Stashbusting Report - 6/30/08

I am happy to report that I not only used the 10 yards that I wanted to use this week, but I used a whopping 26+ yards!

Fabric Added This Week - 4.5 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 34.625 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 26.625 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 216.25 yards

YEAR TO DATE TOTAL: 181.625

Quiltathon Summary

It was a great weekend to catch up on my projects. Thanks JudyL for coordinating the Quiltathon.

Here's my updated list:

Bow Ties table topper - quilt: QUILTED

Colorful Block swap leftover blocks baby quilt - quilt: QUILTED & BINDING SEWN ON FIRST SIDE

6 Pillowcases in memory of Aaron Eilerts: I MADE 10 and the girls made 3

Garden quilt - hand sew binding: 3/4 FINISHED

Half-square triangle border on the pumpkin swap quilt: BORDER IS PIECED, but I can't decide on the layout - points in or out?



Here are my final border options. If I use only the dark brown, it will be a single border, but I might want a thin brown and then one of the others.


I didn't get to any of these:
Orange crush - finish top
Pineapple Blossom - add borders
Plaid Shirt quilt - hand sew binding

Quiltathon - Day 2 Morning

I seem to have gotten stuck making pillowcases.
I replied to a Freecycle ad last week from someone wanting frog fabric and she is coming to pick it up later. I thought it would be good to have it out and ready for her so when my granddaughters walked over Friday evening from a friends house I had them look through my novelty drawer for frog fabric. Of course, they found lots that they liked also. Jessi found "Josie" fabric and wanted it for her friend Josie. I suggested making her a pillowcase with it and then Sarah found Pooh fabric and said that her mom would love to have a Pooh pillowcase. Courtney decided on chocolate fabric and watermelon fabric.



This morning I cut their fabric so when they come over all they have to do is sew. I got to thinking that they were making them for others and they should have ones of their own. So, I pulled out some Bratz flannel and sewed one for each of them. I think they will be excited.



I added the binding to the Colorful block baby quilt this morning also.

It's time to get busy with those half-square traingles for the pumpkins now.

Quiltathon - Day 1 Evening

After a trip to Culvers for a Flavor-Of-The-Day cone with Janet & Randy, I came home and worked on these. Can you guess what they are?

If you guessed Pillowcases, you're right!
Here they are all finished, and look there are 7 of them. I only meant to make 6, but that's OK. These will be going to a hospital in memory of Aaron Eilerts, one of the boy scouts killed in the tornados in Iowa. This 14 year old boy had been making pillowcases for children in hospitals and you can read about him here. A local guild member, Gwen, suggested that we make some to send in his memory and these will be my contribution.

Quiltathon - Day 1 Afternoon

Well, I guess I'm on track, but I must admit that I feel like taking a nap. I got up bright and early and loaded the colorful block swap leftover blocks quilt. Got a little sidetracked looking for a piece of batting and ended up measuring and putting a label on most of the batting pieces. What do you do with leftover batting pieces? I thought about offering them on Freecycle(easy)or cutting them up to consistent sizes and selling, say 72 of them in a package on Ebay (a bit of work, but a little money for my time).

An allover meander and only 14 minutes of stitching time and that one was quilted.
I used a nursery print for the back and I'll probably donate this one to Project Linus.



Then, I loaded the bowtie table topper and had to wait a while for it to speak to me. I had no idea how to quilt it. While I waited Debbie stopped by to get some scrap batting to make a seatbelt cushion/cover, for those nasty seatbelts that seem to dig into our necks. While we were talking about how to make one, I suggested just a piece of prequilted fabric with some bias tape on the edges and some velcro. She left for Joanns and I didn't get to unload even a 12" square of batting.

At noon it was Butterburger time and then off to a cute little girl's birthday party. I didn't stay long, but what a party they were having. There was a big water slide/playhouse thing, slip and slides, games, lots of food, family and friends to celebrate Elly's 1st Birthday.

Back to the Quiltathon....I stippled in the background and did a little ribbon thing in the 1/2" sashing. I think I might hang this on the wall rather then put it on a table. I rather like the way it turned out.

Quiltathon

This weekend JudyL is sponsoring a Quiltathon. It's a mini-retreat for us to have at home and I'm planning to participate.

I have some pretty loft goals to share with you:

Bow Ties table topper - quilt
Colorful Block swap leftover blocks baby quilt - quilt
6 Pillowcases in memory of Aaron Eilerts
Half-square triangle border on the pumpkin swap quilt
Garden quilt - hand sew binding
Orange crush - finish top
Pineapple Blossom - add borders
Plaid Shirt quilt - hand sew binding

There may be more, but that's all I can think of right now.

