Sunday Stash Report

Apart from my big blow out early in January, when I purchased a heap of fabric to make things for my Comic Con stall, I hadn't purchased any fabric. I had been in the red since that purchase and last week is the first time I had been in the black all year. Finishing off Stringen' 'Em Along had finally erased all my "redness". I had been determined that I wasn't going to buy any fabric till I was back in the black.

Having achieved that goal last week this week I was prepared to make a purchase, safe in the knowledge I would not be getting a sunburnt stash again. On Tuesday a parcel arrived for me from Sandi of Quilting for the Rest of Us. I had won a prize in a draw she had on her blog - 4 fat quarters! .92m

Then on Wednesday I bought the fabric I calculated I needed to do the sashing on my A to Z Quilt. I had been holding out till I was in the black. I chose a plain grey solid. 1.7m. No photo - it wasn't that exciting.

So - two inputs this week!

But to make up for that I've had some finishes.
4 messenger bags for my Comic Con stall. They are all slightly different sizes, but used approximately the same amount of fabric. 2.86m I've now run out of the magnetic clasps I use on them and have had to order more. They are coming but in the meantime I will work on some zipper purses. Lyndi has offered to give me some clasps to tide me over if I need it. I am going to run out of zippers too so have ordered more of them.

I've also had 2 major quilt finishes. 

I was able to finish off Handwork Heritage. I am really thrilled with how it worked out, despite a few hassles along the way with the quilting. I had to unpick and redo a small section for one thing. The lace on the quilt top proved a bit troublesome at times too as the foot of the quilting machine slipped under it and was anchored to the quilt. I had to do some deft unpicking to free it. I did this no less than 3 times. Sigh. You would think I would learn!! 7.99m

My big Ta Dah is my hexagon quilt which I finally finished off. It too proved a little problematic in the quilting. The appliqued strip down the back of it as well as the pieced backing meant it had different stretch in it so needed to be carefully handled in the quilting to avoid pleats.

 I ended up with a couple of pleats in the back and along the edge, most of which I was able to unpick and ease out. It was a massive finish. It measured 200 x 252cms  (over 3000 hand pieced hexies)and with the pieced back as well it ended up using up 12.46m of fabric. 

The great thing about it is that it was all from my stash, mostly my scrap stash at that. I am so thrilled to have it finished. 12.46m.

Once I get the sashing and first border on the A to Z quilt (the plain grey) I am thinking of putting another border on. If I can find fabric with the alphabet on it in a suitable colour (and not too expensive) I think I will get that. Now that I have a cushion of credit in my stash usage I think I can be crazy and buy a bit more. 

Week 7
Fabric used        23.31
Fabric added        2.69
Net usage          20.62m

Year to Date     
Fabric used       36.65
Fabric Added     11.74
Net Usage        24.91m

linking up with Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

Another busy week in which I got one of my WIPs finished off and made substantial progress on some others.

Stringen' Em Along. 
I got this quilt finished off in time to count it in my Stash report for the week Yay.

En Provence (Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt)
I worked steadily on this for several days and finally got the top together last night. Now to make a back for it! I ended up with heaps of the white/neutral 4 patches left over. I must have seriously miscounted. I will probably work on incorporating them into the backing.

It was only after I was showing a friend this photo I realised that I had put the top border on upside down. Oops

Surrounded by Scraps 
This Charlotte Hawks latest mystery quilt. Clue 2 was released on Feb 8th (here) in the US which was Thursday in Australia. I worked on it straight away and was pleased to get it finished Friday. Now to wait till March for the next clue to come out :)

Hexagon Quilt
Today at Patchwork a couple of friends helped me load the Hexagon quilt onto the quilting frame at our Club rooms. The idea was that I would get it set up to quilt tomorrow but I got started on it and since the others didn't mind me doing it whilst they were there I kept right on and got it finished. We had a few issues with the quilt backing - getting it to load properly - I had appliqued a strip of hexagons to the back and it meant it didn't stretch as much as the rest of it. We managed to get it relatively straight and it just meant that I had to carefully monitor it as I fed it through to make sure it was all sitting straight. I still have to trim off the excess and get the quilt squared up. The binding is all ready made and ready to go. I plan to machine it on so it won't take too long to getting it finished (hopefully by this Sunday)


I've been working away on some messenger bags for the Comic Con stall. I got 4 made yesterday and now I am out of magnetic clips so can't make any more till the ones I order arrive.

Hope you all make good progress on your WIPs this week.

