Sunday Stash report

Another week of  no completions and as predicted there was some input.

I had a lovely birthday celebration at our patchwork group meeting on Wednesday. Its my birthday this month so after our monthly meeting I was presented with my birthday gift from the birthday club we run. My gift was 3 Scrap Bags from Keepsake Quilting. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. I thought when I heard our president, who organises the Birthday Club talking about it, that it was a bag of random fabrics in a bag - just assorted left over fabrics. Not at all. The Scrap Bags are 12 regular 1/4 yard cuts (skinny quarters is what I have known them as) ie 9" x 44". The fabrics are not random but in specific families

The Scrap Bags I received were "Singing the Blues", "Jewel Box" and "Popsicle Stick" - an absolutely gorgeous range of fabrics. The celebrations continued with a special morning tea and later a shared lunch. It was a lovely morning.

My birthday gift spread out  - a beautiful array of colours

Jewel Box

Singing the Blues

Popsicle Stick

It did mean 9 yards of fabric to add to my stash which is 8.23metres
I haven't had any finishes this week. I do however have a quilt in the process of being quilted (Disappearing Pinwheel) and 2 quilts the blue and the brown "Shirt Off My Back" quilts pinned ready to be quilted so if I put my head down and get busy this week I could have a few finishes by next week. I live in hope.

So the stash report goes as follows
Used this week                                       0m
Gained this week                                    8.23m
Used YTD                                           30.86m
Gained YTD                                        20.84m
Net used                                              10.02

So I'm still in positive territory and hoping for some big finishes before I get to the end of the month

Other stash reports can be found at Patchwork Times

Work in Progress Wednesday

Shirt Off My Back Quilts

This week I have been continuing to work on my  Blue Shirt Off My Back Quilt (SOMB). I got all the blocks put together by Thursday of last week and then sashed them. I chose a royal blue from my recycled fabric stash for the borders and backing. I will bind it in that as well. I got the quilt sandwiched on Tuesday afternoon






I had over 200 of the 9 Patch blocks left to use up. I found some brown fabric in the recycled fabric stash and used that for the sashing of 144 more of the blocks. I got the blocks all done by Saturday and the top put together by Sunday night apart from the borders which I completed on Monday using cream calico from my recycled fabric stash

Brown SOMB sans cream border

This is the backing fabric I used. It was new but very old. It was fabric that my aunt had bought many years ago but never used. My aunt died in 2012 in her 100th year and last year I helped my cousin's wife, Joyce, do some of the packing up of the house. My aunt was a real pack rat and never, it seems, threw anything away. Joyce gave me lots of fabric and linen that I could use in my various quilting projects. I am just very glad that I wasn't tracking my stash then!

This fabric is gorgeous. I can just imagine it made up into a dress in the 50s or 60s style. It was 36" wide so that gives you an idea of the age. Dress fabric hasn't been sold in that width for many many years. There was about 10 yards of it, enough to make two quilt backings and a bit left over. I joined the two pieces I needed for the backing with a strip of 9 patches with a band of brown between each block

On Tuesday I took the Brown SOMB along with 2 other quilts I had to sandwich, up to our club rooms in order to use the big table we have up there for the job.  I got the Disappearing Pinwheels repinned and the blue SOMB quilts pinned no dramas but when I laid out the brown  SOMB  I found that the backing wasn't big enough. I had forgotten the borders when calculating the width of the backing I had to make and instead of being 3-4" bigger all around it was about the same width. I had remembered to make it longer. I was so cross with myself.  I bought it home and spent Tuesday evening piecing in another strip of the nine patch blocks. I got the back completed late Tuesday night which meant I would be able to pin it Wednesday at our regular group sewing day.

The two strips of 9 patches on the back. Sorry the pictures are wrinkled... I took them after I had pinned the quilts

I now have 3 lovely quilts to quilt. Think I will have to revise my Craftsy class with Wendy Butler Byrne to review what I want to do

I made 346 of the 9 patches to start with. I used 121 in the Blue SOMB and 144 in the Brown SOMB top and another 24 on the back and I have 57 left which I would like to make into something by our retreat in June.

this is all I have left. The box was full before I started.

