Sunday Stash Report

I've had 5 finishes this week. Doesn't that sound impressive. Not going to make for big usage though since they were 5 mini quilts. They all measured approx 30cm square, and used around .25 metre each (the actual amount was 1.28m for the 5 quilts)

No purchases though so that is good.

I've found that I have had a mix up in my calculations and have a higher net usage than I was thinking, which is good... better than it going the other way.

Used this week:                            1.28m

Added this week                               0m

Year to Date Used                      126.8m
Year to Date added                      76.27m
Net Used                                        50.53m

I am not sure that I am going to get any finishes this week or for awhile. I do have a quilt on my design wall. Its from my orphan blocks. Trying to work out a suitable arrangement for them. They are different sizes and so I am going to need to make some fillers to get it to work. So I think it might take me more than a week to get the top arranged pleasingly let alone put together or finished.

I've also started to design another "Trip Around the World" using black and white  and some red and white half square triangles. This one I plan to make off centre and it won't be quite as big.

Linking up with 

Stash Report @ Patchwork Times

Checking in on my August Quilty Goals and setting my September Goals

August Goals

1. Work on Trip around the world (work out a name for it to make it easier to refer to)

Sunburnt Zebras done and dusted AND labelled!.

2 Start work on Teashop quilt - choose background fabric for blocks, trace off applique pieces. Get things prepped for taking it away to work on whilst travelling

I bought the vlisofix  in Brisbane last weekend and have traced off the designs onto it

  

3 Blue Jeans Quilt - get it prepped to take away on holidays with us. This will be my machine project whilst we are travelling. 

I have all the circles cut out for the quilt. I have decided to make it 15 rows by 17 which means 255 circles for the blocks. Still have to draw the 5" squares on the last 65

4 Disappearing Hour Glass quilt - collect together green and cream fabric for this quilt. This will be my project for Patchwork Group.

The hour glass blocks are all made. Yay

5 Cut scrap pieces. The basket is overflowing

I emptied the basket. Its full again. 

6 Make a seasonal wall hanging from Mum's embroideries

I have made the 4 seasonal min quilts as well as making a mini quilt from one of my embroideries. Its of an outhouse and I am going to hang it on the outside of the toilet door. 

 

7 Do projects from Caro Sheridan's photography class on Craftsy. Watch one other craftsy class. 

Given I now have just one day left in the month as I type this I have to concede that this is one that isn't going to be done this month.

8. Label Disappearing into the Blue

Labelled. Yay.

With one day left in this month I can say I have done pretty well with my August goals. I basically accomplished 7 of the 8. Just the Craftsy class that I haven't completed.

Fixit Guy and I are off on a couple of months holiday at the beginning of October. We will be gone for all of October and November and will return home at a date to be determined in December. So September is my last month of sewing at home for this year. So my goals are going to include getting some things finished before I go and getting projects ready to take with me. I am taking my little Janome Gem Platinum with me and when we are hooked up to powered sites I will be able to sew. Lots of the time we will be travelling so I am keen to have some hand projects to do in the car and also whilst we are stopped in camping areas without power.

1) Jeans quilt. The circles are all cut and 190 of them have the 5" square traced onto them. I want to get the other 65 circles marked and the 255 5" squares selected. Actually I have cut more of the circles than I need for just one quilt and have been given more jeans to cut up so think I will probably make a couple of quilt. One for us and one to give away. This will be my machine project for while we are away.

2) Finish tracing off the applique pieces for the tea shop quilt. Select fabric and get the applique ironed onto background fabric ready for our trip. Sort out embroidery threads to take with us. This will be my hand project

3) continue working on Disappearing Hourglass (Think of calling it Time Vanishes) The hourglass blocks are all completed. I have to cut them up, rearrange the pieces and sew them back together again. I have 6 more sewing days - 7 if I go to the Gemmies again for the day (which I will do if anyone else from our group is going out there) before we go. I would love to have the top completed and sent off to the long armer before we head out. (Edit. I ended up calling it Vanishing Hours. Will use Time Vanishes for another Disappearing Hourglass should I make it)

4) put together the quilt that is currently on my design wall. Its various orphan blocks I have dug out. I am trying to put it together in a pleasing way. It will probably become a donation quilt.

5) Do that Photography class on Craftsy. I have watched it right through. Just need to make myself go back and do the practical bits of it. Sigh. This is the third month its been on my to do list. It will be good to be able to take better photos on our trip. I have found my two digital cameras and the instruction books for one of them so its a start. Sigh.

