Sunday Stash Report

I finished the raffle quilt this evening, and I think it looks great. Koleen deserves the credit for choosing the fabrics for the sashings and borders. I thought a one-inch sashing would be too narrow, but it's perfect. I've always liked sampler quilts and have wanted to make one for a long time and just never got around to it. Working on this quilt gives me some motivation to start on one of my own, maybe next year.

I missed the stash report last Sunday, and here's the rest of what I've accomplished in the last two weeks:

--Cut and pieced the borders for the Theresa's Stars quilt and finished the top
--Cut and pieced another strippy
--Cut out all the squares for a queen-sized rag quilt

I've had the homespuns for the rag quilt for quite a while and added more last week. I had taken the squares with me to work on at Kay's; and after I got the very first set of squares sewn together, Barb suggested that I use my embroidery machine to quilt a design in each square. I thought that was a great idea. I'm not proficient at all with my embroidery machine and haven't tried to quilt anything with it; so I guess I'll make some time to play around with that idea, but probably not until after Christmas.

Besides the homespuns and a medley from Keepsake, I also bought 6 yards of a beautiful blue-green batik at the Cote Bros. retirement sale. It was a good price, so I may have to go back next week or the week after for a few more batiks. Other than that, I stocked up on embroidery threads and bought a new seam ripper and a pack of sewing machine needles. I wish the embroidery software would go on sale, but I'm not holding my breath. I know at least some of it is on consignment and won't go on sale.

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 13-3/4 yards
Fabric used year to date: 188-1/2 yards
Fabric added this week: 19-1/2 yards
Fabric added year to date: 350-3/8 yards
Net year to date: - 161-7/8 yards

My goals for this week are to machine stitch the binding to the Twelve Stars quilt, machine quilt one of the strippies, and machine quilt the Theresa's Stars quilt. I plan to use flannel on the back of the strippy, and I hope it doesn't give me fits with the tension.

Raffle Quilt

I worked a lot of hours last week, 6 days in a row. I felt so tired during the week that I decided to take a vacation from blogging, sewing, and just about everything else--just went to work every day, and that was it. We did have a sewing day at Kay's last Friday, and I made another strippy top.

Yesterday I finally had a day off, and it was wet and rainy so I stayed in my jammies all day and sewed. A couple weeks ago I volunteered to assemble these blocks into a quilt top, which will be a raffle quilt for one of my quilt groups. The blocks finish to 12 inches with sashings and cornerstones that finish to one inch wide. I am a little further along than the picture, only have one more row to assemble. Then there will also be a 4" red border.

Anyone who has ever put together a bunch of blocks made by different quilters knows that no two ever turn out to be the same size, and these blocks were no exception. They ranged in size from 12-3/4" to 12" inches, so I squared everything up as best I could before I started sewing them together. I did have to rip out parts of several blocks and remake them in order to have at least a little bit of seam allowance. Thank goodness the group decided to add that sashing! I haven't made a narrow little sashing like this before, and everything is coming out nice and straight. I really like how it's coming together.

Most of the blocks patterns in the quilt are old favorites, but I haven't seen this one before. I like the fact that the quilter made it scrappy. I'd love to make a whole quilt with this block, maybe scrappy blues or scrappy greens.

The sewing store where I bought my Bernina a couple years ago is going out of business. Cote Brothers has been in business for 52 years, and it's so sad to see them closing their doors. One of the owners has had health issues in recent years; so I suppose it's really a combination of things, not the least of which would be the economy. Anyway, I am on my way to Cote's today to find a few bargains on threads and notions and maybe some fabric for quilt backs.

Sunday Stash Report

I had another interesting week as far as the stash report goes, but I am sliding ever deeper into the hole. This week I bought 12 yards, which will go for borders and sashings on 3 different quilts. Also remember that I used a bunch of my Christmas fat quarters in the Theresa's Stars quilt, and that was the whole point, right, to use them up? Well, I was horrified at the prospect of not having a selection of Christmas fabrics for some future project, so I went out and bought another 4-1/2 yards of new fat quarters! I also bought 3 yards of a couple of tone on tones for strippies. On the up side, I cut up 10 yards for those 4 strippies I started on at Koleen's Sit and Sew on Halloween. Now I have to get busy and finish them!

