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.   

 

Daisy's Egg Rolls

Yesterday I attempted Daisy's (of Lazy Daisy Quilting Podcast) egg roll recipe.  It was a minor failure.  Just so you know, spring roll wrappers are not the same as egg roll wrappers.  Spring roll wrappers are very thin and brittle.  'Like eating plastic', according to my son.  I made 3 egg rolls using the spring roll wrappers.  Then I threw them away and ended up eating egg roll filling topped with chow mein noodles for dinner last night.  I stuck the rest of the egg roll filling in the frig.   Fortunately, my husband had a work dinner last night, and my boys were content with leftovers.

This morning I  went to 4 grocery stores before I found egg roll wrappers. I made them for lunch today.   I rarely fry anything anymore because of the mess and calories, but the egg rolls were really good!  Each of my kids ate 4  for lunch.  I made 35 egg rolls then I cut the remaining wraps into strips and fried them.  Yummy!

 

Thanks for the recipe, Daisy!

July Ornament

My on-line stitching group had a Christmas in July ornament exchange this month.  Here's what I stitched for my partner.

 

This is 'A Memory of Williamsburg' by Barbara Jackson for Tristan Brooks.  It is a shop exclusive for Haus Triol in Williamsburg and  came as a kit. What does a pineapple have to do with Christmas?  In Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas, the houses are decorated with fresh greenery and fruit in wreaths and over the doors.  When  I went to college in Williamsburg, and we used to walk into the historic area to look at the decorations. 

 

 http://www.google.com/search?q=williamsburg+christmas+decoration+pictures&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=txH5Uez-Lfej4APP34HgDw&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1093&bih=479

 

  It is charted for mosaic stitch, but I think cross stitch would have worked just as well.  I did the outside green in cross stitch because I found it hard to keep the count right using mosaic stitch. 

 

 I don't anticipate stitching it again, so if anyone would like the chart, just let me know.  If more than one person would like it, I'll draw names.

 

The way I finished this ornament, it can be used as a scissors fob, which is how my partner said she would be using it.