Sunday Stash Report - some big finishes

Very excited to be able to report that I have had 3 BIG finishes since I did my last stash report - which was at the end of June.

My First Finish was a banner for church. I had been sifting through ideas for a few weeks on this one but once I started I was able to get it finished in a couple of days and it is hanging in church now. I wrote about it here. It used up 5m of fabric that all came from my stash - how cool was that (straight profit I say)

My Second Finish was my Scrap in a Box mystery quilts (run by Charlotte Hawks of Scrapitude Quilts) I called mine Scrappy Lattice because it was scrappy and the sashing of the on point blocks reminded me so much of a latticed trellis. (I chose a vine inspired quilting motif for it based on that). I managed to finish it off this week after it returned from the long armer - bound and labelled. I used a lovely doily for the label when I couldn't find my commercial labels in my cupboard and I love how they ended up looking. I have heaps of doilies - some inherited from my aunty, some from my mum and others acquired through op shops. A lovely use for them I thought. This quilt used 7.73m of fabric. (all fabric for the top came from my stash. The backing was made from fabric bought off the silent auction at PnP - plus scraps from my stash)

The Third Finish was Crop Circles,  my other mystery quilt, from the quilting retreat Patch n Peace that I went to on the 2nd weekend in June. It too came back from the longarmer this week (Both quilts were in the same parcel. What an exciting opening that was. My friend Kym Colgrave of Professional Quilting Service does an amazing job. She has an excellent eye for quilting design and whilst she insists that I need to choose the pattern she is great at guiding my choices. For this quilt Kym and I chose a pattern called CircleSwirl and it looks great. This quilt used 7.96m of fabric. (again all fabric for the quilt top came from my stash and the backing was made from fabric bought at the silent auction at PnP plus scraps from my stash)

I am going to do a more extensive blog post about these two quilts -soon.

And I have had NO fabric purchases so its all straight profit for this past fortnight - SWEET

So my stats are

Weeks 27 and 28

         Fabric Used                     20.69m (I think this is a record for me)
         Fabric Added                   0.00m

Year To Date
         Fabric Used                    91.00m
         Fabric Added                  35.35m
         Net Used/Added             55.65m        

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

Updating July Goals

We are one third through this month so time to have a look at this month's goals.

Finish Scrap in a Box: DONE. I stitched the label on yesterday

Finish Crop Circles: DONE I stitched the label on today

Finish Gold cross banner: DONE Its hanging at church now

Make towels for Handmade Love stall. Started making some. I've got 13 in various stages of completion

Make zipper pouches for Handmade Love Stall. Nothing started here yet. Hopefully will get a few made before the stall.

Finish Community Quilt. This red black and white quilt now has a name ... Newspaper Mama (cause its black and white and red all over. Newspaper mama is also a kids song by Peter Coombes that my kids loved when younger) The top has been assembled and now working out what to put on the back.

Amy Gibson blocks. Haven't looked at this. Was hoping to do 6 this month... hmmm might end up being 8 for next month.

POD Blocks 27 - 30. Have patterns for 27 and 28 printed out but haven't made them yet... today maybe - or tomorrow

Complete Beasts beanie. DONE 

Make beanie for Kombi Boy. DONE

So I've made a fair start for the month. Must get a photo of those beanies on heads and the completed quilts......

Wip Wednesday

I've had a very busy week working on lots of different projects

I have finished off both the top and backing for Scraptitude - Scrap in a Box. I ended up adding an extra border to the top to make it big enough for a single bed. Then I pieced the backing using up  as many of the excess triangles I had accidentally cut for the top. I used up as many of the excess bits as I could. I had a lot of fun doing it and took far more time than I should have but ... well it was fun and the end result was pretty pleasing too.

Yeah a crap photo.. but I no longer have an outside line that I can hang things off so it has to get pinned to my design board. Yes... should close cupboard doors and use a camera not my phone

Our Patchwork group has decided to do a block swap - raggy hearts. It was my suggestion as I had missed out on doing it this swap at our retreat. The swap won't be till September but I decided to get a start on and have made over 60 of them already.