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 10 yards
Fabric used year to date: 174-3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 19-1/2 yards
Fabric added year to date: 330-7/8 yards
Net year to date: - 156-1/8 yards

Waste Not, Want Not

An old saying, but still as true as ever. As good quality quilting cottons approach $10 per yard in some quilt shops and are actually priced at $10 per yard now in others, it becomes increasingly important to me to use every bit of fabric to best advantage. I'd been saving selvages for a while because it appealed to me to have those color dots as a reference; but after Karen Griska released a book called Quilts From The Selvage Edge, I began collecting in earnest. My friend Barb commented that she thought selvage quilts were ugly; and that may be true, but I also find them really interesting to look at.

I was delighted the other day to find that Wanda from Exuberant Color was also collecting selvages. Not only did Wanda have a link to some photos of an entire dress made from selvages, but she also had a link to Karen Griska's blog. Now I am discovering all sorts of interesting things to do with selvages--pincushions, handbags, scarves, postcards, and doll quilts.

I thought about the "waste not, want not" theme again the other day, when I saw Sherry throw away a big handful of trimmings. Some people refer to these trimmings as quilt confetti, and I have seen a photo or two where people put them in an attractive clear glass jar or clear table lamp base. That never appealed to me, but then I remembered that someone in my Friday quilt group was collecting them to make dog beds for a local animal shelter. I thought that was a worthwhile endeavor; so I retrieved Sherry's scraps from the trash, then went home and dug mine out of the trash too. I now have about a quarter of a bag full of trimmings, and I feel downright righteous that I am using every single shred of my $10 per yard fabric! At least as long as someone will make dog beds out of them, I suppose..... or maybe.... a floor pillow!

Sit and Sew

My plans for this past week went awry again, which is hardly anything new for me. Not only do I suffer from poor time management skills, but working for a living also puts a squeeze on my quilting time. Nonetheless I still managed to get something accomplished despite myself. I haven't finished my Theresa's Stars top yet, but I have finished all 30 blocks and have started sewing them into rows. I also played on my Lizzie during the week with a couple of practice pieces and the new pantographs I got. The Poinsettia pattern from Willow Leaf, which I want to stitch on Theresa's Stars, is my new favorite; and I was able to stitch a reasonable facsimile the first time I tried it.

Does that mean I'm getting better at staying on the line? No! Effervescence, also from Willow Leaf is the one I was contemplating stitching on the Orange Crush quilt, but it proved to be more difficult than I would have thought. Those circles are a little over three inches in diameter, and staying on the line was hard! Another pantograph I got was Bubbles, and I think I'll probably try that one instead. Another advantage of a busy quilt top--you won't see the bobbles in my bubbles.

Friday Barbara, Sherry, Koleen and I got together for a sit and sew in Koleen's studio. Koleen has a lovely studio built on a slab where her garage used to be, and it is a lovely big, well lit space to sew in. We started out the day with Show and Tell, which is an integral part of any quilting get-together. This is the quilt I just finished for Koleen, Twelve Stars Til Christmas. It's very nearly a queen sized quilt. The ribbon candy border was lots of work but well worth the result. Koleen was planning to put this one on her frame for quilting yesterday, and I should get it back on Friday. For the quilt design, we settled on a tannebaum Christmas tree pattern in a gold-red-green variegated thread, and I can't wait to see it finished.

I finished the Tug O' War pattern for Koleen some time ago, and it has been waiting its turn in the quilting queue. It was more important to me for the Christmas one to get done first, so I'll be waiting a little longer for this one to get quilted. Koleen's original pattern had some flying geese blocks and a partial border in flying geese for an asymmetrical look. My husband likes everything to be perfectly symmetrical, so I made those blocks and then substituted more of the Jacob's Ladder blocks in the finished top. Although this is a huge quilt, the pieces are large, and it went together pretty quickly. This will go on my bed when it's done.