 I am looking for patterns that could incorporate a 5" 9 patch centre square. I found this one at Quilters Cache. Its called Dolly Madison's Star #2 which I can adapt pretty well I think. My centre block will be multicoloured rather than dual coloured. It will take a lot of other fabrics and I may not be able to stick to my "Only recycled fabrics" in the SOMB quilts which was a challenge I had set myself. I will have to see. I don't think I have enough coloured fabrics. However I really like it. If anyone has any other suggestions I am happy to hear them. My other concern with this block is that the 9 patch is such a small part of the block that will end up 13". I will probably only end up using 25 or 30 of them in a pretty decent sized quilt! I could use more in the borders and on the back I suppose.

Stash Report

Stash Report
Nothing to report as far as finishes this week which is a bit sad!

 I have been working away on a couple of quilts and have two tops finished - the blue "Shirt Off My Back" quilt and another one made with some of the left over 9 Patches same pattern but using brown sashing. I still need to get the backs for them made and then  get them pinned and quilted.

I hate pinning quilts. It takes me so long and I am no good at it. Sigh. Had a disaster pinning the first of my disappearing pinwheel quilts the other day. First time in a long time I managed to not have the top not centred properly and so ran out of wadding and had barely enough backing on one side but plenty on the other. I contemplated trying to add a bit of wadding and backing to that one side without unpinning it all (it was barely 1/4 inch short) but after a fortnight of ignoring the pinned quilt that needed the extra attention I unpinned it all and will pin it again when I am up at our patchwork rooms on Wednesday. Hopefully I will be able to get the three quilts all pinned then. Since I have a key to the rooms I could go up tomorrow and get a start on them. Its our meeting on Wednesday and I am the (slack) secretary. Its my birthday this month and we celebrate everyone's birthday for that month with a cake and special lunch after the meeting. I had better get these quilts finished as I am in the birthday club and will be receiving my squishy parcel of fabric at the meeting... so that will be a sizable input. That's incentive to get working.

The 3 quilt tops done but needing to be sandwiched and quilted

Anyway as far as the stash report goes
Stash usage remains at 18.25m

Fitness

Very excited here. Today (Monday) I ran 6.34 kms in 54 mins. My average time for a km was just under 9 mins. I have been trying to build up my speed on my shorter runs. I restarted the c25k program and have been trying to run faster in those periods

I got a FitBit during the week which I am finding fun to use. I wimped out and got my husband to set it up for me. I did download the program but I find I get a bit overwhelmed with the technology at times (eg my daughter had to bail me out and set this blog up for me) Anyway I am finding it great. It is more sensitive than my pedometer app on my phone which often seems to miss steps. I am finding the food record part of it great too although it is in calories and Australian food is in kilojoules so I have to convert things all the time. I am trying to be conscientious about the whole thing and record everything I eat so sometimes I look at something and go "Nah... can't be bothered having to record it" especially if I have to work it out first.

My Fitbit Flex.

I have joined a community on the FitBit website that is made up of quilt pod-casters and their listeners. Its going to be fun and motivating to be part of that circle too... I hope. At the moment among my own circle of fitbit friends I am 2nd last... of 6 but hopefully I can keep going and catch a few of them

My other exciting fitness report is that this morning, post run I was under 90kgs. Woo hoo. Go me. Yes I was no doubt dehydrated having just got back from the run but I don't care... I loved those numbers 89.8 kgs flashing at me from the scales. That means I have lost 10 kgs from my heaviest back midyear and have just under 10 to go so I'm half way. I am especially pleased to have lost weight despite the weekend I had. On Saturday afternoon I went to a "High Tea" fundraiser for Our Rainbow House. I organised for 5 friends to come with me so we had a lovely table. We got to spend a couple of hours relaxing, chatting, eating gorgeous food, being served tea, coffee, cold water and punch constantly through out the afternoon.

