Three finishes and my (late) stash report

I was outside on Saturday and noticed that my Pasque flowers are in bloom!  I love the fuzziness of the stems and leaves.

I have not had much time to sew lately. We have been busy with family the last couple of weekends and since the weather is finally starting to co-operate, we have spent a few evenings doing some yard work.

I made this selvage stool seat cover for my friend, Karen. She loves it! 

I did the binding on my aunt and uncle's quilt and it was given to them today. My aunt said the colours are perfect and it will look great in her family room. I hope it keeps them cozy while watching tv or reading a book.

Cathy did a great job on the quilting, as usual.

I finally had some quilt holders here on the weekend so I got a picture of my finished Great Granny Square quilt.

Again, this one was quilted by Cathy at Eagle's Wings Quilts.

I would like to have my daughter's room painted this summer and put this quilt on the bed.

It is quilted with swirls.

I pieced the backs of both quilts.

You can see my daffodils and my peony coming up in this picture.

I can see this clump of daffodils from my patio door off the kitchen.

And now for two weeks' worth of stash report in one report...

Fabric used in the last 2 weeks: 2.0 yards
Total fabric used this year: 92.15  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last 2 weeks: None!
Total fabric added this year: 73.33 yards
Net fabric used this year: 18.82 yards

Christine and I will be getting together to work on Lazy Sunday tomorrow night so there may be more to show after that.

Bye for now.

Sewing and Stash Report

I seem to be on a bit of a roll with the chemo quilt blocks...This orange and blue scrappy trips block does not need to be done until the end of April, but I made it this past week.  I also did May's red and white block...The pattern is called Codex and is from volume 6 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine.

Christine and I got together earlier this week and we worked on 9 patches for the 9 patch mystery swap for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. I have now finished 20 brown and 20 black 9 patches. This is the last batch of 9 patches to be handed in for swapping. We will receive our swapped blocks at the May meeting along with the rest of the instructions to assemble the quilt.

On Saturday, Christine, Cathy, Carol and I got together at my house for a sewing day. This is Piper--she belongs to Christine. She came along to supervise our quilting escapades.

Piper was also very helpful when Christine was laying out the backing, batting and top of her new Easter Table runner. Who needs pins when you have a dog to help hold everything in place???

Eventually, Piper moved and Christine managed to get her table runner quilted and bound.

 She also quilted a pillow cover "organically" with a little encouragement from the rest of us. It turned out great!

Here is the back:

Cathy worked on the final borders for a baby quilt top.

She plans on using green binding for this quilt. Cathy also worked on her 9 patches for the swap.

Carol is making a table topper with some shot cottons...

And she worked on this:  (I love the fabrics!)

Cathy brought my quilted Great Granny Square quilt with her. Trimming and binding are on my agenda for this week.

I started a new quilt...

I made 112 4 patches...

And cut out some bricks to make a bricks and stepping stones quilt (designed by Bonnie Hunter)

The bricks and the 4 patches are sewn together but not pressed yet.  This is a very quick quilt to make.

And now, my stash report....

I did not purchase any fabric this week but did receive some batik fat 1/8ths from Erin at My Patchwork Life in the mail. She had a give-away on her block a couple of weeks ago. I will be using these in my Lazy Sunday mystery quilt. (sorry--no picture!)

Fabric used in the last week: 4.35 yards
Total fabric used this year: 75.65 yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: .63 yards
Total fabric added this year: 60.88 yards
Net fabric used this year: 14.77 yards.

I think I will press those units I sewed yesterday before I head off to bed....  Have a good week!

Sew-In Day

Today was a great day!  My friends Karen, Christine and Cathy came over for a sew-in day. Our quilt guild had planned a Quilt til you Wilt day for next Saturday and none of us were able to go for various reasons so I decided to have them come here today. We had 4 sewing machines on the dining room table.

It took a while to get them all to look up from their sewing machines and look at me so I could take this picture. Christine insisted on taking a picture of me too.

