Finishes and Stash Report - Week 43

My stash report changed a bit this week. I bought a yard for a specific use and made a binding for a QOV quilt to use a half yard and gave 3/4 yd to a friend, so there's a little movement.  I'm still adding more to my stash than used this year, but when the cold weather sets in and I've caught up on my customer quilts, then I am planning to use lots of yardage from my stash.  There is still 2 months left to get out of the red!!

Fabric Added - 1 yard

Fabric Used - 1.25 yds

YTD Fabric Added - 88.95 yds

YTD Fabric Used - 87.36 yds

Net Added for 2013 - 1.59 yds.

Now for some positive accomplishments this week.  Here are a couple quilts that I quilted for friends. Their "finished" lists are looking a whole lot better than mine. lol

Irish chain by Becky 

Her granddaughter picked out the fabric she wanted.  It had pictures and scenes from Paris.She loves pink and black and anything French.This had poodles, the Eiffel Tower and little sidewalk cafe scenes.

A Christmas "Pick Up Sticks" pattern

Hop on over to Judy's to see more stash reports for the week.  Hope you are making lots of progress on using your stash.

On and Off The Needles 10/18/13

This is what just came OFF my needles--a set of the multicolored dishcloths.  Just have to weave in the ends and they will be ready to use.  These were fun to make, but this yarn did discolor the tips of my fingers as I was working on them. I've never had that happen before. Maybe this yarn is not colorfast. It is the Sugar'n Cream - new super size, which I used for the first 2 I made in solid green.  No problems noticed there.

Now that I've finished 4 dishcloths, I think I'm ready to try my hand at the 3S Shawl.  This is reportedly an easy shawl - the 3S stands for Super-wide, Super Simple.  We'll just have to see. I'll let you know if it's easy for a beginner.

There are more knitting projects to see over at Patchwork Times.  Check them out. 

Design Wall - Oct. 14

Happy Columbus Day!!   Hope you are enjoying the time off by playing in your sewing room.  My design wall has not changed much since last week.  I'm still working on the applique on the liturgical quilt.  But I did finish quilting a couple other quilts for friends.

The first one is a cute pattern that was real popular several years ago.  I've seen it made up in soft colors for a baby quilt; in bright, bold hot pinks and lime greens for a wild child and now the trend is in Halloween fabrics.  It is cute no matter what fabrics are used.

A Buggy Barn Pattern

A close up of the quilting.  This was a fun to quilt.

This was another recent quilt that I thought was unique. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the pattern. Edited: I talked to Carol who made it and the name of the pattern is "Check It Out" by Maple Island Quilts.

It's quilted with variegated thread (YLI Great Barrier Reef)  in the same colors as the bold colors of the big squares. I'm not sure if you can see it very well in this picture.

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.  Check out more design walls there.

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Stash Report Week 41

My stash report would be the same as last week if it were not for a generous gift from a friend.  I had this plastic salad bowl that had been a special purchase years ago, and I filled it with some pickled cucumber slices that I gave to a friend.  When she returned the bowl back to me, she filled it with fat quarters to resemble a salad.  There are various shades of greens to resemble lettuce, spinach, chard, kale; purple for eggplant or purple cabbage, red and orange - tomatoes, peppers, carrots and even one that has chili peppers on it.  I LOVE IT!!  This had been the original packaging when I first purchased this container about 7 years ago and she remembered.  What a wonderful surprise.  She is a very special and  thoughtful friend who is always doing things like this for people.  Thank you so much Jeanne.

Here are my numbers this week.  I'm back in the red again.  Time to get busy "finishing" something.

Fabric Added - 3 yards 

Fabric Used  - 0

YTD fabric Added -  87.95 yds

YTD fabric Used -    86.11 yds

Net Stashed in 2013-  -1.84

To see more stash reports, check at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday 10/7/13

Here's part of my design wall today.  These is an old, old UFO that I was experimenting with to learn how to do reverse applique.  I used my own hand-dyed fabric.  The blocks still have the 2nd contrasting piece of fabric behind the top one and they are not very well done, but I can't throw them away. I'd like to something with them and not have to make any more.  Maybe I should just add these to my orphan box with other partly finished things and incorporate all of the orphans into a backing for a scrappy top. Any ideas you might have would be welcomed.

Reverse applique schoolhouse blocks

The other design wall has the liturgical piece on it.  I'm working on the applique section and it still needs some tweeking, but here's a peek.

Drop on by Patchwork Times to see more design walls today.

Stash Report - Week 40 and Much More

My stash has changed very little since last reported.  Really nothing bought and a little used for my block exchange and gifted a little to a friend for binding.
Fabric Added  - 0 yards
Fabric Added YTD - 84.95 yds
Fabric Used last week - .875 yds 
Fabric Used YTD - 86.11 yds
Fabric Busted for 2013 - 1.16 

More interesting is my stash enhancement from a couple of weeks ago. Remember those 11 yards I mentioned adding to my stash, here's some of what I got.  Keep in mind, most of these were on sale. I'm trying to rationalize my purchases - lol - but fabric doesn't have an expiration date and when the fads or color trends change over the years, scrap quilts really come into their own and sing with the variety of "old and new" fabrics. Since I'm a big scrap quilt fan, I want to be prepared for the future. So, take a peek at some eye candy.

Macaron Bali Pops by Hoffman

Winter themed batiks

These have winter mittens, snowmen, holly leaves and snow flakes.

Stonehenge panel by Northcott
I added a few FQ and yardage in case it becomes a tablerunner in a future life.

