is off a little when I'm making a quilt for someone.  I want so much for the things I make to be perfect when I give them away, but they never are.  I've heard that it take 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, so I try to be content knowing that after I have 10, 000 hours experience in quilt binding, I can expect perfection in my binding.  (Just shoot me now!) If I quit binding quilts by machine because I can't do it perfectly, I will never get any better at machine binding.

 

I do have a dirty little secret about my ornament finishing:  I use glue, and I use tape.   The ornaments I make are not heirlooms.  They won't last for hundreds of years, and I'm ok with that.