Linking up with 

WIP Wednesday... lots of progress

Despite still not being 100% energy wise (but maybe that's age and heat related too) I have accomplished "Great Things" this week! I am so pleased. I haven't finished any of the WIPs but have advanced a lot.

Hexagon Quilt.

I have had the backing made for this for ages and even the batting cut but when I went to load it onto the quilting frame at Patchwork I found I had cut it too small. I finally cut it again and HOPEFULLY its the right size this time. I also made the binding for it. I blogged here about how I didn't really like it any more. I am still a bit unsure of it but its such a massive undertaking I will certainly finish it. I've arranged with my friend Lyndi to quilt this next Thursday. Woot.

Handwork Heritage

I attached the piano key borders. The centre is made from doilies that I inherited from various family members. I only cut up the ones that were stained or had holes in them, or were shop bought. These were sashed in various 1" finished pink scraps. The borders were made from the scraps left over from the centre blocks and more pink scraps. I had kept on making the piano key borders till I ran out of doily scraps. When I went to put them on I had enough to go around 1.75 times almost. Oops. They went into the backing. The leftovers I put into the backing interspersing them between strips made from vintage sheets. Having finished the backing I also made the binding (pink checked) and cut the batting.

If I get time next Thursday after I have quilted the hexagon quilt I may try to get this one loaded and quilted too.

Sparkle Sparkle

My latest baby quilt finish! There are 2 babies due this half of the year to whom I will gift a quilt. This is another adapted from Jenny Doen's Sparkle quilt pattern. I am not sure which of the bub's it will go to. The top for this one has been finished for a while. This week I made the backing, a simple affair this time. I added 2 strips to a wildly colourful width of fabric animal print to make it wide enough. I made the binding too. Today at Patchwork I got it pinned ready for me to quilt it on my domestic machine. (One of the 3 I got pinned today)

Stringen' 'Em Along.

This quilt made to Bonnie Hunter's String X pattern is for our Japanese Granddaughter (daughter of our Japanese host son) She will be just over one when we get to see her in July this year. I finished the top last year and wasn't sure who was going to get it - I made the pattern cause I fell in love with it. I hadn't gotten around to making the backing. When I decided that I loved it so much it had to go to someone special, our grand daughter was the obvious choice. 

Because the front wasn't very baby orientated I wanted the backing to have more pictures and fun stuff, and also reflect the Australian side of things. I fussy cut out heaps of Australian Animals from various fabrics I had on hand, framed the pictures with various 1" finished strips and then made them up to 10" size with an assortment of fabric including plains and Australian fabrics. A couple I framed with some Japanese fabric I had used on the year quilt I had made the year Sho was with us.

I pinned it ready for quilting today at Patchwork. It was one of 3 I pinned up there today.

Club Mystery Quilt

Last year our club ran a mystery quilt. Each month we were given instructions for a particular unit for 6 months. It was fat quarter friendly - in fact we were told to choose 6 coordinating fat quarters for it. In the end we were given a design we could use but were also invited to make up our own design which is what I did. Mine had ended up being very dark so I added some extra orange to lift it a bit. 

I had put the centre together last year but was yet to finish it off. Looking at it this past week I decided it needed more orange so put in a final border. Monday I worked on the backing for it. I wanted to use up the left over scraps of fabric and left over blocks too so I made them into strips. Then I raided my scrap drawers and pulled out all the 5" strips that were in the colour scheme of the front.

The result isn't all that striking or wonderful but I am happy with it. It took the best part of the day to put together but you get that. Now the batting for it is cut too and the binding (more orange) made. And at Patchwork today I also got it pinned. 

That makes a total of 5 quilts ready to be quilted.

En Provence

I finally got around to assembling a couple of the blocks on the design wall. I have cut all the yellow squares needed to complete them. I have yet to sew any together but at least I know what I am aiming for now

I've also worked on a few things for the Comic Con stall I will be having in September. I've now made one zipper bag and 3 satchels/messenger bags featuring Star Trek, Star Wars and skeleton cat fabric. 

I started work on another project today. Its going to be a secret project so I won't be posting any photos - but I did start work on it today.

And finally I did a bit of a clean up of my sewing area on the weekend. I spent Saturday morning cleaning up the cutting table and sewing table and then sorting through all my notions and redistributing stuff to places where they will be most useful. Its been great to be able to put my hand on various things as I have needed them as soon as I have wanted them. 4 days later and I have managed to mislay my fabric marking pen and one of my quick unpicks (seam ripper)

How have you gone with your WIPs this week?