I'm off to sew now - see you later!

Come Sit In My Garden

This is the top I pieced last night.....not bad for only having a vision in my head. Of course, I thought of several other ways that I could have laid it out after it was all finished. I cut strips of the cream, blue, and green fabrics and used them by themselves and then cut strips of cream and pink to make the checkerboard strips. I cut apart the border print, of which they only had 7/8 yard left and included 3 strips of that. Then I cut out the panel squares (ARGHHH) for cornerstones and cut the cream with pink squares for the borders. I'll try to quilt it tonight and get it bound and out the door by Monday morning.




Pesky Panels

There are some very pretty panels out there and I purchased quite a few when I got my Gammill just to practice on. I get so irritated every time I go to use one because they are ALWAYS printed off-grain. And not only off-grain, but not square either.

I wonder if you can tell me how you use them....
Do you cut off the border of the panel (which is what I did with these)?
Do you try to tug them into shape (which I have been known to try)?
Do you just cut and sew, not paying attention to the borders?
Do you just not buy them?

If you look at the panel below you can see that the left edge is even and straight with the selvedge, but the panel is 3/8 inch off on the top and bottom edges. So it seemed to me that I couldn't use the little borders on the panel. Very frustrating to me!!



Charm Packs
If I were to be in the market for some charm packs I just might wonder over to Hancock's of Paducah where they are having a big sale on their charm packs (Like I need to buy anymore fabric!) Many for only $3.98

I Fell Off!

...off the fabric diet, that is.

Last night was block of the month at Rossville Quilts and I didn't go there intending to purchase anything except my cheddar fabric for the fabric swap.

While there I saw the Come sit In My Garden line that was really sweet and not really my style, but I thought it would be great for a very special quilt that I have agreed to make. My total purchase was 1 yd of cheddar, 4.5 yards of the garden line.

On the bright side, I expect to use all of it for this quilt, so if I do that, I will have used another 4.5 yards this week towaards my goal of using 10+ yards this week.

Underground Railroad

Last night I quilted Ardeth's Underground Railroad quilt and what a beautiful quilt it is. I used the Jacobean panto, PermaCore camel thread and Warm & Natural batting. I must say that this was one of the most perfectly square and nicely pressed quilts that I have had the pleasure of quilting. Good Job Ardeth!!




Monday evening Adrienne came to quilt a baby quilt that was one of the guilds mystery quilts. She chose Popcorn Panto, PermaCore Natural thread and Warm & White batting. We enjoyed a couple glasses of wine while she quilted and I stitched down a binding. A very enjoyable evening!

Retreat Goodies

I am just thrilled to show you what came home with me. It seems like Christmas!

First are the storage baskets which I picked as a door prize. (PS -Thanks Bert)


Then the FQs I bought at a shop in Western Illinois(can't remember the name), along with a cute pumpkin frayed quilt pattern and a FQ for co-worker Vicki who is collecting this line, from Lori's Pins & Needles on the way home.


Here is the chinese take-out box filled with fabrics and a wooden holder for my thread, thimble, and pins that I received in the gift exchange. (PS - Thanks Bonnie) An Apple Basket kit and thread from the door prize table also and some cute magnets that I couldn't resist buying for $.94 each.




The City Limits fabrics --YUMMY!


And last but certainly not least is this cute flowerpot pin cushion from my friend Rosemary.

Stashbusting Report - 6/24/08

Boy am I ever late with this one and I didn't report last week either.

Fabric Added This Week - 3.375 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 30.125 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 9.3 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 189.625 yards

Net year to date: 159.5 yards used!

I am challenging myself to use over 10 yards of fabric this week to push my "Fabric Used Year To Date" over 200!

The Fat Quarters that I bought were supposed to be for a game at the retreat that never got started, so I'm glad that I bought something that I like. The other fabric purchase was "City Limits" by Blank. I saw this quilt hanging at Jackman's Fabrics and fell in love with it. I only purchased the special fabrics for it because I'm sure that I have solid red and black at home.



This photo looks pretty washed-out, but trust me it was gorgeous!

Finish 5 By The End of July

Peg over at Happy In Quilting is sponsoring a challenge: "Finish 5 By The End of July," and you know that I love a challenge.

