Sunday Stash Report

I've done a fair bit of sewing this week but have very few finished projects so very little fabric I can count in my stash report.

I put borders on and quilted a cross stitch completed by the mother of friends of ours. Elaine died suddenly several years ago and had left behind, amongst other projects, a cross stitch of the mission statement of our church. She had completed the cross stitch but not the finishing off. Last Sunday her daughter asked me if I could do something with it. it was actually very easy. I just put the white and red borders on it and then sandwhiched it, quilted and then bound it. Since the fabric to complete it was given with the project apart from the binding and label I haven't counted it. (I kept the left over  bits of fabric so that was probably the equivalent of what I put in so we are even

 

My only complete completions that are therefore able to be counted were 2 denim jeans bags I made on Tuesday. With these I can only count the lining as well because the jeans I used aren't exactly yardage from my stash. I thought that since I had made them previously that I would be a lot quicker with these but I seemed to stuff about just as much and did a fair bit of reverse sewing. I didn't even take a photo of the lining but they are lined with the same fabric I lined my previous ones... a tan tone on tone paisley which I thought matched the retro feel of the bags. I put two pockets, also cut off jeans inside. I changed the strap a little - lining it this time and letting a bit of the lining fabric show through. I removed the zips from these ones and also the belt loops and that made stitching the lining in much easier. I love them and hope that there will be buyers for them at the Our Rainbow House stall at the afternoon tea coming up at the end of March. I have another couple of the top part of the jeans that I can make into bags and hope to get them done by then too.

Total fabric usage .25m

I have been busy sewing else where. I have finished Clue 1 AND Clue 2 in the Scrapitude 2015 Scrap in a Box mystery quilt

I have completed the two blocks in the Elephant Parade QAL. Someone on a Facebook group I belong too added tails to her elephants and I think that looks really good so might try that too. So far I have just done one of each block. I am undecided as to whether I will make more to make a larger quilt

I have also completed block 6 in POD

What I haven't done is make the binding for my Vanishing Hours or quilt Annie's Quilt. If I had worked on those I'd have major usage to report

As to fabric in I haven't added anything. 

This Week

Fabric Used                               0.25m

Fabric Added                             0.00m

Year to Date

Fabric Used                               16.15m

Fabric Added                             10.35m

Net Fabric used                           5.80m

Linking up with Sunday Stash Report and Can I get a Whoop-Whoop and Thank Goodness its Finished Friday

WIP Wednesday - progress

I have made another 2 denim bags out of the top section of jeans. I took the two I had made previously along to a craft group that has just started up in our town. Our aim is to make things to be sold to raise money for Our Rainbow House. The women at the group were very enthusiastic about them and I may well have found a buyer for at least one if not both of them from within the group. Their encouragement was so inspiring that I came home and made another 2 this afternoon.

I have made a little progress on The Tea Shop Quilt completing a couple more of the applique blocks. I have just one to go but it has the most changes of colours on it so will take a little while. I haven't finally settled on a design for the layout but think that the one with the teashop at the centre of the quilt may well be my final one.

I got the next block in the POD challenge completed. It was a pretty straight forward one. Apparently the 5 blocks we have done are enough to complete one row on the book shelf. Before I sew them together I want to stitch titles on the books. I had better get on to that.

I have also joined the Scrapitude - Scrap in a Box Mystery quilt. I completed the first clue/step Monday night. The next clue is up but not sure when I will get 

I have Vanishing Hours back from the long armer. Now I have to decide on a binding and get it done.

Annie's quilt is still bundled up by my machine waiting for me to get back to it and get it quilted.

I have collected a couple of projects to do along the way. Someone from church has asked me to complete a banner that their late mother had started for the church. It is fairly simple. I got the two borders on it today. Now to pin it and quilt it.

I also volunteered to put together one of the charity quilts from the Blocks our Patchwork group have been working on. Today we I forgot that I had said I would make some banners for a christian group called Chrysalis. I was reminded today so had better get them done too!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, WIPs on Wednesday and Let's Bee Social

WIP Wednesday - action all over the shop

Have had a busy week and worked on a few different projects

To start with as you will notice my blog has had an update. My favourite technical advisor on all things blog, my daughter Fangirl came over today and revamped my blog. She had just learned how to do a few things and updated her own blog (fangirlstitches.blogspot.com.au) so came over and gave mine an update as well. I've told her she can be in charge of it and do what she likes. (She did explain what she was doing to me but at the time I was tired having just got home from a day at patchwork so it went over my head... sorry sweetheart) Anyway I love the new look! I now have a special page for my OPAM projects as I will only keep my current month's projects on the sidebar.

Fangirl made this composite photo of some of my quilts. Isn't she clever. (yes I know that you can see the photo at the top of this page but its so cool I thought I'd show it to you again)

I've been working on my Teashop Quilt. I laid out my completed blocks as per the pattern I had devised and worked out what blocks I still had to come up with. I have prepped a number of blocks for applique and some blocks I cut fabric from my stash of tea shop related fabrics. I wrote about this in more detail here yesterday. I completed the applique on one block yesterday whilst in a meeting and did a little more on a new one today at patchwork. The design isn't set yet as a friend has suggested I put the tea shop in the centre of the quilt and the stuff around it. I have trialled a few ideas for it (see yesterday's post)

I completed 2 more stitcheries from Christmas Delights whilst at an all day meeting on Saturday. They are all done now - I did 2 of each of the designs and my plan at this stage is to make a mini wall hanging out of one set and Pillows out of the other set to hang off a swag for Christmas.