Linking up with 

A quandry

Have you ever got to the end of a major project, one that you have invested so much time and effort into not to mention money and realised that ... Nope, you just don't like it.

This happened to me today. Last year I worked hard on a hand pieced hexagon quilt. It took ages. Its all hand done. It was a huge undertaking. 

Its massive. Last week I was going to set it up on our club's long arm and get it quilted cause no, I wasn't going to hand quilt it as well. I miscalculated the batting and hadn't taken enough up with me so instead I quilted another quilt that I did have the required batting for but in spreading it out I started getting an inkling as to why perhaps I hadn't finished this special undertaking. I didn't really like it.

Its really special... I know that. Its scrappy and I designed it as a picture of a flower garden. I used up heaps of my scrap fabrics and when I look at the fabrics in it I recall lots of projects I have worked on over the years. It truly is a memory quilt. And its HUGE... did I mention that? I made it to resemble, supposedly a flower garden. There is sky and clouds up the top and grass at the bottom. Its big enough for a queen bed.

BUT... I just don't really like it. I don't know what I will do with it. I will finish it. That is for sure but then what.... I could put it in my spare room. I already have a quilt on the bed there but I could alternate them.

Fangirl has told me I'm not to give it to her. Her opinion of it resembles mine... I told her the quilt looked like clown vomit.... or perhaps that should be clown in a blender. Its a riot of colour. If it were smaller I could have used it as a wall hanging ... somewhere.... maybe. Fangirl has also told me I can't give it to her brother. She likes his girlfriend too much to inflict it on her.

Her (Fangirl) suggestion was that I give it to someone special, who I don't really like. Cheeky wretch. To be fair, she didn't say anything about the quilt till I made a number of derogatory comments about it first. I told her the clown comparison before I opened it up.

Its disappointing to not like something. I designed it myself so that makes it even worse somehow.

I like it from the back with the light coming through it better

End of the Month Goal review and setting some new ones.

At the beginning of the month when I set my goals I remember thinking that I had been VERY ambitious and was already back pedalling on what I would accomplish. However I think in the end I did pretty well.

Make Pencil cases for Handmade Love. I got 8 completed so was very happy with that

Make 3 more casserole carriers. I got one done. Oh well

Pin and Quilt Onya Bike - I didn't get to this mainly because I have decided to leave it till the Patchwork Club I belong to gets their Long Arm machine and I will do it on that.

Make 3 baby quilts. I have the three tops made but need to work on borders for 2 of them. One is pinned ready to quilt

Make backing for My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes - Done and its pinned ready to be quilted

Make Backing for Hexie Quilt - Done. I am waiting on my next bolt of batting to arrive before I get it pinned. Or then again I might do it on the long arm

Assemble Amy Gibson BOM quilt - done! The blocks are together. Now I have to make the backing

Quilt Hashtag quilt - done

Quilt Dash to Japan - done

Get up to date with Summer Reading QAL - done although I might be behind again. I have to put it together

Make Birds in the Air blocks for Twilter block swap. Done. They have arrived at the swap co-ordinators place and soon she will be doing the swap and we will get ours back. Whoo hoo

Sooooo Not a bad effort at all. The only goal I made no progress on was the quilting of Onya Bike and that was for very good reason. 

Now to set the goals for this coming month

• quilt Onya Bike
• finish quilts for my great niece and great nephew who are already here. 
• Finish a quilt for my friends grand daughter and make one for a baby boy born overseas. He gets one featuring Australian animals.
• work on quilt for great niece/nephew due by the end of the year
• quilt Hexie quilt.
• quilt Amy Gibson BOM
• quilt My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes
• make Christmas themed items for HML stall at craft show at the end of the month.
• empty scrap basket
• finish Summer Reading QAL
• get up to date in the mystery quilt my group is running

Sunday Stash Report and Goal update

There was some purchases made this week! But to offset it just slightly there was also a completion - just one small thing but at least it used some of the fabric that was purchased.

The purchase was some fabric from Vinnies (St Vincent De Paul shop - 2nd hand charity shop) I saw some that would enable me to complete a project I had with me so it was a necessary purchase although if I had planned properly I could have brought some suitable fabric with me from home. I bought some tan/gold star patterned fabric (1.5m cause that was the chunk), a bundle of 49cm square calico pieces, and a chunk of ivory coloured fabric. A total of 3.59m)

My finish was a casserole carrier for me. I used up some orphan blocks I had been given at some stage - a total of 5. They must have been from a block swap as they were all creams and maroon and the same pattern. I suspect they weren't used in the quilt that was made as they might have been a bit small (and wonky) They ended up 12" unfinished and probably should have been 12.5". I used 3 blocks for one piece of the carrier and 2 and some of the calico for the other. For the lining I used the star fabric. Its not quite finished as I need to add the velcro closers and buy the dowel for the handles. But its near enough and so I counted it.