The mystery quilt from the Retreat weekend has also been under the needle. I made some more of the half circle units and extended the circle motif into the border. Its now 66" square. I didn't end up using the half square triangle units that were left over from the half square triangle units in top. The top is still on my design wall and I think its done... but we all know what happened to Scrapitude-Scrap in a Box.

I've started working on putting together some blocks at our Patchwork Group rooms. At the end of last year we did a black and white and red block. We only got 9 blocks and one of those was wrong but by putting the wrong one in the centre it becomes a feature. I have a heap of left over half square triangle blocks from Sunburnt Zebras - 80 of them. We also have a few small half square triangle blocks from the big blocks in the quilt. My friend Lindy and I are working on coming up with a design for the borders. It will be our project that we work on up at the rooms. After we do it there is a pink and white one we have to finish off too.

At Patchwork today one of our members guided me through cheneleing process. I'd bought a cutter and a brush several years ago but had never got around to using them. I made used a panel with daisies on it for the top and several pieces of old sheeting for the under layers. It worked well although when I brushed it up it worked too well... have heaps of threads and they are still coming off. I am not worried if I have totally wrecked because it was all old fabric I have had for ages. I am thinking of making it into a cushion if it works ok.

This is just a small bundle of what I brushed up

My last sewing efforts for this week has been to finish off a project for my daughter Fangirl. She is in a swap to do with super villains and she had designed and cross stitched a piece that she wanted me to make into a wall hanging. I framed it with a lovely blue and gold fabric and then did a very simple quilting design on it - just stitched in the ditch around the design and the a simple swirl on the border. If you are interested in the design then check out her Etsy shop... links in my sidebar

     

WIP Wednesday

Having trouble getting my photos off my phone. Not sure why I can't but once my daughter gets home she might be able to help me.

Anyway quick update with only a few  photos

Scrapitude
Have worked on this and over the last few days I have got the blocks together with the lattice like sashing. I think it looks great. Next I am going to add some other borders but haven't worked it out yet

Its the season for mystery quilts I was on a weekend retreat - 4 days worth and we had a mystery quilt there too. We had clues Friday Saturday and Sunday. I managed to get all my blocks made before The retreat ended Monday. Since getting home I've managed to get the blocks together. Now to work out borders for it too. I would like to continue the circles into the border - finish them off. I also have some hst fro the flying geese units I could incorporate some how too. Working on this one too

Linking up with

 

WIP Wednesday

Time for quilting has been a bit short over the last few weeks. Boyo was home over Easter and whilst I did some sewing whilst he was here it was more limited. Then we were packing and getting ready to go to Malaysia for a week at the same time I was working on getting my A to Z Blogging Challenge posts written before we left so that they could go up while we were away.

One way and another time was short.

Then we got home and I went back to work full time for a week. That was a bit of shock to the system when I haven't worked fulltime for a few years. Whilst I had some time to sew in the evenings I needed to get my sewing mojo back up and running again... and I didn't have the energy.

So... finally on the weekend I had the time to spend sewing. I was delighted to get  back to Clue 4 Scrapitude. This month's clue saw us putting the blocks together. They have turned out really well.

I was on a roll. On Sunday I tackled the Block 14 of the POD challenge and Monday Block 15 and Tuesday Block 16! All ready for Block 17 to come out Thursday.  

 

 

I then decided to have a go at quilting the Blue Pinwheel quilt that I have put together for our quilt group. I was really pleased that I got the whole top done Tuesday evening, and got the binding machined on. Now I have started hand stitching it down.

 

Today I was off to our quilt group for the morning and I was able to work on the Bluebird quilt I am making for my niece Judy. The embroideries were designed by my sister in law Christine and they were stitched by my sister Joy. Judy is her daughter. I got the blocks trimmed up and have started to stitch on the sashing so I'm making good progress.

 

Its great to be back into my sewing AND now I have almost finished ALL my April goals. All I have to do is get the rest of that binding stitched down and I will be done!. Yay. Go me

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and WOW -WIPs on Wednesday

        

WIP Wednesday

Its been another busy week with a variety of projects on the go. And too many is never enough...

