Stash Report Week #42...

October 15-21, 2010
(I don't have any pictures that correlate with this week's stash report so I'm putting in random pictures of my pets.  Like this...)

A pensive Gabriel

This week was another one with no fabric in.  I'm not sure where the week went, but I wasn't even tempted to stop at a fabric store.  I know I need to get a quilt backing for a charity quilt and I even know the exact fabric I want.  It's at JoAnn's, but it's been on sale for the longest time now.  It seems like that would be the perfect time to buy it, right?  But I actually want it to go off sale so I can use my 50% off coupon on it.  Hopefully next week or the week after.

My parent's cat, Cricket

When I realized I had another week with no fabric in, I got to wondering how many weeks this year I've done that.  We're at 42 weeks, so I guessed probably less than 10.  I actually went back and counted and the answer is 15 times!  That's more than 35%.  (There's that math thing again.)

Note:  Mr. Quilting Bug just walked in and I told him my statistics.  He wasn't as impressed.  His reply is you could turn it around and say that means almost 2 out of 3 weeks you bought fabric.  He's obviously not a quilter...

A regal Sam

I still haven't gotten the Twisted Rope top put together.  I'm going to work on it some this week, along with a couple of other things that have to be finished by the end of the month. I did finish stitching block 3 of the Winter Wonderland quilt, but I won't count the fabric in it until all the blocks are stitched and the quilt top is put together.  That's unlikely to happen this year.  And I worked on costumes this week for my church's annual production they put on at Halloween.  It's not about Halloween, but it's a Haunted House alternative.  I had to clean and repair 7 angel gowns and I managed to finish 4 more of the new ones.  They were sizes XXL and XXXL so they used a total of 20 yards of fabric.

So...
Purchased-this-week: 0 yards
Used-this-week: 20 yards
Purchased-to-date: 228.25 yards
Used-to-date: 385.5 yards
Net used: 157.25 yards

Gabriel with Mr. Quilting Bug

 Until later...

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear . . ." 

1 John 4:18 (NIV)

Sam's Diet Update #1...

This is Sam...

She is fat- very, very fat.  She has degenerative arthritis in her elbows and the extra weight makes it worse.  She has been on a diet for a little while now.  Here are her stats...

• Starting Weight - 17.9 lbs
• Target Weight - less than 14 lbs

In the last 9 days she has lost a total of 0.2 lbs.  That's not too bad for her.  It's a combination of diet food, 'happy' pills and light exercise (chasing the laser pointer).

• Current Weight - 17.7 lbs

Until later...

"These things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will sure come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!" 

Habakkuk 2:3 (LB)

A little finish...

I've been busy lately, but not with quilting.  I'm spending a lot of time working on the bathroom renovation.  I've managed to get all the trim painted (baseboard, doors and crown molding) and privacy window film put on the windows.  Why does it feel like such a workout the day after painting?  Although I did have to perform quite the balancing acts to get to the crown molding above the tub and vanity.  Fortunately, no pictures of that.

I did manage a small finish yesterday.  I put the final stitches in block 3 of the Winter Wonderland quilt.

Winter Wonderland Block 3

I need to finish a few other things before I start on another one.  However, I did look to see how many of these there are.  The answer is 10.  It's that math thing again.  I like knowing that I'm 30% complete with these stitcheries.  Although I realize that's not completely accurate because a couple of them are pretty big.

My posts might be sporadic for the near future because I'll be spending more time working on the bathroom.  I have more painting to do and also still need to pick out tile for the backsplash and tub surround.  And tomorrow, I need to spend all day working on costumes for an upcoming church production.  But if I manage to finish something else or snap some cute pictures of the pets, I'll be back.

Speaking of pets, I caught David snuggling up on a charity quilt I'm trying to load on my quilting frame.

David on quilt and batting

Until later...

"And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." 

Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)

Another Lady is done...

This Lady took me a long time.  Not because she was more complicated than the others, but because I had so many other things to work on at the same time - namely the CQ block.  I looked back through my posts and see that I started stitching her in July.  So that's about 3 months to finish the one block.  Normally I can do one in about a month.

If you have no idea what I'm referring to, I'm talking about the Ladies of the Sea quilt I'm making for Mr. Quilting Bug.  It's a pattern by Sue Garman and I've been working on it for a couple of years now.  I do a ship or two and then work on the Baltimore Halloween quilt, then come back to this one and so on.  I now have 10 ships completed and have 6 more to do (not to mention the applique borders).  Here's the latest ship...

Ladies of the Sea - The Mayflower

I'm doing all of these blocks by hand using the Back-Basting Needleturn Applique method.  It takes some time but produces very accurate results.

Now that this one is done, I'm going to turn my attention back to the Baltimore Halloween quilt.  I'll start on block 11 (out of 12).  This one has a lot of small pieces (around 100) so I expect it will take a while too.  But that's OK as I enjoy working on them.  I'll also be interspersing it with the final two Camelot Snowman stitcheries, Winter Wonderland and a small wool project.  Busy, busy, busy!

I just took this picture of Gabriel and 'duck' baby.  It's our nightly ritual; she brings me one of her babies and we play tug of war.  If I can manage to get it away from her, I throw it, she fetches it and we continue on until I cry uncle...

Tug of war with Gabriel and duck baby

Until later...

"God is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of, infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes."

Ephesians 3:20 (LB)

Stash Report Week #41...

October 8-14, 2010

After such an amazing report last week, this one is kind of a let down.  I'm still hard at work on a bunch of things, but haven't finished much yet.

On the purchasing side of things, I stopped at JoAnn's and picked up some Kona cotton and a background fabric for one of the charity quilts.  There was a total of 3 yards of the Kona in Snow and Ivory and 4.5 yards of the blue.