My friends and I at the High Tea.

 At the event the lady who is the driving force behind the charity which set up a school for orphans and destitute children in a village in Zambia, mentioned that she needs some help in the office and I have offered my services and am going around to talk to her tomorrow about that.

Work In Progress Wednesday

WIP Wednesday
Two projects have kept me busy this past week or so.
Wednesday at our Patchwork Group sewing days (we have them weekly. We are blessed to have our own club rooms supplied by our local council) I have been working on a blue version of the Disappearing Pinwheel. Made good progress on it. I have all the 10" blocks sewn together cut and have started to make the pinwheels. I have also made the units to make the pinwheels for the border.

some of the fabric for my Blue Disappearing pinwheel quilt

At home I have been working on a quilt I have called "The Shirt off My Back"
Last year at the quilt retreat I go to called Patch n Peace, I entered a men's shirt swap. We all took along a certain number of 2nd hand 100% cotton men's shirt which we cut into 4 pieces ( 2 front pieces and the back cut in two) and swapped among the groups we were put into, keeping one piece for ourselves and swapping the other 3. The challenge is that we have to bring back a quilt this year using the fabric. We are supposed to have at least one piece of each shirt in the finished product and we can use some other back ground fabrics. Actually we are going to be pretty easy on the rules. We all wanted to end up with a quilt that we liked and would use.

I found inspiration for my quilt on a Facebook group I am a member of but I can't remember which of the several groups that it was on so can't find the post that so can't give credit there. It was based on 9 patches with sashing on two sides arranged in such a way that whilst the blocks are all sashed the sashing lines aren't in a continuous straight line but each one is offset.


Firstly I had to cut the shirting into strips. I chose 2". I ended up with quite a pile which I had to iron nice and straight.

 Then I sewed 3 strips together, trying to match lengths of the strips but not worrying about the colour combinations

The seams were all pressed flat, going the same way and then sub cut into 2" units and the resulting 3 patch units were sewn into 9 patches. As far as possible no colours were repeated but some repeats slipped in but so long as two units the same colour weren't next to each other I tended to let it go. My original aim had been to make 120 units. The 9 patches measured 5" square. With 2" sashing on two sides they would end up 6.5". A quilt 10 x 12 units would measure 60" x 72" plus borders and would suit my purpose. I didn't realise that the amount of shirting I had would eventually make 350 of these units! I just kept sewing till all the strips were used up and then kept sewing units till they were all done

Each pile had 10 9-patches in it. I had more piled on the ironing boar

I wanted to keep the recycling theme going with the sashing fabric so I looked among my 2nd hand fabric and found some nice blue stuff that I was able to re-purpose. This was going to determine how big my final quilt would be. It turned out that I had enough to sash 123 9- patches so I can either make it 10x12 as I'd originally planned or 11x11 if I chose to. Haven't decided yet

"The Shirt off my Back" quilt laid on on my floor

That's as far as I have gone with it. I am really thrilled with how it is looking

I've added this to a blog linky sponsored by Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts

Stash Report

Stash Report

I finished "Into the Rainforest" which was begun in 2007 at a workshop our Patchwork Group ran. It involved painting the background and some of the fabric that we used for water and tree trunks. Then we cut out and machine appliqued (raw edge) various leaves and plants onto the picture. I pulled up about there and for 6 years it was in my ufo pile. I finally dragged it out and decided that I was never going to applique more to it and to call it done and finish it off. I sewed on borders and then started to hand quilt it. It languished for a while longer but going away to Sydney was the impetus I needed and I got lots of hand stitching done whilst sitting with my mum in her room or at her craft group and also whilst travelling. I have a lovely picture of me and mum stitching together but the program keeps turning it sideways so gave up trying to post it. Came home and did the binding and a meeting the week I got back meant I was able to finish the hand stitching on the binding and the hanging sleeve. Now it is hanging proudly inside my front door. I would have been better with more leaves added to it but ultimately done is better than not done and I really like it anyway.