If you look at my sidebar you will see that I started off the year with a bang, finishing 6 UFOs in January and have slacked off quite a bit since then. I have used a lot of fabric and finished a lot of projects, but lots of them are new ones, like the ones done at my retreat. So, with that being said, I'm off to start on this challenge of finishing 5 UFOs.

Plaid Shirt Quilt

Poor Mabel - she hasn't seen a quilt since a week ago today. I had a top delivered today that was made (by Dottie) out of the shirts of Mae's deceased husband. This is the second one I've quilted for her and the first was larger and natural muslin instead of the tan muslin, but the same bear paw pattern. The plackets from the shirt fronts and some sleeve buttons/buttonholes were included also.

Just a meander for this so it was on and off in less than 2 hours. Eggshell PermaCore Thread and Warm & Natural Batting.



After I bought my quilt stand, I made a muslin sleeve to pin the quilts to. Before I unloaded this one, I pinned on the sleeve, then unloaded the quilt. It was much easier to do it this way.

My Little Quilt Show

What can you accomplish at a 3 and a quarter day retreat? Well, just about one thing per day. First here is my Simply Hearts, which I purchased the pattern and some of the FQs last year on the way to retreat, in Hannibal, MO. I just love it and it's been named Watermelon Hearts by Dan.



Next is the Pumpkin Patch Primatives block swap from last year. I still want to put borders on this and have a pile of half-square trianges to trim up.



Next is my Pineapple Blossom from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville.com
I cut strips from my green and white/cream scrap boxes and would you believe that I ran out and had to get some greens off the scrap table for the final strips. I had plenty more green at home, but just didn't take along enough strips. I didn't get the rows sewn together until I got home, cause of space limitations at retreat. It still needs borders, but I'm not sure what kind.




Here's my March Challenge quilt, "Catch A Spinning Star" with it's blue ribbon on it. The pattern is one of the free ones available from JudyL.

Retreat

I'm having a great time at our retreat. I planned to take lots of photos and post them, but haven't had done that yet! The food is WONDERFUL and the company is WONDERFUL and I haven't had to rip-it much at all.
I'll be back on Sunday!

Pink is Done!

I finished the pink quilt for the auction and now I'm not sure I want to give it away. I probably will, but I sure do like it.



And the back:


I just love the surprise of the back after working on the front of a quilt all day.


The top center block is the one that I put in.

My New Toy

I finally bought a photography backdrop stand to hang quilt on to take photos of quilts. There just isn't room in our house to get a good shot, so this is what I have come up with. I'm sure I'll look funny out in the snow during the winter months, but I'll worry about that later.

Rosemary's March Challenge, "Catch a Falling Star" look really nice hanging there. This was the last of my new pantographs, Vanilla Orchid with Permacore thread and Warm and Natural batting.

 

Connie's RIM Quilt

One of my friends, that will be at the upcoming retreat, made this cute little string quilt during one of our challenges. She sent it to me for quilting and will get it back on Tuesday. The back is a navy mottled and I use ---GASP---eggshell thread. The panto is Button Flower, again. Hopefully I didn't make too many boo-boos.

 

And the back:

Auction Quilt

I know that I should be packing for my retreat on Tuesday, but there is one more quilt that I want to finish.

A little history about this quilt:
Every other year one of my guilds has an auction. 2 years ago there was an antique quilt top that I purchased for just a few dollars and I found out later that Janet was, at one time, the owner of said quilt top, and that she had taken the block out of the quilt, for what reason I still don't know-- but anyway, then she donated it to the auction. Rita bought the quilt top at the next auction and then 2 years ago she must have donated it back to the auction and I bought it. It has been my plan for almost a year to make a new block to replace the missing one and quilt it and give it back to the auction. The auction is this coming Wednesday and I leave for retreat on Tuesday, so I really need to finish it today.

I do mostly pantographs on my quilts, but wanted to do something special to this one. Feathered wreaths are in the solid blocks and continuous curves in the lemoyne stars. Not perfect by any means, but we all have to start somewhere.

I will be horified if no one even buys it, but if that happens, I don't want to know about it, OK!!!

 

Button Flower QOV

I received this QOV in the mail yesterday and loaded it this morning and now it will be on it's way back to Kathy.

Button Flower pantograph, White PermaCore thread and a poly blend batting from Joanns makes a real nice QOV.




And the back:

Astilbe

The astilbe are in bloom and aren't they pretty?
Dan could never remember their name, so I have told him to just think: "I'll still be loving you!"