Stash Report Week 48

Well, I missed yet another stash report Sunday.  We were out of town celebrating DH's birthday watching the Colts beat the Bills.


DH is a huge NFL fan who rarely goes to games.  He'd rather watch on TV and select the games he watches on the NFL Sunday Ticket.  Neither of us had been to Colts game since the new stadium went up.  It was a fabulous place.  Definitely beats the Rams' venue, no wonder they're trying to get the old place remodeled.

Before leaving for Indy, I took my mom and stepdad to one of my LQS's and then to Joanns.  I only bought one yard of fabric, with a 25% off coupon.  I needed some more black on white for the Easy Street mystery, and still do.

Joanns had a great deal on Fiskars cutting tools but the 5 pack blades were all gone by 9:30AM on Friday.  So, I bought a spare cutter.  My first one stopped working a few weeks ago and I've been using one that I gave my grandma a few years ago.

Still plugging away on my UFOs.  Finally finished the last 3 Jacob's Ladder blocks and then put 4 of them together to see the secondary pattern.  You can see why I had to get those stripes going the right way!

There is enough fabric to make another row or column.  I'll have to lay the blocks out on the bed to see which way to go, across or down.


To the numbers:
Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 28.525

Added this week (purchased/won): 1

Added this week (inherited/gifted): 0

Added year to date (purchased/won): 62.631


Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 68

Added year to date total: 130.631

Net used for 2012: -102.106


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

Have a great week! 

Leaders/Enders

In doing all this UFO work I had been using the 3.5" squares that I cut from the modern scraps as my leader/enders in the featherweight (which really works much better with a leader/ender).



Guess what, all 80 four patches are done for the Fourth of July pattern.  That was with no effort!  I am now sold on keeping a leader/ender project going!

Of course, the queen of the l/e projects is Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.com.  Did I tell you that I registered for one of her workshops that is being held in Bloomington, Indiana, at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in March?  I went to grad school in Bloomington - such a great college town.  And, I knew from looking at her calendar that she is booked through 2015, when I think she's coming to St. Louis.  Who can wait more than 2 years for a great class?

Bonnie's latest mystery, Easy Street, will most likely be my next l/e project.  The second clue posted this morning.  Yesterday, I finally cut a few 2" strips and started on the first clue. Here are my B&W backgrounds and my constant fabric, the taupe.



There are over 200 quilters working on this mystery, per Bonnie's linky post from Monday. Some will have a completed top the day after the last clue posts.  However, I will not be among that number!  Our weekend forecast is for temps in the high 60s - crazy for December in the midwest.  So, my time will likely be spent doing something other than sitting inside at the sewing machine.

If you think you might like to do this mystery sometime, go ahead and save each clue.  Bonnie plans to use this pattern in her next book and will remove it from her site in June.

See what others have been working on this week.  Click over to Confession of a Fabric Addict for a little Friday Whoop Whoop.
Namaste

Housework and giveaway link

Just a quick post.  Here's what gets me through housework.  This gets played so much that when I turned it on this morning before tackling a sink full of dishes the dog sat in front of the vacuum cleaner - she knows!

And.....
Teresa, The Green Bag Lady, is giving away more bags.  Check out her pattern, too - http://greenbaglady.blogspot.com/2012/11/win-shopping-bag-25-winners.html.  Good Luck!

Stash Report Week 46

Fabric has been added....again!  Although, it's only a drop in the bucket, one whole fat quarter.

 
Isn't it cute?  I needed to replenish my B&W and also felt a quick mental health trip to a fabric shop was in order, as a break from housework which is just so stinkin' monotonous.  I went to the closet one that sells Moda just to see these fabrics in person.

My two closest LQS's no longer carry Moda, due to billing/payment issues, so our quilty group assumes.  So, I paid $12/yd at the store that's most proud of it's fabric in our area.  Yep - on the shop hop Heyde's has the most expensive fabric.  However, I only purchased 1/2 yd - half to keep and half to swap.  I didn't ask what they charged for their pre-cut FQs.  My Moda fix is over and I'm ready to go back to my LQS's!

Here are some things that came into the house when I was trying to figure out my photo problem.  First up up is part of what I received from my partner, Deanna, in the Flickr Monthly Fabric Swap Group.

 
We swap four FQs (or the equivalent), chocolate/candy, and a small notion item.  I say part because Deanna sent some lovely scraps and I've already put them in their appropriate bins.  The chocolate, of course, was devoured almost immediately!

Here are the pretty FQs that Toby gave us at retreat.  Love these!

 

Also at retreat, quilty friend Cheri (aka "the iron lady") made us all these cute snap bags.


And, they have pockets inside - adorable!



Cheri also found a tin of hot chocolate that she gave me.

Where did she ever find "Farmgirl" cocoa?  LOL!  DS definitely gives this two thumbs up, with marshmallows, of course.

