Stash Report with 2 fabulous finishes

Its been a great week for me - finally feeling better and able to get in and get stuff done - mostly quilting but that's good right?

I tried out a new for me zipper pouch pattern - from Sew So Easy - called Easy Cosmetic Pouch. She has both a written and a You Tube Tutorial for making it. I made 2 - one at home using my fabric and one at Handmade With Love on Tuesday using fabric from there so I only get to count one lot of fabric in this stash report. It went together pretty easily although I must admit to struggling to get the zipper end/top looking nice at the side seam. I am going to try using tabs and see if that comes out looking neater.
They are ok in this bag but in others they look quite messy.

I finally finished a baby quilt that I am making for my niece. The baby isn't due till the end of this year so I am well ahead there - the last baby quilt I finished was for a baby born May last year! I've called this one "Bessie's Stars".

My mum Bessie did the embroideries that are the centres of some of the stars in the quilt, the design of which is based on Missouri Star's "Sparkle" quilt. 

I quilted it on our club's longarm machine yesterday. It was only whilst quilting it that I realised that I had put one row on backwards and thus the stars are not lined up in the correct fashion. However I decided babies don't care! (and I wasn't unpicking the quilting.) The annoying thing is that I had this top finished for a couple of months before quilting it so I had plenty of time to correct it. Ho hum.

The backing is from a doona cover I was given and the binding is a bright square design that ties in with the squares on the backing and the colours on the front.

I also finished off the Twilter Birds in the Air swap quilt. I had put a wider border on it initially but I didn't like it... it seemed to swamp the centre so I cut it in half and added a narrow white border and then the other half of the original border. I fussy cut some birds from the backing fabric to go as corner stones.

 I quilted it on the long arm too - nothing fancy - just an all over meander. I used 2 different striped fabrics for the binding with white, lime green and blue in them and I am very happy with the way it looked.

So 3 finishes for the week and NO fabric purchases! That is an double bonus. I need a few more finishes to make up for the huge fabric purchases last month at the Gold Coast.

So my statics for week 38  are

Fabric used               10.61m            
Fabric added             00.00  
Net                          10.61m

Year to Date
Fabric used               128.32
Fabric added               78.62
Net                            49.70m

Linking up with Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

For over 2 weeks I had been battling a return of a fatigue virus that laid me low. It took away my energy and my motivation. However a week ago I heard about the birth of Susu, the daughter of our Japanese host son Sho who lived with our family in 2004. I want to make her a quilt but before I could work on a new quilt I really wanted to get a couple of other projects out of the way. So - I pushed myself to get 2 quilts that were pinned and ready to go finished. (Twinkle and My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes). 

I don't think the news made me get better on its own but it coincided with improved stamina and I have been working steadily every since and feeling better as well. It is great to have energy and enthusiasm again. 

So I have been busy this week. Once I got 2 quilts the two quilts finished off (which I have blogged about here and here) I had a look at the next baby quilt I have to finish (Its for my niece's baby due by the end of the year) I have had the top completed for a little while and earlier this week I  cut the backing for it. I am still deciding whether to pin it and quilt it at home or book the club long arm and do it up there. 

I've been prepping some projects ready for our trip away. We will be away for 4-5 weeks so I want a few things to keep me going. I am keen to get some things made for our Handmade With Love stall at the Christmas Craft Fair in November. I want to make things out of the various licensed fabrics I have bought on line and from Make It Hobby and Craft, a shop near my daughter's that specialises in licensed fabric. 

I have various Pokemon fabrics, as well as Betty Boop, My Little Pony and other fabrics. I have decided to make a range of home decor items as well as some zipper pouches etc. I am looking at making some hanging towels, pot mitts, plastic bag holder as well as perhaps some ear bud pouches and coin purses. Not sure exactly what I will get out of the fabrics but am keen to have a go. Lots of young adults are keen on these things - its not just kids so I feel that these items will be popular (and if they don't sell I will have a house full of people who will love them - all my kids are geeks!)

So far I have cut out some hanging towel tops as well as the Easy Cosmetics Bag from So Sew Easy. Still working on cutting out more. I sewed one together at home and then at HWL on Tuesday I cut out another and sewed it. It ended up a little "daggy" at the zipper ends as I tried to include some tabs. I'll need to work on it a bit longer.

I have also made a little progress with my Twilter Birds in the Air Quilt. I added a plain 6" finished border all around using some beaut leafy patterned fabric which was in keeping with the theme of the quilt. The fabric is"Prospect Park" by Kitty Yoshida for Benartex

However it was too wide and heavy for the centre so (at the suggestion of Lindi) I cut the border in half, added a 1" finished white strip and then the leaf border on the outside. In the corners I added fussy cut birds from the fabric I have for the backing. I love how they have turned out. 