6) Fangirl has bought her own townhouse. She moves in about a month. Its brand new and needs curtains and blinds. I have offered to help get them made so that is really going to be my priority. These other projects are going to fit in around that. So Make curtains as required for the townhouse.

That had been do me then!!
What are your goals for September?

Finish up Friday - 5 finishes

Yes you heard it... 5 finishes this week. Doesn't that sound impressive. When I tell you that they are all mini quilts, that the embroideries were done by my mother (4 of them) and myself (1) some time ago it doesn't sound quite so impressive. I did piece the borders... but in 2 cases the piecing was already done and in the other 3 all the half square triangles were done some time ago as well. So... this week I finished them but not from start to finish.

The 4 my mum embroidered were a set of seasonal ones. I have made them separately (they were in one quilt according to the pattern) so as to be able to hang them according to their season in the foyer of my home. At the beginning of the year I decided I would make 12, one for each month to hang in the foyer. Pam on Hip to be a Square did somet thing along this line. However as a family (and generally as a society) Australians don't widely celebrate some of the  "days" that are so widely celebrate in the US. We know about Valentines Day, St Paddy's day, and Halloween and some people do celebrate them but they aren't nearly as big a thing here. I would prefer to put emphasis on things that are more important to us as a family and as Australians. These seasonal ones are more appropriate (although living in Central Queensland, on the Tropic of Capricorn we don't really get very distinctive seasons anyway)

Winter: I used the red and green border around winter cause it matched the picture better. Its NOT Christmas! That's in summer for us)

Summer:The yellow is for the sand and the hot summer sun

Autumn. Used the green and yellow hsts because I had them and they went with the picture.... 

Spring. Loved the purple hst that I had heaps of and they went so well with the embroidery

Here they are all together. Aren't they gorgeous

The Outhouse. Embroidered by me

These are only small wall hangings. Nor more than 10" wide and the largest about 12" long. I used a method I had read about on another website to insert hanging triangles into the corners. The video about it is to be found here Now a pencil, a skewer or small piece of dowel can be inserted into the top and bottom if required and it can be hung on a nail. I was so pleased to be able to use this method. Now all 5 wall hangings are good to go... apart from labels. I think I might just write directly onto the backing fabric rather than stitch on individual labels.

I used the same fabric as the backing to make the hanging triangles so it is  harder to see them in the picture but you should be able to make it out.

Linking up with 

  this time being hosted by Ms Midge and     

Fitness Friday

This week... yeah much the same as the last couple. The weekend in Brisbane did damage to my attempts to lose weight and I haven't helped since I got home. Motivation is lacking. I need to look at those fat photos some more I think!

Have kept up the walking everyday and have managed to once again achieve my 10 000 steps everyday for the past week. Right now, at 11.15AM on Friday my 7 day step count is 87 367 steps and I am ranking 2nd behind Terje who is way out there with 106 832. I have to say that I was at the top of the leader board for a little while yesterday, before Terje must have synced cause not all that long later she was 15 000 ahead again. Still... for a moment I basked in the glory of it all. I am 5 000 ahead of my friend Sam but again once she syncs or goes to the gym this afternoon she will zoom past me. But I can tease her about falling behind for a few hours at least.

Again there has been no running. When the alternative a nice walk with my Fixit Guy why run? We've been talking about doing some bike rides together but that hasn't happened yet. The trouble is there are only so many hours in the day and right now our dog Jack is very happy with the concept of 2 walks a day and he will probably guilt me into it anyway.... will have to see how things work out.

Here are some of my random photos taken on my walks along the river

One day we saw this huge flock of ducks and the pelicans all swimming up river in a group. At times it looked like the pelicans were herding the ducks

My bouganvilleas are in full bloom. I have never had them so covered in flowers

The pelicans were all perched on the bank this morning

Can you see the roos? There are three of them hiding in the grass

You can see them once they start to move

So how are you going with your fitness challenges this week?

With encouragement from Sandy at Quilting For the Rest of Us and Jenny at Quiltin Jenny I've added a linkup which I hope is going to work. Please link in your fitness report for this week or else add a comment below. Lets all play along and encourage each other with our desires to get fitter and healthier

An InLinkz Link-up

Throwback Thursday - My Tshirt Quilt

Quilters are often asked to make t'shirt quilts for family and friends. The t'shirts they work with reflect the interests and involvement of the person concerned, usually a teenager or young adult. We had an exchange student from the USA in 2007 who said that it was the tradition of quilters in her small town to make a quilt for every high school graduate going off to college. That is a huge commitment and perhaps I got the message wrong - perhaps it was a church guild who made them for members of their congregation going off to college. I do know that our host student indicated that she deliberately bought shirts at various events for them to be cut up to go into a quilt. Personally I found this a bit of an extravagance (but then I am a tight wad) and also meant that the t'shirt was a bit manufactured somehow.