I have started work on the 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month quilt. I watched all the shows in 2013 after I joined Craftsty. At the time I was sick in bed with Barmah Forrest Virus. Thats a mosquito born disease found only in Australia. It is not all that well known but is becoming so. Symptoms are aches and pains in joints, swelling of joints, rash, fatigue. I had the aches and pains and the fatigue but no rash or swelling. It left me feeling wiped out.

Anyway I was spending a lot of time lying down and I enjoyed watching the whole Craftsy class right through but didn't have the energy or inclination to actually get up and do any sewing. Its been on my To Do list for a while now and I put making at least one block from the class on my goals for March and am delighted to say that I have completed both of the blocks for January and have cut the fabric for February's blocks. Go me

I was able to go to Spotlight whilst in Rockhampton earlier on in the week and take advantage of their 30% off everything. I got the navy blue fabric I wanted to finish off the Pinwheel quilt I have been working on for our Patchwork Group. I should have enough to do the back and binding as well. At Patchwork today I was able to get the narrow borders on the front to finish the top off. It looks great.

 I also got to back pieced. I was able to work into it the 3 12" blocks that were made for other BOM's we had but in the wrong colour way. Originally we had been going to do all the BOM's for the year in blue and white but then they decided no, each one would be a different colour. However not all of us got to message and a few of us made subsequent blocks in blue and white too. So.... we had these spare blocks. 3 x 12" blocks and an 8" pinwheel. I am really pleased with how the back worked out - not to mention pleased to have the quilt ready to be basted and quilted.

The Tea Shop quilt has been sitting pinned and ready to go near my machine all week but haven't started on it yet. I really need to get a move on because I would like it finished to hang at the Our Rainbow House afternoon tea at the end of the month.

I was able to complete the last 2 blocks in the Elephant Parade quilt. They were two flowers. I have only made one of each of the blocks (apart from the flowers which I made 2 of the blue flowers as per instructions) I am not sure what I am going to do with the finished blocks. To make the whole quilt I will need to make more of all the blocks but I am not convinced I want to do that. I might make them into a bag or a wall hanging... not sure yet so have packed them up and put them away till I decide.

I made the next block in the Harry Potter POD QAL. That means that  I have enough blocks to complete 2 rows of the bookshelf. I started to sew  names on the books but that is a slow process. I don;t want to sew the blocks together as that will make it hard to embroider the blocks... but I am not sure now if I want to sew names on all the books. But perhaps it will look stupid if only some of the books have names on them... I can't decide. I could probably sew the blocks into long strips and still work on the blocks... but then.. I don't know. I can't decide so at the moment I haven't sewn them together.

The next clue in Scrapitude was released last week and I got the steps all completed. I had to cut more squares cause I misinterpreted an earlier clue but it was ok. It was a little bit tricky this time but managed it ok. Apparently there are only two more sets of clues to go and the last lot includes putting it all together. I am intrigued at how it is going to come out. All of it has come out of my stash and most of it has come out of my scrap stash. Funny thing is that the drawers with my cut scraps in still seem to be jam packed. Considering all the scraps that have come out of them......

And that brings me to my last WIP. I am once again working my way through my basket of scraps cutting them into useful units ready to be utilised in future projects. I really love having my scraps dealt with in this way. My choice of useful units are 1.5"through to 5" going up in half inch increments in squares or strips of that width, then 6.5" squares and strips and 10" squares. Having my units already cut has made preparation for various mystery quilts much quicker than it otherwise might have been. Yes sometimes I have to cut my units down (or cut units from my stash) if they are a bit more unusual eg 5.5" or 1/4" units but on the whole it has saved me so much time. Recently I was preparing for a mystery quilt to be held at a retreat I am off to in June. It called for about 300 1.5" squares. Would you believe I didn't have to cut any of them? They were all in my scrap stash already. 

Anyway - this week I have once again started to work on emptying my scrap basket. It was overflowing and then some.... I didn't think to take a photo initially. The photo is from today when I have already been working on it for a day or 2.