Christine worked on quilting a baby quilt.

She managed to finish the quilting and trim it so that she can add the binding this week.

Karen worked on a quilt top for the single bed in the spare bedroom at her house.

By the end of the day, she had finished the top. She would like to add a couple of borders to this top but may need to do some shopping, either in her stash, or at a fabric store.

In progress...

 

 

Finished!

 

 

Cathy started a new project and finished two blocks. She had all of her cutting done before she arrived.

 

 



And here are her two finished blocks:

 

 

Only 14 more to go!

 

I worked on the borders of my Great Granny Squares quilt top.

 

 

I love the colours in this quilt...

 

 

I added all three borders today so now this top is finished and ready for the long arm quilter!

 

 

 

We took the top outside to get this picture. It was a bright sunny day today after yesterday's snowstorm.

 

I gave myself permission to start a new project...this is the first block of a scrappy trips quilt. My Go cutter made quick work of cutting the strips for these blocks. I finished three blocks by the end of the evening and have a good start on 12 more blocks.  It should not take too long to finish this quilt.

 

 



Snow day, Sew day!

Last night when I went to bed, there was a skiff of snow on the ground and the big snowstorm was on its way towards us. It started snowing and blowing in the middle of the night and it kept snowing most of the day. The roads outside town were very slippery and there was poor visibility due to the blowing snow, so I stayed home from work today. 

 



I puttered around the house and made some turkey vegetable soup and gazed out the windows at all the snow.

 

 

 

My very kind neighbour brought his snowblower over and cleared out our driveway. I gave him some soup to thank him and to warm him up after being out in the cold. 

 

 

I put the pieced borders together for my Great Granny Square quilt today. Here they are hanging off the side of the ironing board. They have to be trimmed before adding them to the top.

 

 

Today, I received not one, but two bunches of tulips for my birthday!  One from a friend who was in my wedding party almost 24 years ago and one from the man I married on that day!

 

 

 

The flowers are a breath of Spring on a cold and snowy day.

 

Tomorrow, I am hosting a sew-in for 3 friends. My husband will be out for the day so there will be a takeover of the kitchen, dining room and living room for sewing!



Stash Reduction

This week, I used 11.5 yards of fabric making pillowcases (gifts) and a pieced backing for my "Sewing Baskets" quilt top that I made at BIQR this past fall. I have had the fabric for the backing all ready to go for a few months now and finally got it put together this week.

I saved one of the selvage spool blocks to use as my label:

The center part is a yard of spools fabric that I bought a while ago and thought it would be perfect for this quilt. I pieced a strip of selvage fabric into the backing.

This quilt will be off to the quilters soon. Karen C. will be custom quilting this one.  I will be sure to post pictures when I get it back.

Last night, I worked on a pieced border for my Great Granny Squares quilt. Here are all the units --86 of them!--ready to sew together.

I am gettting together with a few friends on Saturday for a sew-in so I hope to finish off the GGS top that day. I have the backing fabric for this quilt already so there should be another good stash reduction report next week.

The last thing on my list before I can start a new project (actually, I have two new projects in mind--who can just do one thing at a time???) is the backing for swoon so it can be taken to the quilter's house.

Here is my stash report for this week:

Fabric used this week:  11.5 yards
Total fabric used this year:  31.5 yards
Fabric added to stash this week:  1 yard (It was a birthday gift!  I will be 50 tomorrow.)
Total fabric added this year: 22.5 yards
Net fabric out of the stash: 9 yards.

Funny thing is that the pile of fabric (I mean neatly organized fabric!) does not appear to be any smaller...  I will have to keep working on this.

In the meantime, my husband is taking me out for dinner tomorrow night to celebrate my birthday and there will be a family party sometime this weekend. We will celebrate with my daughter later this month--in reality, it is Birthday Celebration MONTH, rather than just a special day! We are in the path of a winter storm tonight and tomorrow--the best gift of all would be a snow day!  We will see...