Quilts Finished in 2018 and Final Stash Report

  I finished 16 quilts this year!  That's two more than last year, so I feel very productive.  Never mind that several of these quilts were already tops and all I did was take them to the longarmer and then bind.  At least they aren't hanging half-done in my closet.

Jungle OBW for Phil:

Inverted Star for Erin:

Fish Quilt:

Row by Row Mashup:

Paris OBW: 

Pi Quilt for Joe:

Carolina Christmas:

Twist and Turn Bargello Quilt for Dan:

Making History, for Jill:  

Voila Fish:

On the Bright Side:

  

Claire's quilt:

Focus:

Flower OBW:

Tree Farm:

Labyrinth Walk:

As for my final stash report of 2018, it looks ok.  It was better before I bought fabric for my nephew's high school graduation quilt, but I found the perfect fabric for him and was afraid to wait until 2019 because it might be gone then. My final stash figures look better this year than last. I bought less fabric and I used more of it this year.

2018    30.875 yards added
2017   109.5 yards added
2016   20.875 yards added
2015   6.357 yards used
2014   2.5 yards added
2013   9.5 yards added
2012   20.25 yards used

Good Fortune, Clue 5

Last Friday our Christmas activities started, and I did no sewing for almost a week. We spent time with both sides of the family and with friends on other days.  It was a lot of fun but exhausting.  I was glad to spend last night in my own bed!

  I started clue 5 yesterday afternoon and finished it today.

Clue 6 was more string piecing, which I am going to skip.  My plan is to use a wide variety of neutral rectangles instead of string piecing them.  I like string piecing, but I have used up most of my strings in Dawn's Early Light blocks.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to cut strings from yardage and fat quarters.

Stash Report:Used this week: 0
Used year to date: 170.5 yards
 Added this week:  6.5 ( backing for Zach's quilt)
Added year to date:187.875 yards
Net Added: 17.375 yards

Linking up:  https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-6.html

Good Fortune, Clue 4

We had the choice this week of making string blocks, or just cutting rectangles of the proper size.  I have nothing against string piecing.  I do a lot of it, and have 3 string project WIPs.  But I don't have enough time this week to string piece!  Here is my Clue 4:

My color palette:

My blue = Bonnie's orange

My seafoam= Bonnie's red

My purple=  Bonnie's blue

Our greens are the same.

Here are all my pieces:

I am caught up until Friday. Since I work Friday afternoon, and we start our holiday travels this coming weekend, I will soon be behind.

Linking up:  https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-4.html

Ornaments!

 Most of these ornaments were stitched many years ago when I was a member of a cross stitch Yahoo group.  We would each kit up one ornament and send it to everyone in the group.  There was no pressure to get them stitched.  We all made them at our own pace.  I think I have gotten most of them stitched by now.  Two weeks ago I found nine ornaments that were stitched, but not finished.  This week I worked at getting them finished.

A couple of these were freebies.  Some of them were from Just Cross Stitch's ornament issues.  I know the pirate is from Sue Hillis and Mary and Joseph are from Shepherd's Bush.  Other than that, I don't have any information on who designed them or where the pattern came from.  

My family has way more ornaments than we need, so I am going to give 8 of them away, 4 each to my good friend's 2 girls.  They are young women now. out of college with their own apartments and their own Christmas trees. I made them each a simple fabric box to store the ornaments in. 

Both boxes have the same fabric lining.  

I am keeping Joy for myself since it wouldn't be fair to give one girl 4 and the other 5.

Labyrinth Walk, Quilted and Bound

I finished binding my son's Christmas quilt this weekend, washed it and sewed the label on.  This will be my last quilt for 2018.  Here is Labyrinth Walk:

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It was really too big to get good picture on my sewing room floor, but we had workmen in the house yesterday, and it was the only place they weren't!

My longarmer, Denise Zapf of Quilting Mojo did an excellent job on this quilt.  This was a custom job.  She did a different type of quilting in each colored section.

The detailed quilting makes the Labyrinth Walk pattern show up on the back.

My label turned out bigger than I wanted it, but it would take to long to make another.  I didn't want to waste all that stitching time redoing it.  

I think Mark is really going to like this quilt!

Used this week: 6.0 yards ( Labyrinth Walk back and binding)
Used year to date: 170.5 yards
 Added this week:  0.25 (sale FQ)
Added year to date:181.375 yards
Net Added: 10.875 yards

Linking up:  https://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/lets-bee-social-254.html

Fabric Boxes

A couple of weeks ago I took a class on box making.  I have made a couple of them before, but every time I take a class, I learn a little something.  My friend Betty was the teacher.  She is a former school librarian, very precise and organized.  The best thing she did was to cut the mat board for us.  This saved a ton of time, and I know her cutting is superior to mine.  

I used one of my ribbon embroidery practice pieces on the top of my box.  I was going to make a red box, but the blue from my stash worked better than the red I had, so blue it is.

I'm in the process of making a couple of more utilitarian boxes without the embroidery.  

Good Fortune, Part 3

My closet installation,  lunch date, acupuncture appointment, and shop Christmas get-together were all postponed today because of the snow.  We got about 11 inches yesterday.  My industrious husband cleared the driveway, walkways and my car just in case I needed to get out, but I stayed in to sew.

 I finished making all the half-chevrons and HSTs today for Bonnie's mystery.  I used the bonus triangle method, and still need to trim the dog ears on the HSTs.  I will probably use my bloc loc ruler or Eleanor Burns method to remove the dog ears and square them up a little.  Most of my HSTs are pretty close, but a few could benefit from some extra trimming. 

I am very happy with the variety in my neutrals this year.  I am usually scraping the bottom of the scrap basket to find something, but this year I picked up FQ neutrals as they went into clearance at the shop.  Now I have an abundance of neutrals, as defined by Bonnie:  anything lighter than a paper bag.

I was afraid at first to use green for this step since I used seafoam in the first clue, but by choosing darker and brighter greens, there will be enough contrast.  

Linking up: https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-3.html

Good Fortune, Part 2

My friend Nancy sent me Christmas flowers yesterday.  What a nice surprise!  Nancy used to live in our cul de sac, and she was just a neighbor then.  Now that she has moved about a half hour away, we have become friends.  We sometimes meet halfway to walk in the park or go to lunch.  When we lived in the same neighborhood, we were both busy raising kids.  There wasn't much time for grown up friendships.  Since she moved, we have made time for each other.  It has been fun getting to know her!

I've done no decorating myself this year, so I am particularly glad to have these flowers to put in my foyer.

Since my last Good Fortune post, I have gotten my 4 patches pressed.

I've also gotten my HSTs made.

I cheated a  little and stole about 60 HSTs from another WIP.  This way I have more variety in my HSTs for both quilts

When I need a lot of HSTs, Triangle Paper is my favorite construction method.

You sew on the dotted lines, cut on the solids.  There are pros and cons to every HST construction method.  This one has minimal cutting time initially, you just need big hunks of fabric.  The sewing is also fast.  It depends on the size of the HSTs how many you can get from one sheet.  Trimming these HSTs is also pretty easy, just line up the ruler.  The time consuming part for this method is tearing off the paper.  Some people hate that part.  For me, having accurate piecing is worth the paper. The part I dislike the most is dealing with the dog ears.  

I wasn't sure how this color combination was going to work, but I think it will be ok.  At least I like it so far !

Stash Report:Used this week: 0.5 (fabric box)
Used year to date: 165.0 yards
 Added this week:  6.25 yards (backing for Treasure Hunt, fabric boxes)
Added year to date:181.125 yards
Net Added: 16.125 yards

Linking up: https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-2.html