Into the Rainforest begun July 2007 at a Gloria Loughman workshop. Completed Feb2014

Last Sunday was the baptism of a good friends little girl who is a month old. I wanted to get her quilt done to give to them then. But I also wanted to give another friend a quilt for their baby who is 10 months old. I knew they would be at the baptism so the race was on to get both these quilts done in time. And I made it! Yay me. Both quilts were presented to their recipients on Sunday and both sets of parents were very pleased with the gift - which is lovely. It is so rewarding to give a quilt when it is appreciated.

Miss G on her quilt Jungle Jive. Photo sent to me by her lovely mum

She was fascinated by the pictures. Apparently the Hippo has been a favourite

Miss L's quilt Pretty Stars from a Kimberley Einmo pattern

So stash report

Into the Rainforest 1.19m fabric used
Jungle Jive 3.16 m used
Pretty Stars 5.6m used.
Total 9.95m

No purchases since last report

So that makes it net usage for the year of 18.25 m



Fitness
Very excited to report that I have run 5 kms three times this month. I ran it first whilst in Sydney, running on an oval near my sister's place. I took about 42mins 30 secs. Then I ran 5 km when I got home on the road but was a bit slower - about 43 mins. Then last Monday I ran again and I broke 40 mins. I was very excited and very exhausted too. I have been trying to run 3 times a week but the other two days I am trying to do interval running using the C25K program but running as hard as I can for the run parts and then jogging or walking the rest parts. I walk on the days I don't run... unless its raining or I'm feeling lazy. Today I ran 6 kms. I didn't run fast just kept on going. I am very excited and think that one day I might even make 10 kms. I have a Rainbow Run coming up at the end of March. That's 5kms. Then in May I plan to take part in the Mothers' Day Classic which will be a 7km run

Weight wise its coming down slowly. I've lost over 9 kgs since the middle of the year but have at least 10 to go according to the charts. I am no longer obese but merely overweight! This morning after my big run I was under 91kgs which was very exciting.

Sorry to have been so irregular in my postings. I am hoping to get more reliable. I am also going to have to sort out my photo hassles. And improve my photography. Sigh.

Stash Report

Stash report
This is my first stash report. Ever since Pam on Hip to Be a Square started talking about her stash report I thought it would be really cool to track my stash usage. I decided to wait till the beginning of the new year to start tracking and I have to confess I cheated a little bit... I did that so that any stash I got for Christmas wouldn't be counted. I also deliberately well semi deliberately saved up two big finishes till the new year so that I could count them. To be honest I didn't really have time to finish them in all the rush up to Christmas and having a houseful of family for a couple of weeks. Once Christmas was over then I happily settled in and got those two quilts finished off.. and wow it was the New Year and I got to count them.

So for January I got to count as finishes
1. My cousin Syd's tie quilt... Family Ties: The Ties that Bind. It was 204cm square (being Australian our purchases are always in metres/centimetres so even though quilt patterns are all in inches its going to have to be converted to cms so as to be able to track the purchases against the usage) a total of 9.52 m of fabric
2. My sister Beth's quilt Forest Pinwheels 184 cm Square total of 7.79m
3 Great nephew Lucas's baby quilt Jungle Fever  123cm sq total of 3.60m

January monthly total 20.91 m fabric used and zero purchases.

February isn't looking quite so healthy. Shopping in Sydney and Brisbane whilst on holidays saw me add a total of 9.61m fabric and my daughter Fangirl's things she sent back by sea for the UK arrived and she was able to give me my Christmas gift from her... 3 m of fabric. Really cute picture fabric... some Kombi van fabric, some vintage toys and vintage seaside. I'll take some photos and add them soon... phone flat and camera in the room with DH who is asleep.