I have made quilts from t shirts for my 2 youngest children Boyo and Kombi Boy. I got in early with them and swiped t'shirts as they grew out of them and were passing them on. I wasn't so tshirt aware when the two older ones were going off to university so missed out on a number of shirts from Fangirl and Massage Man. They do have some special t shirts still but they are still wearing them and won't hand them over to go into their quilts so until they are surrendered, they won't get a t'shirt quilt. I realised I don't have photos of their quilts... not sure how they slipped through the net. I do however have my own t'shirt quilt. Yes, I made one for me and it too reflects my interests and involvements over the years.

I attended Curves for several of years and earned quite a few t shirts as I made it to 500 workouts and beyond. I was also involved with ABA for a number of years and have a few shirts from that. 

My AFS commitments saw me accumulate a number of t'shirts too, several from other countries - gifts from exchanged students. I have a few other shirts on the quilt from our trip overseas in 2006 and from my involvement in Guides where I was a member of the parent committee for several years. The sashing, cornerstones and binding were hand dyes I had made in a workshop.

The back of the quilt was made from a cloth sign from NMAA - Nursing Mother's Association of Australia. I was a counsellor with this Association (which changed its name to ABA - Australian Breastfeeding Association) for almost 20 years and a member for 26. The cloth was originally creamy white but had become somewhat discoloured so I dyed it before using it in the quilt.

This year ABA/NMAA celebrates its 50th anniversary. I am no longer a member or counsellor but am a supported and advocate for the Association. It gave me so much support over my years as a breastfeeding mum and I learned so much in my training to be a counselor and in my years that I served the association and the community in that role. I am off to an afternoon tea to celebrate the Golden birthday next month.

Linking up with Quitin Jenny for Throwback Thursday

WIP Wednesday Progress!

Been working on a few different things this week.

Blue Jeans Quilt
All 190 of the circles I have cut have the 5" square drawn inside them. I have been chasing some more jeans. I had several lots promised to me but they haven't arrived. Today I was able to visit a Salvo's store that had a $5 a bag special on so I was able to get 5 pair of jeans. A friend gave me 2 pair as well. Then I got a phone call to say another quilting friend had secured a large bag of jeans for me from a clean out at the charity shop she volunteers at. Safe to say I will now have PLENTY of jeans to complete the project. Just have to get moving on it

Disappearing Hour Glass Quilt
I made great progress on this today as I was at an all day quilting get together with a neighbouring quilt group. I got all my hst trimmed up (using my quilt in a day ruler designed for this) and the hour glass blocks made. Tomorrow I will get to iron the blocks and then cut them up to make them disappear. I am going to have to watch the youtube clip a few times tonight to get the process clear in my head.... or take my computer with me to patchwork tomorrow and work on them there.

Disappearing into the Blue and Sunburnt Zebras are both now labelled so I can class them as truly finished.

I have also dug out some of the embroidery blocks my mum made me. I am planning on making 4 of them into seasonal quilt hangings. They were designed to go together in one quilt depicting all 4 seasons but I am going to make them into separate ones. I am trying to use up some of the scrap hst that I have left over from making flying geese in my SOMB quilts in the borders for these mini quilts. We will see how it goes. I took a pile of bits and pieces with me today to work on as well but didn't get to them. Thought I might get sick of the hour glass blocks and I did at the end but was so close to finishing I just pressed on. So pleased to have it done.

I have an red work embroidery of an outside dunny (toilet/loo/bathroom) that I am going to make into a smalling hanging to go on the outside of the toilet door. I have a cross stitched picture of a cat in a bath that Fangirl made many years ago that hangs on the bathroom door. I got a border put on it and have it pinned ready for me to quilt it. I've see a tutorial of a self hanger you can stitch into the binding somehow that I am going to try to locate and do that for the hanger.