I have shallow boxes labelled with the various sized cuts to sort into. The tv set up means that I can watch shows whilst trimming my scraps. Today though I listened to a Craftsy class

I 

I used to try to keep the squares and the strips separated in the boxes but now I realise its much simpler to sort them at the end when putting them into the plastic drawers I keep them in. The drawers have shoe boxes fitted into them into, one for strips and one for squares usually. 

That's been my week. Pretty busy all in all. 

Linking up with WIP Wednesday,WOW- WIPs on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social

WIP Wednesday - what I have been up to this week

I've worked on a variety of projects this week.

Pouches
I completed 6 little zipper pouches over the weekend. I blogged about them on Sunday in my stash report. I took them along to our craft group "Hand Made Love" and one of the other crafters bought one right off the bat! She also asked me about making her a bag to carry her folder in. I am a bit reluctant to do a commission - she wants it bigger than one I had there and in the same colours as the pouch she bought. But that will take almost a whole fat quarter of fabric just for the front of the bag - and the fabric she likes is rather expensive. It was some of the fabric that I had bought whilst on holidays in South Australia last year. So I am not sure if I will take her up on her commission. I will see how things pan out. This craft group was meeting fortnightly but they have now decided to meet weekly. I am not sure if I am willing to commit to that regularly. I might just sew at home....

I also completed another denim jeans bag for the stall. That was the last of my jeans shorts left over from my quilt however someone gave me a bag with another 5 cut off jeans in it so I can keep on sewing should I wish to. I am thinking I will leave it till after the stall at the end of the month and see if there is any interest in them before making any more.

POD
I completed the next block in the quilt along... block 9 and the next one is released today. Some people are already sewing their blocks into rows (5 blocks to a row) but since I've been planning on embroidering book titles on each block I haven't sewn them together yet but I might give in and sew them into strips just to see what its going to look like. This last block had a snitch in it and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I did have a few  hassles with the block this time... of my own making. I did a lot of reverse sewing on the first book I sewed but got it eventually.

Elephant Parade
I managed to catch up the two blocks I was behind last week and to get all the eyes sewn on - including the elephants which I hadn't realised were eyeless. They are also tail less but there are no tails in the patterns. I am not sure if I'll add some tails now or if I will wait till I sew the blocks together and then embroider some tails on... or perhaps add some plaited tails. That might look good and add some dimension to the quilt.

Sorting my scraps.
My scrap basket was once again over flowing... piled well up. Time to get sorting. I'm going to have to do a bit of ironing as well as the scraps have been shoved into the basket so are really scrunched up. Its going to take me awhile to get through it all

Patch n Peace Mystery Quilt
As I started to sort things last night I remembered that I have a mystery quilt to prepare for, for a retreat I am going to in June. I could cut for that as I sorted my scraps. I do have a pile of cut scraps already so figured that I should go through them first and get out the sizes I needed so as to not specially cut sizes I may not need. Turns out that I had plenty of 1.5"  3.5"  and 4" squares cut but needed to cut some 3.5" "bricks" -rectangles that are the size of 2 3.5" sewn together (6.5" cause you take off .5" seam allowance) and also some 7" squares. The bricks I was able to cut from 3.5" strips I already had in my stash but a lot of the 7" squares I had to actually go to my stash to cut as even in my scrap basket I didn't have large enough pieces - well didn't have sufficient of them. It was also important to cut from a variety of fabrics.

Blue Quilt at the club
Today I was able to get the centre of the top completely finished. I am going to add a narrow navy border but then that is it. Well then I have to put the back together and baste it and quilt it. I have spent a good bit of time on this quilt. The blocks were contributed by club members in our BOM challenge. Lindi, a fellow club member and I made a few more that we needed to complete the design. Lots of half square triangle pieces were left over and we made a mass of pinwheels from these, of varying sizes and these we used in the border. The border had to be pieced carefully and painstakingly and it took me a couple of weeks to get it done but at last I got it finished. Everyone is really pleased with it. It was designed to be a charity quilt but now we have decided to keep it for at least a year as next year the theme for the Queensland Patchwork Quilting Guild is blue and white so we will display it at our exhibition at the gallery.