Net usage to date 11.30m

I've been working on several quilts but no finishes yet.
1. Disappearing Pinwheels the top is finished, binding made but still to make the backing and then pin and quilt.
2 Into the Rainforest picture quilt has the binding machined on but still have to handstitch it down. Meeting tomorrow night will see that done
3. Grace's Jungle quilt top is finished and the back made but have to make the Frankenbatting (Pam's from HTBAS word for batting that is made by patching pieces together)
4 Kimberley Einmo's mystery quilt from Craftsy class has been pinned awaiting quilting for a while. Really need to get stuck into that. So with a concerted effort I should bounce my numbers quite substantially.

This blog post is really boring... no photos. Sorry about that. Will try to pretty it up when I am not so tired.

Family Reunion

Family Reunion
This weekend we had a family reunion to celebrate amongst other things my sister Beth  and my cousin Syds' 70th birthdays. The invitation specified no gifts but I had made both of them a quilt. (I never could do what I was told) Actually I had embarked on the making of both quilts before the invitations to the party were issued but my story makes me out to be more of a rebel.

For my cousin I had made a tie quilt based initially on 14 ties that had belonged to his dad (who died in 1970) which were found in his mothers things when she died last year (aged 99 and 9 months) I gathered up ties from other family members, friends and from second hand shops. It was quite a mammoth undertaking but I really enjoyed the whole process. Firstly I washed the ties and then pressed them. I used iron on interfacing to stabilize the ties and stop them stretching out of shape. Ties are cut on the bias and so stretching can be a real issue. Then I made 25 crazy patchwork blocks using the blue and red ties from the 60 plus ties that i]I had amassed. I cut a 5 sided shape from the widest end of the tie  and attached it to the centre of a 14" sq piece of white fabric  (from an old sheet) I used a bit of fabric glue to do this. Then I built up the block with strips of the ties working my way around the shape till all the white fabric was covered. I trimmed the block to 13" square. I sashed the blocks with navy blue fabric and then put on a plain red border around the centre. Next I put on a piano key border using left over ties, red fabric scraps and fabric from my uncles old pajamas. I paper pieced the corner blocks so that the piano keys went around the corner.

I thought that my cousin knew I was making the quilt for him but apparently not. He was stunned by it when I gave it to him and very appreciative. Lots of my extended family are on facebook so had been following the quilts progress as i had posted lots of progress pictures on Facebook and so they were delighted to see the quilt in reality. Their interest was most heartwarming.

Syd and I with his quilt "Family Ties: The Ties that Bind"

The quilt I made my sister was a surprise to her. I made it using a variety of half square triangles from knitnitblogspot in green and brown fabrics. There were 16 blocks each from a different green fabric with a plain brown in the half square triangles. My sister was delighted with it. I stayed on with her after the reunion weekend and we looked at it in detail and i explained the half square triangle concept to her. She and her husband were fascinated by the variety of blocks that could be made from the one unit. Whilst my cousin's quilt (which I called  Family Ties:The ties that bind) featured heavily on Facebook my sister's quilt didn't get shown at all because she is my friend on Facebook.

The front of my sister's quilt. It also featured a piano key border but no pieced corners this time

The back of the quilt. it took as long to put together as the front I swear!

 My sister and I were discussing why I chose green and brown for her quilt. They are not her colours and don't feature in her current decor but they were the ones I was strongly drawn to when choosing the fabrics for the quilt. In discussion we remembered that 35 years ago, at the end of the 70s when I was living in Sydney attending teachers college and regularly visiting their home their kitchen chairs were lime green and the family room had a lot of brown trim in it. This was the period that I would have spent most time with them - visiting regularly, babysitting my niece and nephew, getting some family time. So we decided it came from then. She has already used it to snuggle under for a nanna nap whilst I have been staying here with her.

Beth and I with her quilt

I also bought with me the quilt for my newest great nephew Lucas. He wasn't at the reunion but I was able to give it to his grandma, my sister J.