Design Wall Monday

Today was supposed to be a sew day with a friend and I cleaned up my sewing room and tried to make it comfortable for us to work on our projects.  She called to say she was not feeling well, so that leaves me open to many other tasks besides sewing to fill my time -- a mountain of laundry, cleaning the rest of the house that I omitted previously, cutting down unwanted honeysuckle and grapevines that have grown rampant throughout our property, loading a quilt on the frame, OR sewing up my foxy block for my piecing group.  Decisions, decisions.

But first, here's my design wall.  The blue/neutral blocks are from Bonnie Hunter's 'My Blue Heaven' which I started in September last year at her workshop here in our area.  I may just stop this after I get those 3 star blocks done and call it a baby quilt for a little boy.  I'm just not into this project right now, and I want to reclaim my wall space for other things.

The other is my new leader/ender project that I mentioned yesterday.  I saw this at Flourishing Palms blog and fell in love with the simpleness of the block, but the dynamic results when you put it all together.  My friend Linda has such a knack of coming up with great scrap ideas to use up little pieces.  So, I've got a bunch of 2.5" squares all ready to feed them in between whatever block I'm making. They are like eating potato chips, you can't stop at just one, you want to make just one more, then one more.  I know this will be a fun scrap quilt for this year.

Scrappy Zig Zag

Guess I'll sew my exchange block which was the original plan to work on with my friend.  It's a fox block from Marsha in ou monthly piecing group.  We were given all the pieces except the color for the fox - I'm making mine a rusty brown   They are all cut and ready to sew together.  Guess that's what I'm off to finish before tackling the laundry or more cleaning and pruning.

Sorry it's turned sideways.  I'll show you a finished block later.  It's really a cute block.

Hope you are all having a good, fun filled day.  It's beautiful here today and hard to stay inside.

Stop by Judy's to see more Design Walls.

Fabric Report plus a Finished Top

I got my borders sewn on this week, so now I'm up-to-date with my fabric report for the year.

Here's the finished top.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out since it was all stash scraps and I used a bunch of my 2.5" squares.  Some of those squares were pretty funky prints (from Christmas, to bright frogs, mallard ducks, and other unexpected things, but they are gone from the stash  I can't really see that it made a dent in my 2.5" squares yet. I'm hoping my new leader and ender project for this year will use use a lot more.  Come back tomorrow to see what fun things are on my design wall. I stole the idea from a fellow blogger, whom you may know.

Fabric Report #21 - May 22, 2016 

Fabric Added this week - 0

Fabric Added YTD - 2 yards

Fabric Used this week- 1.5 yards - last border

Fabric Used YTD - 33.03  yards

I hope there is enough left to do the binding in the same color.  After washing and squaring it up, that 2 yards was a bit less.  I'll just have to wait and see what happens.  I love making reversible bindings, so that is always an option, depending on what I do for the backing.

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall - May 16, 2016 and Stash Report

I am combining my stash report with what is on my design wall this week.  I have been working on a mystery quilt since February designed by my friend Kevin the Quilter and finally have the top finished except for the last border.  It started with scrappy 9 patches, then added setting triangles to the corners - either one fabric or string pieced corners.  I chose to string piece mine since I love doing string blocks.

The next instruction was to put sashing strips and cornerstones between the blocks.  Since this was all scrappy and from my stash, I choose my teals and browns.

Then I added a neutral border to bring them all together. This took some major piecing together of the left over 2.5" strips.  Hopefully after it is quilted, no one will notice all the additional seams used to make some of the strips long enough.  Here's a partial shot of the wall.

Now it just needs it's border.  I couldn't believe in all my shelves, boxes, and cabinets that I didn't have a brown or teal fabric that would work. So I shopped all over at AQS in  Paducah and only found one fabric that would work with these colors.  So I bought all they had - 2 one yard pieces--not even a continuous 2 yards together!

I think it will work great with all the scrappy colors in the 9-patches.  We are having a show and tell this week on all of our mysteries. I will show you the finished top after the borders are added, which means I need to wash fabric and get them added. I'd better get busy.

So my stash report as of May 15, 2016

Fabric Added since last report - 0

Fabric Added YTD - 2 yards

Fabric Used - 5.38 yards - quilt without borders added or counted yet

Fabric Used YTD - 31.53  yards

I'm connecting up with Judy's Design Wall today.  Check there for more eye candy.

Fabric Report - Sunday, May 8

Not a whole lot of activity going on in my sewing room these days.  It's just too darn nice outside to stay inside to sew.  I'm planting veggies and flowers along with moving wheelbarrows of dirt plus pulling lots of weeds to make room for things. When the sun goes down and I come inside, it's all I can do to get a shower and fall into a chair or bed--whichever is closer. lol

Since my last stash report back in April, I went to Paducah and a quilt show,but there has been little change in my stash.  I finally did broke my NO FABRIC ADDED record for the year, though. At Paducah, I bought 2 yards of fabric for a border on a mystery quilt, which is close to being a finished top and 2 fat quarters for friends.  Not bad considering you are bombarded with temptation everywhere you look.  I was very helpful though finding lots of fabrics for my traveling friend to buy and bring home.  You know, it's always good to have several pairs of eyes scouting out those bargains when you only have  limited time to shop.  Suffice it to say, I was extremely helpful in carrying multiple bags to the car to keep her from having to make several trips back and forth to carry it all.  I love shopping with Sandy and my fabric shelves did not have to be rearranged to accommodate anything.  I hope to get my borders put on my top real soon and show you what I've been playing with.

However, I did not come home empty handed. I bought another EZ Sew insert for my EZ Sew table so I can use it with several machines, more beautiful yarns, a ruler gadget, threads, a quilt book by Marie Boswick who was such a delight to meet plus many other little items. My biggest purchase was a small 2 in one vacuum cleaner.  I know, who would think to buy something like that at a quilt show. Well, it wasn't on my list, but the guy doing the demo was just too good selling it and it was at a weak moment, I was weak from hunger.  I'll let you know if it is as good as he made it out to be after I use it. lol

Fabric Added since last report - 2 yards

Fabric Added YTD - 2 yards

Fabric Used recently - will figure up when borders are on

Fabric Used YTD - 26.15  yds

Net used in 2016 -  26.15 yds

I'm going to stop by Judy's to see what's been happening with others, since I've been out of the loop so long.