La Scala by Robert Kaufman

This Kaufman panel has the cutest selvages.  I'm not sure what I will do with the panel, but I couldn't pass up those unique selvages and it was on sale to boot!

more Fall batiks

Harvest by Timeless Treasures

Ambrosia by Jinny Beyer

 "Autumn Harvest" by Jason Yenter

These beautiful fall fat quarters and yardage are from In The Beginning fabrics.  I'm planning a tablerunner from "Simply Modern Christmas" by Cindy Lammon.  This is her newly released book and her 4th from AQS.  The tablerunner is called Simply Simple and it looks real easy and quick.  Cindy is a friend and neighbor and does beautiful work and her patterns are very well written and easy to follow. The Fall tablerunner is my NewFO for the month.

I'm linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times for my stash report and Barb for New FO.
Take a look and see what others have been doing this week.

On and Off The Needles

I can't believe it is already the end of the first week of October and my last post was almost 2 weeks ago!  The knitting bug has started taking over my extra time these days.  I guess because Fall is in the air and cooler weather is due to arrive this weekend, I found myself visiting my local knit shop, Knit and Caboodle Yarn Shop in downtown St. Charles, MO.  They have so many beautiful yarns that it is very hard to get out of there without buying something--yarn, needles or patterns.  I'm still practicing my knitting and trying to get the rhythm and technique to be more fluid before attempting a bigger project; so I bought more dish cloth yarn and some wool blend yarn for one of the popular shawls.

I've finished 2 green dish cloths like the one shown and am starting another one with a new variegated Sugar 'n Cream yarn called Psychedelique. After I finish 2 more dishcloths, I may be ready to start the 3S Shawl that everyone was showing earlier this year.

I am linking up with On the Needles at Patchwork Times.  Check there to see what others have on their needles this week.

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. 

Stash Report - Week 37

There was nothing added to my stash last week, and I finally got out of red figures in my used column. I had forgotten to count the backing on the string quilt after it was quilted, so I'm counting that this week (binding was counted last week).  Also counted is the fabric that was used for 20 QOV blocks that I made for Alycia's block drive.

Fabric Added last week - 0
Fabric Added YTD - 73.95 yds
Fabric Used this week - 10.45 yds
Fabric Used  YTD - 78.23 yds
Net reduced from stash this year - 4.28 yds.

It's not a very big reduction in my stash levels, but now I'm headed in the right direction -- Gee, it only took me 9 months to USE more fabric than I've brought in this year. lol.  Now if I can only resist buying more fabric.  It's going to take a lot of will power. This coming week I am going on retreat and I know temptation will be strong when we stop in The Hickory Stick in Hannibal. It's very hard to get out of there without buying something.  It is such a great shop.  

Visit Judy's Patchwork Times to see what everyone else did last week.

On The Needles 9/13/13

As Teresa says, "it's all about Dreambird" these days; but I am starting my first ever dish cloth! I'm learning on something very simple and hope to work my way up to some of the beautiful projects that I see on Judy's linky each week.  My edges are a bit rough, but hopefully that will smooth out with more practice. The color is not very true in this picture-it's more of a sea foam green.

Since I'm not as skilled as most of my friends are when it comes to knitting, it will probably never happen that I will make a Dreambird.  But my friend Linda is a very good knitter and she doesn't have a blog.  I'm sure you will agree that her Dreambird is just too beautiful not to be seen.  She's given me permission to show it to you on my blog. If I could knit one of these, this would be the perfect colors for my wardrobe.  I love it!!

I can't wait to see how this is going to look finished.  I can just visualize it worn over a black or fushia turtleneck sweater and a pair of black pants or long fitted skirt.  I think it will look stunning.

What are you kniting on this Friday the 13th?   Check out all the other projects OTN over at Judy's.

Design Wall Sept. 9, 2013

Here's what my design wall looks like today.  There are 20 flag blocks made for Alycia's Big Block Blowout for QOV.  You can find out more by looking at Alycia Quilts and Judy's extra incentive here. There are 2 different blocks you can choose from.  I chose to do the Flag block and it was so much fun.

I'm off to a good start for my September goals.   One down and only 5 more to go. This was the easiest of them all though.  To see more design walls, go HERE at Patchwork Times.

QOV Presentation of Quilts and Stash Report #36

I haven't been finishing many of my projects, so my stash has not changed much.  Boring isn't it?. But I'm getting close enough to count some fabric that I'm using for binding on a UFO.  I also made blocks last week for 2 block exchange groups, so that's a little bit out of my stash.

Fabric Added - 0
Fabric Added YTD - 73.95
Fabric Used - 0.625
Fabric Used YTD - 67.78
Net Fabric Added  - 6.17 yds

You can see what others did this week over at Patchwork Times.

On another subject.  Saturday was a special day for our Eastern Missouri QOV group.  We were present to help welcome back the 1138th Engineer Company (Sapper) from Missouri and to present them each with a Quilt of Valor.  Our trailer loaded with the quilts were escorted from Warrenton, MO by the Patriot Guards riding motorcycles all the way to the Centene Center in Farmington for the ceremony (approximately 90 miles.)

Here they are coming into the street in front of the Center, preceding the trailer.

Patriot Guards 

The trailer loaded with quilts

After they arrived and were unloading the trailer

The troops were welcomed and there were distinguished guests on the program who had a few words or a presentation to make. 
Here are two soldiers with their quilts and the leaders of our QOV Chapter responsible for getting all the quilts ready for this occasion.  They did not take time to display all the quilts that were given out.

Another soldier was kind enough to open his quilt for us too.

Our Mo. Chapter has presented over 1,250 quilts since it started 8 years ago.  We have over 100 ladies and now 2 men who help make these one-of-a-kind quilts meeting twice a month for 10 months of the year.