Stash Report & Rainbow Scrapiness!

I have been pretty busy the past few days getting ready to go on retreat at Red Rooster again – woohoo!!!  I’m really excited to go in the spring/summertime.  I’ve always gone in January or October, and it will be interesting to experience Alabama at this lovely time of year.  I’m also excited to see what kinds of eye candy Jennifer and Jim put up in May.  It is always as much fun looking at all their decorations as it is sewing & quilting!  Don’t worry, I’ll take lots of pictures :*) 

I finally managed to spend a little time sewing on my yellow scraps this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy.

I had a super fun time digging into my scrap bins to find just the right yellows and oranges to make this sweet sunflower for a small table topper for my Mom. 

I gave her the table frame for her birthday, and this quilt is her mother’s day gift.  Mom reads my blog, so she will see it here before I can get it to her.  So, Mom, I hope you like Sonshine =^..^=

I designed this quilt especially for my Mom, with the bright happy sunflower and the words “You are my Sonshine” quilted in at the bottom because they have a very special meaning to her.

When my mom was little, her life was not very stable, and she was alone a lot of the time.  Not a lot of hugs or love were handed out at her house.  But she had a favorite aunt who would pull her up into her lap in the old rocking chair and cuddle her every chance she got, and then she would sing softly to her, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine….”  My mom remembers those times with her aunt as bright spots in her otherwise stark childhood.  Today, as a Christian, mom spells it Sonshine for her beloved Jesus, so I spelled it that way on her quilt too. 

For that little finish, I used about half a yard all told.  I did buy more fabric this week.  I really needed to add more aqua, gold and rose colors to my stash in order to begin putting Eldon together. 

Although I’m not entirely unhappy with my numbers, I’m glad that I don’t have a lot of things coming up that I need to buy fabric to complete.  (Good thing there are no more quilt shops between here and Red Rooster anymore! LOL)  Hopefully I now have almost enough to begin putting together Eldon.  I also have to purchase one final piece before I can start on my niece Raney’s quilt.  And I need to purchase the backing for Moonglow.  I’m planning to take care of that during an upcoming trip to Whittles in late June.  After that, I’m thinking I can work on UFO’s and scrap quilts for a while until I get my “Used” numbers a little closer to my “Added” numbers. =^..^=

So here are the final numbers for this week:

Used this week:      .50 yards

Used YTD 2012:      74.00 yards

Added this week:   4.00 yards

Added YTD 2012:   99.50 yards

Net Used for 2012: -25.50 yards

Head on over to PatchworkTimes to see how others are doing with their stashes.  And don’t forget to see what everyone has been working on for their Rainbow Scrap Challenge too!  I am always amazed at what we can accomplish with even the smallest scraps of color!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Also linking up with Such a Sew and Sew for May Stitches in Time:

Stash Report – Mother’s Day Week!

Happy Mother’s Day!!!  

I hope you all take the opportunity to honor someone special today who filled the need for a mother in your life.  Hopefully, that was your mom, but so often there are others who choose to step in and fill those shoes for us.  May God send extra blessings on all Moms, biological and otherwise, today!

My Mom and I have a 

special relationship – best friends!  

This is us together on the beach about 5 years ago.  (Don't you just love what the beach breeze does to my hair?  LOL!!!)

We used to go to Myrtle Beach every October, just the two of us, and we'd spend a week together just playing - just like two little girls.  What fun!!!  Mostly, we played with whatever crafty thing we were into at the time.  For me of course it always meant quilting.  Mom got into painting, and this is her the year she painted flower pots.

She lives in North Carolina and I live in Tennessee, so we don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like, but we are always on the phone together, touching base on what is going on in each other’s lives and praying together for everyone in our family :*)

I’m also a Mom myself to four beautiful children, two born to me and two who adopted me when I married their father.  And I love their spouses as if they were my own!

My daughter Christy and her boyfriend Ken.  They have a home in
Savannah Tennessee, but they actually live on their 18-wheeler
which they team-drive together!  Christy is mom to Emma (16) and Sara (14)

My son Josh and his wife Anna have been happily married now for
10 years and live in North Carolina with their two children,
Reaghan (8) and Adam (5)

Don's son Todd and his wife Nikki are newlyweds!!!  They live in
Raleigh North Carolina and have 3 dogs - 2 of them very large dogs!

Don's daughter Renee is mom to Hudson (6mos) whom you've met
on my blog before - he's such a sweetie!!!  Renee lives in
North Carolina too, just down the road from Josh & Anna.

If you counted from the above pictures, then you now know that I am also a Grandmother to 5 of the sweetest little cherubs God ever put on this earth!  You saw their picture recently HERE.  And we're hoping Nikki and Todd will be adding to that number sometime in the near future - *hint hint* hehehe!!!!

As for the more mundane details of life, my stash report is definitely more balanced this week!  I FINISHED MOONGLOW!!!  Well, it is a flimsy top at least :*)  It may be a while before it is quilted, because I want to give it time to tell me how it wants to be quilted.  I also have to decide what I want to use for the backing.  I could use plain black, but I’m not ruling out trying to find a nice dark Jenny Beyer that would complement the quilt more specifically.  But the main point for this post is that I get to claim 21 yards used for this quilt!!!  That’s what the yardage requirements state on the pattern, so that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!  =^..^=  Honestly I'm not surprised - this was a piecing intensive quilt!!!  Pictures will follow on the Design Wall Monday post.

As for additions, yes, I bought more fabric :*D  I needed more aquas for the Eldon quilt so I could begin work on it as soon as I have some other things out of the way.  I purchased 3 yards, mostly fat quarter batiks.

Oh and by the way - speaking of aquas, did you notice that I changed the color of my blog background?  I decided it was time for a change, and since aquas seem to be my favorite color right now, that's what I went with.  What do you think?

So here are my final stash numbers for this week:

Used this week:      21 yards

Used YTD 2012:      73.50 yards

Added this week:   3.0 yards

Added YTD 2012:   95.50 yards

Net Used for 2012: -22.00 yards

Still in the RED but it looks much better this week, wouldn’t you say?  *wink*

Head on over to PatchworkTimes to see how others are doing with their stashes.

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=