Star BOM

Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to do Judy Laquidara's Star Block of the Month (BOM), but the more I thought about it the more I really wanted to do it. It usually *is* more fun to do it as part of a group. And as my good friend Barbara pointed out, surely I can make time to do one block every two weeks.

So I went shopping today and bought these fabrics. I thought I'd make it easy on myself and use all batiks. I'm also using the same colors Judy is using. Purple, lime green, and cheddar are really a stretch for me, but I think I'll like it in the end. Although it looks like there's enough contrast between the purples in the photo, I'm still not quite sure about the two in the middle. I'd be happy if anyone would offer an opinion. There are plenty of purple batiks out there, and I can always switch them out, if need be.

Tomorrow I'll wash and press these and get started on Block 1.

Sunday Stash Report

This week I used about 8 yards for the backing for Koleen's quilt, plus another 7/8 yard for the binding strips, which are cut and waiting for the quilt to come back from the machine quilters.

The yardage requirements for the Galaxy of Stars quilt require about 1/6 yard for each fabric used in the blocks. Rather than try to calulate how much fabric is in each block, I'm reporting the entire sixth of a yard for each fabric I start cutting into as I construct the blocks. I'll report the background fabric when I finish all of them. So for this week, I finished four blocks, four fabrics per block, for a total of about 2-2/3 yards.

For once my procrastination paid off. I didn't get around to ordering my bolt of muslin right away, until I got an email from Hancock's offering a free shipping promotion, and then it was a done deal. The bolt of muslin arrived last week, along with the additional Kaffe Fassett fabrics I ordered. I also received a Rainbow medley of the month from Keepsake Quilting this past week.

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 11-1/2 yards
Fabric used year to date: 112-7/8 yards
Fabric added this week: 27-1/2 yards
Fabric added year to date: 210-5/8 yards
Net year to date: - 97-3/4 yards

Stop laughing, Barbara!

Galaxy of Stars Block 1

The Blazing Star block is Block 1 in the Galaxy of Stars quilt, and there are four of them in the quilt. A couple of posts ago, I uploaded a representation from my Electric Quilt program

of the whole quilt. It's a beautiful quilt, and these blocks will go in the corners of the quilt.

Vacation Week

Oh, how I hated to go back to work this morning after being on vacation for a week! I had a fun and relaxing week puttering around the house and working in the garden. I tried to take care of some household chores in the mornings and spent afternoons and evenings in my sewing room. In the sewing room I spent quite a lot of time cleaning up, reorganizing, and taking care of some necessary but not very exciting tasks.

What I accomplished:

• Removed the checkerboard border from Koleen's quilt that didn't fit correctly, resewed a few of the blocks and sewed it back on, and added the last round of borders to finish the top.


• Cut the backing and batting for Koleen's quilt and delivered it to Koleen for machine quilting.


• Worked on the binding for Road to Many Friendships--two sides are now hand stitched to the back, and two more to go.


• Quilted Bug Strippy #2 and machine stitched the binding to the front of the quilt. Still need to hand stitch the binding down.


• Finished the rest of the album blocks for the Orange Crush quilt. Next I'm working on the half album blocks that go around the edges of the center section.


• Finished the first four blocks for the Galaxy of Stars quilt.


• Washed and ironed all the new Kaffe Fassett fabrics for the Butterfly quilt.


• Dug Pinwheel Party back out of the closet and contemplated how much I'm going to hate ripping and replacing the offending navy blue fabric. More on that later. Much later.


• Waffled a little bit more about JudyL's Star Block of the Month and finally decided to do it.

We've had plenty of rain lately, and both the new lawn and the tomatoes are doing very well. In fact they're doing well enough that I might add a couple more potted tomato plants next summer as well. Still no red ones yet though.

Sunday Stash Report

Now who possibly couldn't be cheered up looking at these beautiful colors? These are the Kaffe Fassett prints I picked up at the quilt show, 17-1/2 yards in all! I've admired them for a long time but never bought them because I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them. The butterfly quilt was all the stimulus I needed; and after I got home from the quilt show, I went online to Hancock's of Paducah and ordered a few more.

Well, I'm a failure at stashbusting, but ask me how much it bothers me right now! At this point, I don't really expect to recover and be in the black by the end of the year, but there's always next year, right? And how much willpower do you really expect me to have at quilt show anyway?

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 101-3/8 yards
Fabric added this week: 17-1/2 yards
Fabric added year to date: 183-1/8 yards
Net year to date: - 81-3/4 yards

I did get released from work early today, so I spent a couple hours this afternoon cutting apart plaid shirts that I found at the thrift shop last week. Bonnie Hunter really hit on a fantastic idea with her quilts made from plaid shirts--recycle, reuse. I've started collecting a few here and there but haven't got enough different ones to start a quilt just yet. Cutting the shirts apart saves some storage space though.

I also finally got the binding machine sewn to the front of the Road to Many Friendships quilt and will start hand stitching tomorrow morning.

Hooray, I'm on vacation all this week! I am happy to stay home and not go anywhere. Besides catching up on a few things around the house, I plan to spend plenty of time in my sewing room.

Quilt Show

I have been in a slump the past several weeks, but now that my husband is back home, things will be better. His plane landed in Portland Wednesday afternoon, so my son and I drove down to pick him up, and we hooked up with my other boy and had dinner all together at Ruby Tuesday's. It was nice.

On the way to the airport, we stopped at the eye doctor's office in Brunswick. I called first thing Wednesday morning and had them cancel the order for my son's eyeglasses and had planned to discuss an alternative later in the day. Candace had the best idea though, to purchase the glasses somewhere else. So we walked two doors down to an optical shop and had the prescription filled there for about a third of the cost. I was a lot happier with that, and my son still got the new frames he wanted.

Maine Quilts presented its 31st annual quilt show this weekend, and I spent about four hours at quilt show on Friday afternoon. I had a half dozen or so photos to upload, but Blogger is not cooperating at all, so I'll have to try again tomorrow. Anyway, it was a fun show, and I found some things I wanted. I prefer to go to quilt shows by myself, because I like to poke around at all the vendors' booths first, then go back and poke around some more, then view the quilts and take a few photos.

I bought a new sewing table from Tony, a Janome dealer down in Biddeford who had a booth at the show. I'd been kicking around the idea for years, because I've used a big heavy trestle table since 1989, and it just takes up too much real estate. Margo bought one recently, and I was hooked after I saw hers, plus Tony had a pretty good show special. I also found a great collection of Kaffe Fassett prints that I want to use in the butterfly quilt.

I got a quilt show pin this year too, just for a change. The quilt show people never seem to order enough of these things; and unless you're there the first day, they always sell out of them. I've collected them for years and used to pin them all to my nametag until I accumulated too many and ran out of space. A long time ago I saw a small attic windows quilt that someone made (Bethany Reynolds maybe?) and she had a quilt show pin in each window. I thought it was a cute idea to display these, and I should probably get busy and make one sometime.

By the time I finished at quilt show, I was feeling very inspired and ready to get going again on my sewing machine. Too bad I had to work all weekend, or I might have actually got something done!

Disappearing Photos

The last time I posted to my blog I noticed that some of my photos had disappeared, leaving in their places little boxes with red x's in them. The funny thing is that when I looked at the html, the code for the picture was still there, and all the missing photos are still in Picasa. So I went through my entire blog and fixed everything. This evening when I checked my blog, darned if there aren't pictures missing again. How in the world could they just go missing, when I haven't changed anything since yesterday? Seems to me I remember seeing something about this before, but wouldn't you know I have no idea where I saw it. If anyone has a clue why this might be happening, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd email me.