 

I have been trimming my denim scraps up. I want to reduce the bulk of all the denim I collected for the denim quilt (Jean's Jeans quilt) I made last year. I've made 2 denim bags this week using the top part of the jeans (see Sunday Stash Report) and now I have cut all the scrappy bits into useful units - squares and strips from 1.5" up to 6.5". Not sure what I will do with them but keen to try something.

Today at Patchwork I completed a baby quilt for our Angel Quilt - Quilts of Love for babies born too soon. I was very happy with how it turned out until at the very end I measured it before handing it over to be labelled and realising that I had forgotten to add the 2" border all around and thus it was only 18" square instead of 22". I wasn't going to take the binding off , unpick the quilting and add the border ... so this one is going to be a bit small but hopefully will still be useful.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, WIPs on Wednesday and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, (links on my side bar!)

Sunday Stash Report- a mixed report

This week there has been some in and some out!
In - I received my order from MassDrop of a Fat Quarter Bundle - 18 fat quarters from the Andover Chambray collection. Its a luscious collection of beautifully textured fabrics, some shot with gold or silver, in a range of colours - creams and whites, gold, purples, greens, aqua and black. just gorgeous. 18 fat quarters. That was a total of 4.37m of fabric

Out

Our dear friend Bek loves Minions and for her birthday (which was Sunday) I made her 2 small minion wall hanging. They are paper pieced, measured 32cm x 40cm and are gorgeous. She loves them.

I completed The TARDIS Tree, a Christmas wall hanging. Its all labelled and ready to get tucked away with my other Christmas stuff... some of which is still piled up in the office waiting to be put away. No matter how careful I try to be in putting stuff away I always find various stray bits of Christmas decorations after I have heaved the boxes I have packed the Christmas stuff into up into their high storage cupboards. The TARDIS Tree has 1400 1" finished squares in it and 72 HST of the same dimensions in it. The usual formula I use to calculate fabric usage didn't accurately reflect the fabric that went into this quilt so I added an extra metre of usage to my calculations to more accurately record the fabric. 3.68m of usage in all

Its been a Doctor Who themed week. Fangirl turns 30 next weekend and is having a party with the theme "Adventures in Time and Space" She had bought herself a TARDIS dress to wear but it was very tight across her thighs. She asked me to adjust it for her. The easiest thing to do was to undo the side seams, remove the side zip and insert 2 black panels that would hang loose. I hemmed the side seams and it has worked very well. The side panels used some black fabric I have had left over from a dress I had made for a ball back in 1986 I think! (when Fangirl was 18 months old) The panels used up half a metre of fabric.

My last bit of sewing for the week has been 2 bags made from the top part of a pair of jeans. I have several containers with leftovers from the jeans I cut up to make Jean's Jean Quilt last year - pockets, the top parts and other bits and pieces. I came across them whilst sorting out and listing all my UFO's, WIPS, and planned projects. 

I googled Jeans Bags and came across one fairly simple pattern here on Paging Fun Mum's blog. I found it quite helpful although it glossed over a few tricky bits. The biggest hassle I had was cutting off the jeans to make them straight. The blog said to cut off at the crotch but I was interested in keeping the back pockets in tact so had to go a little lower and that meant there was a bit of shaping to negotiate around. 

 

I trimmed it back and made it as neat as I could. I made the first one flat across the bottom but the second one was a little bigger instead of having it flat I shaped it a little by lining up the side seam with the base seam and sewing across to make the bag have some width. 

I was going to take photos as I went but I forgot so no tutorial from me. I also changed the pattern by sewing some of the many pockets cut off the jeans to the right side of the lining before I sewed it together. 

   

I am still tweaking the design and have about 5 more tops of jeans that I can make into bags so should be good by the end. I made the strap from a lenght of denim cut for the leg of a pair of jeans, folded right sides together and stitched along the length, turned the right way around, pressed with the seam in the middle, stitched down again and then sewn onto the bag. I am no good at studs etc and don't have any anyway. I used velcro as closures for the bag. My kids are very impressed with the results! I plan to give them to the Our Rainbow House craft ladies to sell to raise money for our school in Zambia

It looks like its crooked but I cut it straight so I think its the photo... that is going to be my excuse anyway

They didn't use much fabric though... just the lining. Since I didn't count the jeans as fabric in I don't think I should count that part of the project as fabric out (although I did for the jeans quilt.) There was a total of .25 m used in the lining for the two bags (I used some tan paisley patterned left over backing. It has that retro feeling that will go well with the bags

So 

This Week

Fabric Used                               5.21m

Fabric Added                            4.37m

Year to Date

Fabric Used                               13.01m

Fabric Added                             10.35m

Net Fabric used                            2.66m

So how has your fabric usage gone this week?