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

WIP Wednesday - 2 finishes

This week I have finished off two quilts - the two I got pin basted at Patchwork last week. It was great to get them both finished off - wonderful for my stash reports and great to get them both done. They have both been in the almost finished stage for quite a while. That is Pink Pizzazz and Going Green. I have already posted Going Green off to my friend who has had surgery recently and Pink Pizzazz is up at our quilt rooms. They want to hang it there for a bit before we hand it on to a breast cancer charity to use as they wish

Obviously quilting them took up much of my sewing time at home but I have worked on a few other things

First of all the horse costume. No, this wasn't a costume for a horse but the costume of a horse. It was needed for a play my husband is in. They had one already at the theatre but the rough treatment it got during rehearsals meant that it was ripped to well not quite shreds but certainly enough to make it unusable. It was 16 or so years old and wasn't made from new fabric to start with. So... I remade it for the start of performances but I used fabric found at the theatre and it wasn't new. After the first night it ripped and I had to do some major repairs. Then after the 4th performance they once again managed to destroy it beyond use.

So with only 2 performances to go (they do 2 performances a weekend for 3 weekends) I have had to remake the body of it completely. The guys do have to be very rough on the costume - charge around the stage, going in different directions and then fall over spectacularly so they do have to be very rough with it. Hopefully this new fabric (whilst not brand new, newer than the other fabric) will last better. It has some stretch in it so won't rip as easily either.

Found Pippin on the horse costume this morning. With the red staining on the legs (from the actor who uses it's rouged cheeks) it looks like he has killed it and dragged it in and is proudly displaying it

Then there are the raggy hearts. We swapped our raggy hearts last week at Patchwork Group and I came home and immediately started putting my half hearts together and making the extra ones that someone had given us the fabric for. She hadn't had time to make any but donated the fabric for us to make some to go towards a quilt for charity. I made a few more using background fabric from our group stash so probably made 15 raggy hearts altogether.

I put my raggy hearts quilt together. I sashed all the hearts in purple and put in red corner stones. Since this is going to a friend undergoing treatment for breast cancer I used some pink quilt for a cure fabric in the border. I am really happy with how the top. Now I need to make the backing. I'd like to get this finished this week and off to my friend as soon as possible.

I had planned to piece a backing but I wanted to use really soft fabric and have a some minky that would be suitable. Its a fawny brown so not really in the colour family of the sashing and borders but will be fine. I think the feel of the quilt is more important in this case than the look. Its only just wide enough... I have about 1.5" on each side so am going to have to be careful.

After I put the borders on my quilt today at our patchwork group gathering I worked on some more hearts for the group quilt. We have a bit of a problem in that one of our elderly members made her hearts the wrong way around. The background fabric was 7 x 6.5 and you need to put the heart so that it is wider than it is long. She put hers so it was longer than wide. This means that when they are sewn together the blocks will be narrower than they are high instead of square... and they will be narrower than all the other blocks made with the correct fabric. We are working out whether we will trim all the blocks in the donation quilt down to the smaller size or if we alter the sashing... still trying to get our heads around what to do. We have 21 blocks that will be smaller... we could make 3 rows of 7 that are narrower or make 2 rows of 8 and put the leftovers on the back... or... yeah. Its a pain. But we will get there

Hexagons. I've been plugging away on my hexagons. I managed to get about 25 done so far this week. I might get back to some tonight whilst I watch tv... but then again I might work on something else

How has your week been? Have you be productive? Hope you have enjoyed your quilting and patchworking or other crafting.