The fabric is Contempos "Soul Blossoms" by Cherry Guidry for Cherry blossoms Quilting Studio for Benartex.


I have decided that I will use lime green for the binding. I am thrilled with how it has turned out. 

I will be quilting this on the club long arm on Friday. Lorraine, our acting club secretary is going to come up and help me load the quilt. If I get it done and either Lorraine can come back and help me load it or I feel confident enough to do it myself I will also work on the Jenni's baby's quilt which I have decided to call Bessie's Star.

I had hoped to make a little progress on my Repeat wall hanging at Patchwork this morning. However I forgot to take my 'add a quarter inch ruler" and decided after sewing a couple of pieces together it was too tricky so gave up.

So that is what I've been working on this week. How about you - what have you accomplished this week?

WIP Wednesday

This week my Twilters "Birds in the Air" block swap blocks arrived. It took a little while for them to fly back to swappers on this side of the world. Lyndi and mine arrived together

Its been so much fun seeing the designs that others in the swap have worked out.

I worked out my design and have managed to get the centre of the quilt together. Now to work out a border that will set the lovely blocks off

I've got sore fingers tonight. I pinned 3 baby quilts today at our Patchwork Group sewing day today. Usually my friend Lyndi helps me but she had her own mission today and baby quilts don't take so long. Trouble was that 2 of them had minky backings and they have to be really well pinned to stop them going wonky. I used up almost all the pins in my box. Mind you I do have another one already pinned so with 4 quilts ready to go its no wonder I have very few pins remaining!!

Tonight I got 2 of them quilted. I did very open and simple stipple. I've cut the binding but have yet to stitch it together. I would love to get them finished off this week.

Yesterday at Handmade With Love I stitched the ribbon hangers on the little mini Christmas Stockings I had finished off last week. I have left them at HWL and we will sell them at our Christmas markets at the end of the year.

I worked on finishing off the table runners over the weekend. It was good to get them all done. I dropped them off at HWL yesterday too.

Friday we are heading over to Sarina for a few days. We are taking the caravan and as well and so I will be able to sew whilst we are away. So I am prepping a few projects whilst we are away. I have my eye on making some of these bags

I've done a little preparation. Will have to make sure I have all the rest of the bits and pieces that I need. I am also.

So... its been a busy and productive week. How has your week gone?

WIP Wednesday

Its a wonderfully cool wet day here in my home town. The wonderful is mostly cause its wet. We are very dry at the moment and so the rain is very appreciated. Unfortunately its also the 2nd and final day of our local show and so not so great for going to that. In fact I didn't go... stayed home and sewed all day. Our church was paid to do the parking at the show (ie be up at the car park directing cars into rows) and I did go up for 3 hours yesterday and help there but I didn't go inside at all. I didn't enter anything this either. We were away till the day before the quilt entries had to be in and I couldn't get my head around it.... That plus most of my finishes this year have been given away as gifts.

So... lots of lovely sewing weather ... what have I been working on this week.

Onya Bike. I got the back for this finished. It (the backing) ended up being 104" x 112" - HUGE. The quilt should finish at 96"x 104". Now I will have to get it pinned and quilted. I am not sure I have enough batting left on the roll. I need to order another roll asap. 

Birds in the Air Twilters block swap. Twilters are having a block swap in honour of our member Frances Dowell who is releasing her first novel for adults, which features the Birds in the Air block. We are swapping the blocks amongst ourselves as well as making an extra block for Frances. When her book is released, Frances will be doing a book tour to some quilt groups and bookshops and will be taking some quilts she has made based on the birds in the air block, along with the one she will make from the Twilters Blocks (we hope.)

So today I finally got down to making my blocks this week. I had a few hassles; I miscalculated in my cutting and ran out of fabric but was able to find some more that would do the job. It is always a hassle when instructions are given for one block but you need to make 42.  Some are a little undersized. I don't know why. When signing them I stuffed up a couple of times as well... one time I wrote my maiden name. I've been married 34 years next month so not sure where writing it came from... I just added my married name to the end (I do use both as my facebook ID so maybe that is why it popped up)

W is for Weezy Works and Weddings

W is for Weezy Works, another podcast that I love to listen to. Tina is a multi faceted/ multi skilled crafter who talks about her life and her crafts on her podcast. As well as being a quilter and cross stitcher she also collects and restores vintage sewing machines. She shares her skills in all these areas on her blog and her podcast.