So

Stats from Weeks 17

                 Fabric used            1.63m

                 Fabric added          3.59m

Year to Date                 

                 Fabric used           35.00m                 

                 Fabric added       32.37m

Net Used                                  2.64m  

Linking up with Patchwork Times

Now for an update on my monthly goals

We are 3/4 of the way through this month.

Goals

• work on handmade with love projects No further progress on these. I have some casserole carriers cut out with me but haven't sewn them
• sew left over hexies into strip for backing This is complete. All the left over hexies that I could I have made into either a strip or a block that I will use in the backing of the quilt
• cut fabric for Square with in a square (now called My Cat Likes to hide in Boxes) The project is all cut up and is in a project box ready to go when I next get a chance to sew
• cut fabric for T Intersection quilt The centre of the T Intersection quilt now called Onya Bike is sewn. I am now working on the piano key border... well I have sorted the fabric for it... haven't started sewing it
• Complete A to Z blogging challenge This has been going pretty well. All the posts have gone up on time as per schedule. The remaining posts are written and scheduled (some photos only remain to go on the last one). I have been keeping up pretty well with visiting other blogs as well and commenting as much as possible. I could say this one was done.

WIP Wednesday - progress in all sorts of directions

Its been another bits and pieces week.

"Pink Pizzazz" (the quilt I am working on for our quilting group) was pinned today after our monthly meeting. No one rushed me for it and so I will quilt it myself. Its pretty small so won't take long. We decided that we would give it to our Neighbourhood Centre who run fundraising events for Breast Cancer research. We don't mind if it is used as a raffle prize or given to someone in need. They can choose.

"Going Green"  I also got pin basted today at the rooms assisted by 3 of the women there. I sure did appreciate their help. Pinning can take ages! I didn't stop to take a photo of the process. You will have to trust me on this

Hexies - have been beavering away making more of these. I now have 18 flowers made plus another little bag of basted hexies not sewn into flowers plus a heap more pinned. I found a website during the week that had a calculator on it for working out how many hexies you need for quilts.  Its here on CDDesigns.com You can select the dimension of the hexies and the dimensions of the quilt. Tells you how many half hexies you need too. Problem with it was that it told me if I want a queen bed quilt I am going to need 1523 hexies. ATM once I have put together all the hexies I have pinned, basted and sewn together that comes to about 300 hexies.... so I have a long way to go!! Last night a cut out a pile of hexie papers. I used a free pdf download from here on Love Patchwork and Quilting I have saved the PDF and only print out the page I wanted (1.5" sides) I printed out 10 pages. There are 8 hexies on each page I would use one page as the pattern and load up 5 pieces of scrap paper behind and cut them out together. I wish that there were more than just 8 hexies per page as it wastes a lot of paper but feel that they are more accurate than me tracking around my plastic hexie template. I have quite a pile of hexies cut out ready to pin to fabric.

Scrap Basket
This was probably my biggest achievement for the week. As per Pam, from Hip To Be a Square Podcast, I took before and after photos to document my progress. Here are my scraps both in and out of the basket

 It took me a day and a half to get it all done and one of those days was pretty solid going. It was good to get it all cut up and organised!  You can see how I organise myself in the photo below where my daughter's 2 cats who are visiting this week are Helpingering (that's another Pam phrase) I have my ironing board set up close to the cutting table (usually its over next to my sewing machine and set to a seated level so I can just swing around from my sewing machine to press the seams as required) I iron a pile of scraps and then cut them up to size. I have a number of shoe boxes, one for each of the sizes I cut to, set up along the back of the cutting table (resting on the back of the couch) I can watch tv whilst I cut although to be honest I listened to a number of podcasts and radio plays (lots on the bbc website if you are wanting to listen to good stuff) and also an audio book.

I cut my scraps into units from 1.5 - 5" (going up in .5" increments), 6.5"  squares and strips and 10" squares. I also make bricks in some sizes (rectangles where the length is 2 x width - .5" Good for making flying geese units)

See an empty basket. I put all the scraps back into it after I tipped them out for the earlier photo - 

In resorting some of my boxes of scraps and other bits and pieces as part of this scrap cutting I found some left over hexies from my QAYG hexie quilt I made 9 years ago. I had cut them out but not used them and was very pleased to to find that they were the right size... that's saved me some cutting (and is using up some scraps. Bonus)

What have you  been working on this week?

