Sunday Stash Report

So I'm a day late. Actually I'm a couple of weeks late. But first, a weather report. Here in Maine, June was the fifth wettest month on record. July was the second wettest month on record. So far, this summer has been the wettest on record in 138 years. Really.

It's taken all summer, but summer has finally arrived. Saturday was hot and humid, and yesterday we probably hit 90 degrees. Today was hot, sticky, and miserable; and tomorrow will be more of the same. I'm not complaining, mind you, because I know other folks have been hotter and for longer. Okay, wait, I am complaining. I hate this weather! It's why I moved up to Maine--to get away from it! I like cold weather so much better! On the up side, the lawn finally stopped growing, and I probably won't have to mow it all week. By Thursday we'll be back down into the much more reasonable 70s. Come on, Autumn!

Well, let's see, last time I did a Stash Report was July 26. I haven't accomplished anything significant in my sewing room, but I did work on my September Sun blocks. It's a 36-block quilt with 4 different blocks. The blocks will finish to 11 inches, and I've been kicking myself because I didn't redraft them as 12-inch blocks. What was Jinny Beyer thinking when she designed a quilt with 11-inch blocks? On purpose?

Over the last couple weeks I made two more pillowcases, used up about 3 yards of muslin for a quilt sandwich to play with a couple of new pantographs, and I bought a couple yards of one of my favorite green batiks to replenish my supply. Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 7 yards
Fabric used year to date: 74 3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 2 yards
Fabric added year to date: 180-1/4 yards
Net used year to date: -105-1/2 yards

No apologies, no excuses. But, hey, I'm less behind than I was two weeks ago!

Christmas in July

We had two Christmas in July workshops last month, and this was the project I worked on, the one called "It's A Wrap!" I put the last round of borders on and finished the top this evening.

I liked this quilt as soon as I saw it, and I really enjoyed working on it. It was a fun way to use bits and pieces of my favorite Christmas fabrics that I've collected over the years, and I might make another one sometime and use up a few more.

Credit where credit is due: quilt design by Mary Ann Meador, Quiltmaker Nov/Dec 2008


















The Tacoma Lakes Quilters' Christmas in July workshop was held at Koleen's studio. I think there were about ten of us in attendance, and mostly we ate and socialized. I did get a start on my quilt, but I think only about three of us actually sewed. We had a great Show and Tell though. Too bad most of my photos were blurry. Here are some of the better ones.

Pauline made this lovely sampler. It wouldn't have occurred to me to put these colors together in a quilt, but I rather liked it and thought the colors worked very well together.

Some time before I joined the Tacoma Lakes group, they embarked on a group project called "Fool Around Fun". Sorry, no idea where they got this quilt pattern from. A number of ladies in the group made the quilt, and all the quilts appeared together at the Pine Tree Quilt Guild state show in July as a separate exhibit. I love how different they all looked. I think Margo has a picture of all of them on her blog.









Bea was the winner of the May Block of the Month blocks and assembled them into this interesting top.

BarbD showed this adorable little quilt top. I knew she hadn't appliqued it, because Barb doesn't applique. But she does embroider by machine, so I thought they were embroidered. Well, she still fooled me, because it's a cheater panel that she added borders to!

Koleen got a top finished too. A simple block with a stunning impact and gorgeous colors.

Kayleen made a pair of patriotic tablerunners using the same pattern I used for the one I showed you here, but she oriented her log cabin blocks differently. This was also a group project, and I managed to get in on the tail end of this one. I don't know why Kayleen's quilts remind me of the Confederate flag.

Tomorrow I'll put up a few photos from the other Christmas in July workshop. I think there were a couple of other ladies that actually did work on a Christmas project, but I only got a picture of one of them.

Pillowcases

I've been making pillowcases this week, six in all. The two pale purple ones with the dark purple bands go with my Springtime Stars quilt. The rest will be donated to ConKerr Cancer and will go to locations here in Maine. My deadline for this project is Friday, August 7, so I might have time for a couple more.

These are a nice little stashbuster too--each pillowcases uses about one yard and goes together in less than an hour. On the selvage of one of these fabrics was a copyright date of 1994. Does that tell you anything? I probably bought that fabric intending to make quillows or something for my kids.

My favorite is the one with the racing cars and the checkerboard border. I'm going to make one like this for my son's girlfriend's little boy. He turned two a few months ago and is now sleeping in a regular bed, so I think he needs a big boy pillowcase.

The Latte Block

Today three of us got together at Carolee's for our little embroidery group. We all have Bernina sewing machines with embroidery modules, and we want to learn more about them, so we get together once or twice a month to play. Carolee has a basement sewing room, which was the place to be today because it was warm and muggy outside. From left to right in the photo is Carolee, Pauline, and me. I tried to look busy because I don't like to have my picture taken.

Pauline took a bunch of classes after she bought her Bernina a while back, so she is the brains of the group. We try to choose something specific to work on at our get togethers, and today our focus was multihooping. When a design is too large for the selected hoop size, it becomes necessary to rehoop the fabric at some point during the stitch out in order to complete the whole design. Getting the design lined back up correctly is not an easy task for a novice, and I'm not too sure that I grasped exactly how to do this, but I'll play around with it some more.

The block we worked with today was one of the blocks from the Latte Quilt, a sampler of a dozen or so embroidered quilt blocks, and so named, I suppose, because it is all stitched in neutral colors on a neutral background. I've seen the complete sampler stitched out and quilted, and it's gorgeous.

What you see in the photo is two thirds of the design, which required two hoopings. The most obvious problem I had was puckering in the fabric, which is something that has frustrated me quite often. There must be about a dozen reasons why this might happen, and I never seem to get any of them right. (Teresa, are you reading this? Help!)

The second problem was that we actually loaded the wrong design into memory when we rehooped it for the right side of the embroidery. Some of the stitching crossed over parts of the center design, which wasn't right. Neither of these things bothered me, however, because it was a practice piece, and I had fun watching it stitch out. I was pleased with the quality of the stitch out today, which I haven't always been able to say in the past.

Next time we get together, we will play with machine embroidered applique.

Just Because He Loves Me

Correction to "Quilt Show" Post

Thank you, Wanda, for letting me know that the link to Margo's website, where you can see more photos from the Maine state PTQG quilt show, was not working properly. Sorry about that--I should have checked my links before I posted. I've fixed it now, and the correct url is http://heartinhishandquilting.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.

Sunday Stash Report

Well, I bought 7 yards of fabric at the quilt show. I thought I showed great restraint. I would have preferred to have bought 70 yards.

I finished another little strippy and crossed it off my Power of Ten list. The yardage for it was calculated a while back. I added Pillowcases to the list to replace the strippies. I'm planning to make 4 or 5 of them, some of which will be donated in the name of ConKerr Cancer. It's a project one of my quilt groups is working on. Today I cut the fabric for 2 pillowcases, so I'm counting it out of my stash.

Here's the Stash Manager's Report:

Fabric used this week: 2-3/4 yards
Fabric used year to date: 67-3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 7 yards
Fabric added year to date: 178-1/4 yards
Net used year to date: -110-1/2 yards