Weezy Work's podcast is available from iTunes and from Tina's website

Tina has a page on her blog about making quilts for other people - on commission. She sets out the many steps in making a quilt and the costs incurred. It is well worth looking at. I don't make quilts on commission.  If someone has ever given you a quilt it may surprise you as to just what is involved and the relative costs. It will help you realise just how generous a gift that quilt is.

I don't make quilts on commission because I doubt anyone would actually be prepared to pay me what it costs to make the quilt - especially not if they were going to pay me for my time and effort. The quilts I make are gifts for family and friends. For special occasions. Usually I make a quilt as a gift for a new baby. I have made one for all of my great nieces and nephews and for babies who have been born to close friends. My most recent one was for baby Theo, my close friend's grandson. I knew his mum when she was born too.

And at the beginning of this month I gave another close friend a quilt for a wedding present. Usually my husband makes the bride and groom a turned wood lamp but he had already made the bride, our former minister one when she moved to another church. We weren't expecting to make her one for a wedding present (she was 59 and single) but a year later she announced her engagement to another friend of ours. So... it was my turn to make the gift  - a quilt for their bed.

She loved it :)

The wedding party. I was chief bridal attendant

Stash Report

Despite the fact that I haven't done a stash report for a couple of weeks I have only 2 tiny finishes to report and even those are only the backs. I have managed to get 2 bibs for Handmade Love completed but the fronts of the quilt were supplied by HML so I can only count the backing... a measly 21.5cm square for each. I haven't done a whole lot of sewing at all over the last few weeks. 

Life has gotten in the way.I have finished off a banner (or did I talk about that last report... yeah I think I might have) but the front and back of it were donated so I only got to count the binding and the hanger. I had hoped to get stuck into the POD quilt but I haven't ... I realised that I needed to choose the background fabric for the "Wall" behind the quilt if I wanted to make the extra stuff to go around the bookshelf. I couldn't use the same stuff as I'd used for the background of the bookshelf. I wasn't sure I'd have enough for a start and I really thought that it should be different fabric. So put that on hold till I got to a shop. I do have local quilt shops but didn't really feel like spending $28m that is the usual shelf price. They do have sales and have some fabric that is less expensive but I couldn't be sure that they would have something suitable. I wanted to have a choice.

I have finished off my blocks for the Twilters Swap. We made the wonky hashtag.. or pound signs. I ended up making about 33 but 3 of them were too small to be used so ended up swapping 30. I will use my small ones on the back of the quilt. They will be mine. I can't count them till I get them all back and make up the quilt. 

I had thought about packing up the POD blocks and bringing them with me on our holiday but finding all the fabric that I would need for the paper piecing was going to be way too challenging. So left them all at home. .I had meant to pack my Amy Gibson blocks to finish off and then put together but that was forgotten too. Oops. And then I thought about bringing stuff to make zipper bags for HML but... uh... needed to choose the fabrics and then make sure I bought enough wadding etc so skipped them too.

Instead I have packed my Hexie project. I've bought all my cut and pinned squares, plus all the extra hexies I had cut out ready to pin, extra fabric to cut (all my 3.5" strips) extra hexies printed out to cut and all my premade hexies.. I am going to knock out so many hexies this trip. (lots of time in the car, lots of evenings sitting chatting to the family) I've done over 100 in 2 days so far. 

I'm storing the finishes hexies in this container I bought years ago but have never had a use for. Its perfect. I'm sorting them into colours. Originally I was going to sew them into flowers and have 17 such flowers made. But now I am not sure if I am going to continue with that design. My current plan is to stitch all the fabric I have cut into hexies and to keep cutting up my 3.5" strips into squares and stitching those. When I have about 1500 I will work out what I am going to do. Since doing the Joen Wolfrom colour workshop I am wondering if I can do an interesting design using some of her concepts... and the coloured hexies I have. I'm not sure. Just madly stitching hexies for the moment'

'

I've also packed a Christmas project. Its a panel and some extra fabrics... not sure what I am going to do with it but will have 2 weeks to work on it so hopefully will get some way with it.

I did  have some time in a fabric shop yesterday. I've bought 2 metres of background fabric for my POD quilt and 5 fat quarters of funky Christmas fabric... well 2 of them are christmas fabric and 3 are co-ordinating plains. I hope to make some great baby bibs for our Christmas stall for Handmade Love. They should appeal to the younger mums out there.