Scrapitude: Scrap in a Box
The next clue for this challenge has been released. It looks really complicated and scary. I've only read it through but I am super nervous about it already. Better get my act together though and have a go. I am not sure how I will go with the April clue as it is due to be released just days before I fly to Malaysia. I get back from that and then head off to Melbourne and then back from that and my sister flies in for 10 days stay. She is a quilter though so she will be happy to sew with me... when we aren't tripping about. Still ... that isn't till April and May. I shouldn't be borrowing trouble should I!! I've realised that I have made a huge mistake and used up various things I needed in previous steps. Anyway - have cut more and ready to start some sewing.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, Wips on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social 

WIP Wednesday

Very excited to announce that Vanishing Hours is finished. Yes! I worked on getting the binding on yesterday. It didn't take me very long at all. All that procrastinating. I had some binding that I had made for another quilt which I forgot I had made and made different stuff. I wasn't sure that it would work on this quilt and I knew I would have enough. I found a piece of the same scrap basket that had come off the backing which the long armer had trimmed off and sent back to me. There was just enough to make the binding... so I made some more binding and got it sewn on. I machined it front and back for a couple of reasons. The most pressing one was that whilst it was piled up on the sofa waiting for me to bind it the cats had peed on it. I debated washing it first but decided I didn't want to risk washing it before I had bound it so I put my big girl pants on, held my nose and got the binding on as quickly as I could and then washed my hands well afterwards. The other reason I bound it by machine front and back is that this is going to be on our bed and this is not the first time (or second or even third) time one of the cats has piddled on a quilt that is either on the bed or on the floor. So it is going to be washed regularly and machine binding is more secure.

So I got it bound and into the washing machine and out on the line in quick succession (for my American readers - whilst most Australian homes do own a dryer we don't use them routinely. They are usually used for emergencies or in wet weather. We all have lines in our backyards. In general our dryers wouldn't be as large as yours either since they aren't used regularly for the family wash) We no longer have a rotary hoist - an Australian invention, found in most backyards in Australia and New Zealand since the 1940s see here for its history because it broke just last year. We have a line on our patio that I use. It is under shelter so protected from the weather - sun and rain - but has a good through breeze so things dry quickly. I have however lost my mainstay for displaying and photographing my quilts. I could wind it up high and get the full drop of my quilts, even the huge ones. I did snap a few photos of it on the line yesterday but its in the shade and folded over so no where near as picturesque. I worked today so didn't get a chance to photograph it once it was dry. Tomorrow hopefully... you can come back for a peek at it in its full glory.(Ed I then took a photo of it on the bed... that worked. Still need to take one of the back of the quilt)

This week I have also completed clue 2 of the Scrapitude 2015- Scrap in a Box Mystery quilt.

I completed Week 6 in the POD challenge. I also started to stitch titles on the books in the blocks. I have completed 3 of the 6 blocks I have already made. I took them with me when we went to Brisbane for the weekend. They were my hand project. Unfortunately I was rushing to get the names of the books written on the books and didn't take as much care as I should have so not really happy with how some of them have turned out BUT not going to let it worry me.

I also did two blocks from Elephant Parade sew along. The new block will be released today as will the next block in the POD Challenge.

  

I thought I had finished all the applique blocks in The Tea Shop Quilt so started to sew them together. I have found one block I hadn't finished and another I haven't started. I also have to do a bit of extra work on the milk jugs and sugar bowls. Because the background is creamy white the sugar and milk which are also white aren't really showing up. I am going to stitch around them in the colour I used on the rest of the bowl or jug to give it some definition.

  

It will look like the other side of the bowl or jug. I have done it to one and it worked out well so will do it on the rest. Meantime I have sewn a lot of the blocks together - chunking them into sections. One strip is complete. This is going to make the remaining embroidery a bit harder to do but I will cope. I've rearranged yet again. I keep tweaking the layout. Untill its all sewn down nothing is decided.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, WIPS on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social