Another pretty day (stash report week 9)

..that's what the weather man says.  We're supposed to hit 60 degrees again today. The birds must agree because our cardinals are singing and the chickadees and titmice are chirping away.

Quilting has taken a bit of a back seat.  I wish I could've kept the momentum going but in my small space it's tough to get another top readied for quilting while I still have my first three out being finished.  Only one still needs its hanging sleeve and label, which is ready to go. (I might have done it yesterday but I chose instead to lie down and read.  The more I quilt, the less I read!)

Oh, and this is something that we did as a Christmas present for my father in law.  I saw it on Sew Many Ways.  Grab a frame and repurpose it by replacing the glass with duct sheeting, which is metal and magnet friendly.  I made the magnets last fall, also a project from Sew Many Ways.  Anyway, from the sheet we bought before the holidays, we made one 8x10 as a gift, one 10x14 to hang in DS's room, and two small ones for me to use around my sewing space.  I say "we" because DH cut the sheet metal for me.  I'm thinking about doing a few for Mother's Day gifts as well but I may learn to cut those myself.

On the sewing front, I decided to cut the black and white fabrics for the "T" blocks that I showed you last week.


The pattern is from Fat Quarter Fun (by Karen Snyder) but I'm only using a few FQs.  Several pieces are scraps from previous projects, including backings.  Makes me feel good to use up fabric!

I've been using the Easy Angle ruler that Bonnie Hunter, and her followers, rave about.  It is very nice, not any slower than cutting squares.  The first two blocks are right on size wise.  And, since I do a lot of piecing with the featherweight, which uses a screw in seam guide for that 1/4" seam, it's much easier to feed triangles under the presser foot than squares.

Each FQ makes 4 blocks, not 2 as I had originally convinced myself.  Sew, after cutting Friday evening I had to go back and cut some more!  Since several pieces aren't FQs, then there a few smaller pieces that will give me only 2 blocks.  I'd like to get this project all cut and the triangles paired up to make for some fast piecing, since I don't intend to do much piecing at home.  I'm going to try to get this done while out on sew days with my quilty friends.


This leads me to my one fabric purchase this week.  I ordered 3 yards of batiks for less than $4/yd from an online store.  $3.68/yd for 1895s! At one point I had 8 yards in my cart and then I asked myself what I was going to do with all that.  And, I thought of the previous stash report with two finishes on it and of my quilting expenses for the month. My cart shrank down to 3 yards!  What's that quote?  Something like, "A bargain's not a bargain if you don't need it."  

It took the store one week to mail out my order so I received 2 yards of fabric as one was sold out.  That's ok!  It was a "just because" design from McKenna Ryan.  Some of the 2 yards I got are going into the "T" quilt so a few strips from Blond Ale (Hoffman 1895) have already been cut.

Since it's way too hard for me to figure out how much I've cut out and then remember not to count it next week when I've cut more, I only count fabric once the project is done.  I will count the 3/4 yd that I used in making hanging sleeves and the 2.67 yards that I used to finish up Aunt Caroline's Rose Garden.  I did not include the blocks in the quilt since I didn't count them "in" and since I didn't make them.  I just counted the sashing, cornerstones, binding and backing and it finishes at 39x52, so it's not a large quilt at all.


Used this week: 3.42
Used year to date: 15.570
Added this week: 2.0
Added year to date: 6.625
Net used for 2012: 8.945


Please click over to Patchwork Times and see other stash reports.


Have a great week!