Kona Snow, Ivory and charity quilt backing

Then there was my goofy purchase where I bought a yard of the brown and .5 yards of the cream and when I got home realized it was supposed to be the reverse.  So I can't use them as I intended and they'll go into my stash for a later date.

Bought the wrong amounts - Duhh!

And finally a friend gave me this cat panel (I almost bought it myself a while back) and I might try to turn it into another charity quilt.  It's about half a yard.

Gift from a friend

So that's a total of 9.5 yards in this week.  As for what I used...  I finally finished the CQ block which was about half a yard and I embellished some towels for a friend which was another quarter yard.  So I think I used .75 yards.  Lots more in the pipe though and I hope to see some bigger finishes in the next couple of weeks - including quilting at least one of the charity quilts.

So...
Purchased-this-week: 9.5 yards
Used-this-week: .75 yards
Purchased-to-date: 228.25 yards
Used-to-date: 365.5 yards
Net used: 137.25 yards

I took a couple of pictures of Gabriel with a funny perspective.  I'm finding I like these weird angle shots more than the normal ones.  And yes, those are my toes in the picture.

Until later...

Now you belong to him ... in order that you might be useful in the service of God. 

Romans 7:4 (TEV)

A Quick Project and a Goof...

Don't you just love quick little projects?  Especially when you have a list a mile long?  I bought these towels last week from Kohl's.  They're from the Laura Ashley collection and are super soft and fluffy.  I wanted to make a quick house warming gift for a friend and managed to find a coordinating fabric in my stash...

Towels from Kohl's

The fabric is Rebel Roses by Heather Mulder Peterson.  In just about an hour, I was able to add a band to both the bath towel and wash cloth to make a personalized gift. 

Towels with added trim

In other news, Sinta and Sherri are hosting the La Petite quilting challenge - starting this month.  The first challenge is to make the Schnibbles quilt Paganini by October 31st.  I've been wanting to make some Schnibbles quilts because they're small projects and don't require a huge investment of time or fabric.  This pattern calls for 64 charm squares and I have a couple of charm packs of Pure that I thought would work nicely.  So I stopped at a quilt store yesterday to get some coordinating fabric.  I went in knowing I needed a yard of one fabric and a half yard of another.  This is what I picked out...

Fabric purchases for Paganini

FYI - That's David's tail in the picture.

Well, here's where the goof comes in.  Wouldn't you know that I bought the wrong amounts of each fabric?  I switched them.  The brown was intended to be the outer border and the cream the background.  Only now I don't have enough of the background to actually make the quilt.  I didn't want to go back to the quilt store for more background (too lazy I guess) and so I dug around in my stash.  I found a couple of charm packs of Shangri La by 3 Sisters for Moda as well as a background and outer border that will work.  I think I like this selection even better than the original.  I'm hoping to work on this in between the multitude of others and still finish it by Halloween.  At least it doesn't have to be quilted by then...

A few more pictures of Gabriel playing ball the other day.  She's a cutie but she's getting awfully fluffy lately.

Until later...

Psalms 59 "I will sing of your strength in the morning and I will sing of your love for you are my refuge in times of trouble."

Final CQ Update...

Yes, I've finally finished the CQ block.  I expect this will be my last post concerning crazy quilting for quite some time.  It is a labor and time intensive hobby that a lot of people are 'crazy' about.  After having tried it, I can report that I don't think I'm one of them.  I much prefer to admire other people's efforts.  Here is the block with all the patches and seams completed...

Finished CQ block

As I mentioned before, I intended to added some Hyacinths to the final block.  These flowers are made using a bunch of Looped Ribbon stitches with 4mm silk ribbon.  The stems are Twisted Straight stitches and the leaves are a combination of Ribbon stitches and Folded Ribbon stitches.  Both the leaves and stems were made with 7mm silk ribbon in shades of green.

Patch #11 - Dutch Hyacinths and caterpillar

All that was left was to finish the edges and put a backing on it.  I wasn't certain how to go about it.  It's a pretty heavy block with all the beads, charms and ribbon.  I have a friend who has had several of her pieces framed.  I thought that was a good idea but couldn't find a frame that would work with these dimensions.  The block finished at 11.25" square.

So I asked Mr. Quilting Bug to cut me a thin piece of wood 12" square.  I added a border to the block out of a green velvet.  I stitched a backing to 3 sides, turned it right side out and inserted the piece of wood.  I then hand stitched the opening closed.  If Elaine would like to do something different with it, she can easily remove the wood.  Or she can hang the finished piece on a wall or set it on a stand.  Whatever she fancies.

Finished CQ block

Some lessons learned -

1. CQ is not a cheap hobby and (for me) it takes up a lot of space.  Mr. Quilting Bug has put up with quite a bit of clutter in the living room for the past month or so while I worked on this.  There are books, ribbons, charms, beads, needles, thread and other assorted paraphernalia. 
2.  You can create some very lifelike flora and fauna using silk ribbon.  There were several techniques I had always wanted to try and making this block gave me the chance to do so.
3.  This is not a good stash busting hobby.  Although you have the opportunity to buy a bunch of different embellishments, you don't need a lot of fabric.  And I find that I really like fabric and lots of it.

So while I enjoyed myself and learned a lot, this is unlikely to turn into a passion of mine.  But every time I see a crazy quilt in a quilt show now, I'm going to have a much better appreciation of the time and effort involved in making one.

Another picture of Jack.  Lately she's taken to rushing the camera when she sees it.

Until later...

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never get anything done!" 

Ecclesiastes 11:4 (LB)