Koleen has released 2 other new patterns as well--Cardinals in the Courtyard and Making New Friends--and you can see the versions Barbara and Sherry made on Barbara's blog. You can see all 4 patterns on Koleen's website here.

Not only is Koleen a pattern designer and longarm quilter extraordinaire, but she is also a prolific quilter. All four of these are Koleen's quilts. The log cabins will go upstairs in the loft of her studio, which is still under construction and where she will eventually have overnight guests.

You're probably wondering what the heck I did all day. Before I went to Koleen's I cut out the pieces for 4 of MaryMcJ's strippies; and I cut up my Turning Twenty quilt blocks that I made way back in February or March into strips for a lasagna-style quilt, because I didn't really care for the Turning Twenty pattern. What I actually accomplished was I finished the last 4 of my Theresa's Stars quilt blocks, and I assembled one strippy top. Not so much really, but we had fun, socialized, and had a yummy lunch too.

Credit where credit is due:

Twelve Stars Til Christmas and Tug O' War quilt designs by Koleen Painchaud, The Quilted Cardinal

Weekend Workshop

My good friend Sherry hosted our retreat this past weekend, and she was an excellent hostess and instructor for our workshop project. The pattern, called Theresa's Stars, was from an old issue of Quiltmaker magazine; and Sherry made up her version before the retreat so we could get some ideas for fabrics.

Sherry made lunch and supper for us on Saturday plus lunch on Sunday, so we were able to sew all day both days with no distractions and no interruptions. Some of the other quilters also brought treats to share. What could be better than sewing and eating all day? It was fabulous, and I am already looking forward to next year's retreat.

Sherry and I were the only two who made scrappy versions, and we both chose to make 30-block quilts. I managed to get 26 of my 30 blocks finished over the course of the weekend, which is surely some kind of record for me. I used 15 different fat quarters for the paddles and probably an equal number of fabrics for the stars. Some of these fabrics worked better than others, and some of the red stars got lost a little; but I wasn't about to rip anything out. As Sherry would say, it's all good. The small pieces pinned off to the side will be the borders.

It's always fun to see what a pattern looks like made up in a different set of fabrics, and we certainly had a great variety. Helen chose a very pretty print with deer in it for an elegant look. She'll be adding borders in gold and green.




















Margo used a soft plaid and gold stars for a warm look for a quilt for her brother.


















Kay experimented with some different colors for her stars and finally hit on this combination, which we all liked a lot.















Janice ultimately moved the four corner blocks with the yellow stars to the center of the quilt, which seemed to pull it all together. Since she'll be hanging this on a red wall, we thought her quilt would look great with a thin yellow border and green for the outer border.





















Chris's quilt was really very different from the rest and looked so nice. She precut a big stack of pieces and was making these little 12-block lap quilts for donations. This turned out to be a great stashbuster for her.





















Credit where credit is due:
Theresa's Stars quilt design by Theresa Eisinger, Quiltmaker magazine Nov/Dec 05

Sunday Stash Report

Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments on my Orange Crush quilt. I really like busy quilts, partly because I enjoy just looking at all the different fabrics so much. The pantograph I want to use to quilt it did arrive, but late in the week. By then I was busy cutting fabrics for my weekend workshop project, Theresa's Stars, which I'll have pictures of tomorrow. This one is pretty busy too.

This week I bought 5 yards for the borders of Theresa's Stars, and I thought that was going to be it for the week. However my good friend Sherry had a bolt of fabric, a white background with a little gold leaf, that she was trying to get rid of. Evidently the printing was off on the whole bolt because the leaves were supposed to be outlined in gold, and not all of them were. I noticed later that the gold is flaking off too, and hopefully a good wash will take care of that. Anyway, I thought it would be just fine for a backing, so I came home with 10 yards from the bolt. I also used 6 yards for the workshop project plus another 6 yards for 2 practice quilts.

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 12 yards
Fabric used year to date: 164-3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 15 yards
Fabric added year to date: 311-3/8 yards
Net year to date: - 146-5/8 yards

This week I hope to get the Theresa's Stars top all together, then spend the rest of the week working on some machine quilting.