So... That is a total of 3.34 metres in and only .09 of a metre out... not good figures. That's the first negative I've had this year I think... or almost anyway. Can't whine too much. If I get POD finished this year it will be a big outage



Week 41

          Fabric Used                      0.09    
          Fabric Added                    3.34

Year To Date
         Fabric Used                    135.28
         Fabric Added                    56.15        

Net Used/Added                       79.15

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

Sewing this week was all systems go up till Saturday and since then has slowed down a lot

I worked solidly to get my Raggy Hearts quilt finish and I managed it and posted it off to my friend on Monday. I forgot to include the card I had written out for her which is a bit of a bummer but it does have my name on the outside of the parcel... must post it off to her - but its already been 2 days. Oops

I have been working away on my hexies. I got a pile made during church on Sunday and some more in the evening whilst watching tv. Had a meeting at church Tuesday night and in the hour or so got 20 done. Quite a few people were asking me about them afterwards and they were universally amazed that I would be attempting a quilt that needed over 1500 of them. My aim for this month is to get 100 hexies made and I am heading towards that already.

Tuesday at Handmade Love, our visitor CaAtherine taught us how to make a kaftan. I stuffed up the neckline and it too a bit of working to get it right but I managed to get it finished in the morning. What a thrill. Next time I think I will make a slightly different neckline.

 

Today I went to Patchwork group and worked the whole time on my Twilter's swap blocks. I made 12 so I now have 19 made. Think I will make 30 as I'd like to have a 5 x 6 layout.

So its been a pretty busy week on a variety of projects. What about you? What have you been doing?

  

Sunday Stash Report - some finishes and some purchases

Last Monday in my Monday musings I was regretting fudging the line in finishing Going Green late Sunday night or early Monday morning and counting it in the previous week's stash report because ... on Monday morning my order from Massdrop turned up and I had 4 metres of fabric incoming that would go as a minus on this week's report. I don't like negative figures! I don't mind nil all as much as I dislike going into the negative.

In pushed me on to get Pink Pizzazz finished off so as to have a little incoming. I got it done on Tuesday evening in time to take it to our patchwork gathering on Wednesday to show it off. It was a group project so it was appropriate.

I was on a bit of a roll by then so pressed on with Raggy Hearts. I had only really started it the previous week when we did our block swap (well I did my blocks a few months ago but we swapped our half hearts Wednesday a week ago) but had managed to get the centre together and then on Wednesday I got the 2nd border on it. It was pieced using a mixture of breast cancer fabric and some other heart fabric. 

I had thought that I would piece the backing using some Quilt for a Cure fabric that I had (I am giving it to a friend going through breast cancer treatment atm) but then decided to use some lovely minky fabric. Its so lovely to touch and I have heard that some people having cancer treatment find their skin gets really sensitive so this would be ideal. I didn't have to piece it at all as it was just wide enough. I  was able to lay it out on my cutting table and get it pinned by Thursday morning and then started quilting. 

I got it finished by Friday night which was my aim as my big machine had to go in for a service on Saturday. I finished up the binding etc yesterday using my small travel machine (Janome Jem) 

My friend Lindy and I had been discussing at Patchwork on Wednesday about how joins in binding so often end up at the corners. When it happened to me I just had to photograph it and put it on Facebook for her

... so that was another finish for the week... which is just as well because....

Thursday afternoon I went shopping for background fabric for the upcoming Twilters swap. I needed to buy 2.3m. Its a plain white... nothing special. The  tone on tone whites they had in our 2 LQSs were $22.20 plus a metre so I wasn't paying that. I got some plain white stuff for $11m that I was happier paying. Its boring and not worth photographing! 

Anyway since then  I have been beavering away with my blocks (we are doing the wonky pound block from Amy Gibson's 2012 Craftsy BOM) and have 7 completed. I think I will make 30 as that will give a good sized quilt. Not sure how many participants we will have in the swap but if we don't get that many I can keep some for myself and if we get more than that... well I'll see. But at the moment I am working on 30. (Twilters is the name giving originally to quilters who tweet. We were a bunch of women who found each other via a number of quilting podcasts. We have since formed a group on facebook and many people find that easier as they don't use twitter. I must admit I like Facebook better as posts are more easily kept together and you can find everyone who comments under the one banner. If you are a quilter who listens to podcasts or are interested in joining us drop me a message and I can work on joining you up.

So this weeks stats

Week 37

         Fabric Used                     9.04
            Fabric Added                   6.92

Year To Date
         Fabric Used                    131.23
         Fabric Added                    49.32        

Net Used/Added                       81.92

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times