Sunday, September 22, 2013

Week 38 Stash Report

This past week has been very busy and lots of fun.  First there was a 4 day retreat where I finished two of the Sept. goals and made some progress on 2 others.  On the way home, I went shopping at Hickory Stick and they were having a great sale; so naturally I had to help out.  I came home with lots of new batiks, a couple of Bali pops (at 1/2 price how could one say no?), two panels, 20 batik FQ and a few one yard cuts of interesting fabrics to add to my stash.  A total of 11 yards was added to my shelves.

I almost fell back into red numbers, but made it by the skin of my teeth to stay in the black.
Fabric Added  - 11 yards
Fabric Added YTD - 84.95 yds
Fabric Used last week - 7 yds - top to challenge quilt, backing and binding
Fabric Used YTD - 85.23 yds
Fabric Busted for 2013 - 0.28 - not much in the black.   Whew, that was close!

One of my projects at retreat was to finish the challenge "brown bag" quilt from one of my guilds.  I blindly drew from a brown paper sack, a fat quarter of Japanese doll fabric.  After spending hours trying to come up with some cute design using small blocks but not really wanting to cut the fat quarters into smaller pieces, I came up with the idea to make a more modern style of stripy baby quilt, and I used the whole fat quarter since the fabric was so cute. The colors are not normally what you might choose for a baby quilt, but these are the colors in the fabric.  I think after it's quilted with some interesting designs in the bigger horizontal lines, it will be cute enough for a charity quilt.  I hope so.  The back is pieced using some of the fabric from the front. I'll show more after I quilt it.


I also finished my Easy Street top - yes!
It measures 100" x 100" before quilting

And the binding on my string quilt. You'll notice the binding is scrappy too.
Sorry about the shadows.
After getting home from retreat, I went to the Round Bobbin Expo for a day.  They had some name teachers - Irena Bluhm, Toby Lischko, Cindy Losekamp (Sew Artfully Yours), Linda McGehee, Anne St. Clair (Needle Nook Fabrics), Pam Damour (The Decorating Diva) and others.  There were lots of other great vendors too.  I bought more toys for my quilting adventures, but stayed away from the fabric vendors because of my purchases above.  Today, we had the pleasure of hosting Irena Bluhm for the day at our local long arm group.  She shared her knowledge and skills and gave us a trunk show of her award winning quilts.  Now I'm all inspired to get back to quilting!!

Stop on by Judy's at Patchwork Times to see what everyone else did last week. 




10 comments:

  1. Love your string quilt. Makes me want to dig into mine.

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  2. So glad you had a wonderful and productive time while on retreat! The brown bag baby quilt you made is modernly charming! I love it! And, you know me........that string quilt is amazeballs! Congrats on your Easy Street! It looks great!

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  3. WOW! What a week you had - finishing projects, shopping - 1/2 price pops! Love all the projects, especially your Easy Street and it's lovely blue border, it reminds me of my fave batik.

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  4. I came over here just to see it, and your string quilt is Beautiful! Much brighter colors than mine. I took pictures of mine today and am currently working on a post about it.

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  5. Congrats for doing so well at staying in the black,even with all your fun purchases. Very pretty quilts. I love the colors you used in Easy Street.

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  6. I LIKE the back-such a great way to use fabric! Nice quilts :-)

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  7. Oh Dar! Your Easy Street quilt is so pretty! The colors are yummy, and especially in those colors, it just shimmers. So, so lovely. And your string quilt is a knock-out too. I'm a sucker for scrappy quilts, and with that binding, it's a winner. You make beautiful quilts, and deserve to buy that fabric... by the skin of your teeth or not!

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  8. Wow, your Easy Street is done and it is gorgeous!!! Love the royal blue in there!!! And your string .quilt too. So pretty!! Good for you getting them finished

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  9. Three cheers for your finished Easy Street top! It's lovely! I still need to bind mine and who knows when THAT will happen! I miss playing with fabric. Your string quilt is wonderful - I hope to make one of those too.

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  10. Your Easy Street is fantastic, Dar! Love the colors and the border! Mine was big, too, 103" square before quilting! The string quilt is so bright and happy! Makes me want to dig into my strings again also! Sounds like you had a great retreat and wonderful, thrifty shopping. Way to go!

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Thanks for taking time to stop by and visit. It makes my day to get mail - either online or in the old fashion mailbox! Some habits you never outgrow.