  

Sunday Stash Report

Its been another crazy busy week with so much going on here and not all that much time to sew... well not as much time as usual to sew.

It was another week with rehearsals - full dress rehearsals at that Sunday afternoon, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and first performances Friday and Saturday nights. Had a bit of sewing for that... had to fix up the cat costume... add elastic to waist band so the size 18 pants fitted out size 10 pregnant actress, also add a sign saying "Cat" to the back of the shirt and put velcro on it so the tail could be attached and removed as per script. Then after the performance on Friday had to do major repairs to the horse costume as the actors stepped on it and ripped it... I was also busy blinging up two hand bags for the leading lady. One I made fabric flowers for (that was fun) and the other I glued a packet of plastic "gems" too. In total I used about half a metre of fabric.

I managed to get Going Green's backing fabric completed as well as Pink Pizzazz. They both now need to be pinned and quilted. Since Pink Pizzazz is a group project I might ask and see if someone else in our patchwork group will quilt it (I quilted one earlier this year) If they will I get to count it as finished and so can calculate fabric usage... what I donated which will be all the backing.

And then there are the hexies... been making a bit of progress there too

Week 35

         Fabric Used                     0.51
         Fabric Added                   0

Year To Date
         Fabric Used                    114.37
         Fabric Added                    42.40        

Net Used/Added                       71.97m   

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday Another Crazy week

I've had another really crazy creative week!

Last week I told you about making a horse costume for the play that my husband, Fixit Guy is in and for which I am prompt. This week the making and fixing for the play has continued. I have added

Making a pair of breasts - well 2 pink cushions

Decorating 2 handbags - blinging them to within an inch of their life (yay for hot glue guns and fake rhinestones )

Working out how to attach a cats tail to a costume so it can be easily removed and reattached.

Making a "CAT" sign to attach to said cat costume

Putting new elastic into the pants of  cat's costume

Attaching elastic to a bowtie to allow for a quick costume change.

Its all been rather fun but time consuming. I know some patchworkers get annoyed when asked to mend things or make non patchwork items for family friends and in my case the wider community, but I don't mind at all. Its been fun to be part of the process.

I have done a little patchworking. Having put the flying geese borders on Going Green last week I went ahead and added a 5" (4.5" finished) green border with multicoloured 9 patches in the corners

and mid way (top and bottom) and 1/3 intervals  (sides) - so that was 10 9 patches in total. I have also started to make the backing for it. I am piecing the backing (as has been my habit of late) and its taking almost as long as the front because I am designing it as I go. I have used up the rest of the green I had bought for the borders on the front as well as a piece featuring birds and  bird houses. I have no idea where it came from but it fits in with the Going Green theme.

It's still not big enough so I"ll add strips of the lovely Robert Kaufman fabric I used in the centre of the birdhouse fabric. I've had it for ages but never quite known what to do with it. Its still not going to be quite big enough. I have a heap of half square triangles measuring something under 2" - leftovers from the flying geese made for the front border. I think I will make a sawtooth border with those. Its not going to add much but will add a little.

I have also been beavering away on my hexagons. I used to be able to work on them a bit during the play because during rehearsals I didn't have to sit in the dark in the wings. I used to sit in the audience, in the light and could stitch away during the breaks when the director and cast were discussing things. Not any more though. I can stitch during interval though so might get a few done.

I now have 14 flowers made, 23 more hexies basted and a heap of hexies cut!

Still not sure of the pattern I am going to make with them but thus far have been making colour centric flowers. I am using all scraps (3" squares) and putting together 6 hexies which "read" the same colour with a lighter (or darker occasionally) one in the centre. I think I will wait till I have finished sewing the hexies before deciding on a design. It will depend on the coloured flowers that I end up with.

I do love the crazy little cameos that are coming up on the scrappy blocks. So many reminders of quilts past

And today I started work on making a tablet cover (ipad etc) for Fangirl to send off in a swap. She has done a lovely cross stitch design and I have to sew it into the cover. The process has been delayed somewhat cause she forgot to wash the design before she gave it to me and it still had the marker pen on it so I've quickly rinsed it out and waiting for it to dry before proceeding further.

My POD paper piecing project hasn't been touched in a month. I must get back to it. It was on my goals for this month but nothing has shifted there.

I had hoped to work on Pink Pizzaz too but nothing happening there either. Will have to get my skates on if I am to get it done by next Wednesday which was my plan.

How has your week gone? What have you been working on?