This week I have been plugging away at my Jacob's Ladder blocks.  I have 7 more to make to reach the total of 35.  Rather than put it away to work on something else, I might as well keep at it and then I won't have to figure it out again.



To the numbers:
Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 28.525

Added this week (purchased/won): 0.25

Added this week (inherited/gifted): 0

Added year to date (purchased/won): 61.631

Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 68

Added year to date total: 129.631

Net used for 2012: -101.106

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

Turning a corner

I found it!  My sewing mojo!

It has been coming and going since my grandma's death.  This week I talked to the building inspector to discuss getting a demolition permit to take down her house.  Things are happening at the farm, too.  Fence rows being cleared and new fences going up.  And I manage it all from hundreds of miles away.

So, there were days when I needed to just "be."  And sitting at the sewing machine didn't fill the void.  Even our retreat didn't really do the trick.  What really did it was this past Sunday.  After sewing all day at Charla's house on Saturday, I wanted to keep going.  Finally, I got an entire afternoon just to sew in my own space and watch some Netflix and listen to Pandora.  I've done time at the machine each day this week, except yesterday which was unusually busy.  I can't tell you the last time that that happened.

The other corner relates to my quilting.  That is something that began at retreat.  I finally picked up an old Marti Michel BOM.


It's a UFO because the setting kit includes pieced sashing and cornerstones.  After working on 12.5" blocks that had up to 52 pieces, I was not interested in spending tons of time piecing the setting kit.

It just seemed like such a daunting task!

I always wondered how quilters could get such large quilts with small pieces together in so little time.  Now I get it - you cut and cut and cut, then you sew and sew and sew, and it all comes together.  It obviously doesn't come together in a day but it doesn't take months and months and months unless you stop working on it.

This week I've been working on another UFO.  I need 35 twelve inch Jacob's Ladder blocks for a quilt that I sketched out on graph paper about 5.5 years ago, while we were finishing our basement.  I made about 10 blocks.  Then the stripes got the better of me and I just put it away, let other projects take priority.  This is what I've been working on all week.


I cut all the stripe triangles and have been chain sewing like crazy.

See what other have been doing this week - check out the Whoop Whoop's!  Oh - and Sarah has a giveaway for you, too!

Fell off the wagon...again (stash report week 45)

The computer gets me into more trouble! I've been staying out of the quilt/fabric stores and only buying supplies. I mean, I have only one in store purchase in a quilt shop for 2012. But, a great birthday gift from Leona's Birthday Club and a sale at the Fat Quarter Shop brought 6 more lovely yards of fabric into my house.


All batiks, of course, from the FQS batik week sale. Can't pass up Hoffman batiks at $5.50/yard. At least when I do buy I don't pay full price - not in 2012 anyway!

 Still no finishes. I did get DS's six extra large Dresden plate blocks together for a twin size top. It measures about 62x93 atm. Now to get the back pieced. 

We had a lovely sew day yesterday at Quilty friend Charla's house. In an attempt to finish up some old UFO's, I worked on a Marti Michell designed BOM from 2009. The blocks have been done for a few years now but the sashing and cornerstones are all pieced. The past few weeks,in the company of good friends, I've cut about 300 pieces with Marti's templates and have the sashing sections ready to put together. Now to the cornerstones.

Karen and I worked on getting 2.5" squares together for our guild's Bingo game in December. We needed 25 different fabrics for each square.


Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 28.525

Added this week (purchased/won): 6.0

Added this week (inherited/gifted): 0

Added year to date (purchased/won): 61.381

Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 68

Added year to date total: 129.381

Net used for 2012: -100.856

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

Stash Report Week 44

It's been 3 weeks?!  Amazing!!  Guess I needed a break.

I still haven't solved my photo issue, so this will be short.  There have been no finishes but I did work on several projects this past week.  That is because quilty friends and I had our annual retreat at the St. Louis Star Inn last weekend.  

I worked on some old projects that just need to get finished:  Jacob's Ladder blocks started in 2007 and the Marti Michell (i.e. templates) Cider Mill BOM started in 2009.  

They did not get finished but progress was made.  However, I did finish piecing the giant Dresden plate blocks for DS's twin size quilt.

Just last night I started putting the yellow and black "T" square blocks together.  I laid 54 of them out on the spare bed thinking I could take with me to retreat, but it just seemed too daunting to be able to keep them in order.  So, I left them.  Our spare room is too small for me to set up the card table so I put the featherweight on a wooden TV tray next to the bed and started getting them together.









Toby Lischko, quilt designer and owner of the Inn, gifted us all with 2 FQs and I dove into her "free scraps" bin for the equivalent of another, so I added a teeny bit to my stash since the last report, all batiks of course.


Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 28.525

Added this week (purchased/won): 0.75

Added this week (inherited/gifted): 

Added year to date (purchased/won): 55.381

Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 68

Added year to date total: 123.381

Net used for 2012: -94.856

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