 

Decluttering Challenge



Still going slowly with this. 
Day 19. Cleaned out my handbag to take it away. I only have one so it didn't take long
Day 20 Email box - have been continuing to try to get rid of the rubbish. I am setting up lots of rules so emails get diverted to particularly relevant folders which helps me find stuff I need and delete stuff too
Day 21 Someday clutter - nope... haven't done anything with this. Will get to it... someday LOL
Day 22 Electronics and cords. Yes did this one. Got my husband to help me go through all the cords in various drawers and and boxes and we got rid of the ones that were surplus to requirement. I found a place I could send the old phone cords to which was great... post free. It was good to go through things and it came in handy when our club was chasing a cord to connect the computer to the printer. I knew we had a spare and where it was
Day 23 Cosmetics. Cleaned these out when we did the great bathroom renovations
Day 24 Kitchen Counters. Gave these a good clean down on Monday
Day 25 Craft supplies - nope not happened! I did go through the cupboard a six months or so ago but think it could do with a go through.
Day 26 Books and DVDs. DVDs -We've been through these a fair bit over the last few years. Books - have started to go through our bookshelves. Have found some that belong to our daughter and a few I can get rid of. Hope to do a lot more.


Linking up with

Sunday Stash Report - nil all draw

Nothing in and nothing out. That's my stash report. I haven't bought any fabric this week and I have been to a fabric shop! I bought some cream thread to use on my new project - Disappearing Hour Glass.

I have been working on my jeans quilt and a friend gave me a bag of jeans to cut up. I have no idea how to calculate the fabric from them so didn't. I am thinking that when I finish the quilt and calculate the fabric used that  I will halve that amount and count that ie only count one side of the quilt. That way I won't get credit for counting the jeans fabric as having come out of my stash when I didn't count it going in. I will however count the 5" squares that complete the block along with the denim circles.

Do you count the fabric that you repurpose from clothes of linen as fabric in?

Used this week:                                0m
Added this week                               0m

Year to Date Used                     125.52m
Year to Date added                     80.27m
Net Used                                    45.25m

Linking up with Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times

a few more linky parties

I just found a few more linky parties on Red Delicious Life's blog which I thought I would bring to my followers attention. And yes its my way of keeping track of them too. I might go back and gather all the linky parties I have found and put them in the one blog but for now I will put them here so I can find them when I want them

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

       

WEDNESDAY

       



THURSDAY

  FRIDAY
   

SATURDAY

          

Christmas Linky party

Checking in on August Quilty Goals

Thought that I would check back in on my goals for this month and see how I am doing

August Goals

1. Work on Trip around the world (work out a name for it to make it easier to refer to)

I renamed this quilt Sunburnt Zebra's - from the joke What's black and white and red all over....  A Sunburnt Zebra. Not only did I name it but I got it finished. Yay.

2 Start work on Teashop quilt - choose background fabric for blocks, trace off applique pieces. Get things prepped for taking it away to work on whilst travelling

Haven't done anything with this yet. I need some more applique paper before I can get too far with it. I eneded up buying three patterns and I want to get them all prepped to take away with me

  

3 Blue Jeans Quilt - get it prepped to take away on holidays with us. This will be my machine project whilst we are travelling. 

Making good progress with this. Originally I was just going to trace out the circles and leave cutting them out till we were travelling but then I decided to go ahead and cut them out. I may even start sewing it before we leave. I've designed a heart pattern to work into the design. Will have to see how it goes

4 Disappearing Hour Glass quilt - collect together green and cream fabric for this quilt. This will be my project for Patchwork Group.

Fabrics for this quilt all chosen from my stash. I cut out the 10" squares of both the cream and the green fabrics. I have made all the half square triangles for it. I will start sewing them into the hour glass block next week. Will have to watch the video a few times so I know what I am actually doing before I cut the hour glass block up and start to make the rearranged block

5 Cut scrap pieces. The basket is overflowing

I got the scrap basket totally emptied out and the pieces put away into my scrap drawers. Now it is full of denim off cuts. Its a never ending job

6 Make a seasonal wall hanging from Mum's embroideries

Haven't started on this one at all. I went to get the embroideries out Thursday and instead dragged out my orphan blocks and have been designing a quilt top using some of them instead. 

7 Do projects from Caro Sheridan's photography class on Craftsy. Watch one other craftsy class

Haven't done this. I have found the manuals for both of my camera's though so that counts doesn't it?

8. Label Disappearing into the Blue

Haven't done this yet. Need to do one for Sunburnt Zebras as well. 

This means 3/4 of the way through the month I have accomplished 4 of my goals so had better get my skates on if I am to accomplish all of them. I also need to start to think about what my September goals are going to be. 

How are you going with your quilty goals for this month.