Sunday Stash Report #5

Well I am back in the black this week if not by very much. I used fabric for backings for two charity quilts and also a backing for my monet quilt. I did purchase some fabric but one yard of it was for binding and most of that has already be cut and on the quilt. The other two yards? Well I couldn't resist a sale. Connecting Threads offered a free yard of fabric through a special code on their catalog (good through friday I believe). I had not tried their fabrics before so purchased one yard and getting the second yard free.

Used this week: 10 yards
Used YTD: 24 yards
Added this week: 3 yards
Added YTD: 19 3/4 yards
Net used for 2010: 4 1/4

Kathie

Waiting for Snow

Well they say this part of the country is going to get hit with snow today, expected to start anytime. Since my husband got home safely from overseas travel last night I really don't care if it snows. We have groceries in the house and no where we HAVE to go today so let it snow!!!

I quilted my Monet quilt on thursday and purchased fabric for the binding yesterday so hope to get the fabric washed and binding made for the quilt today.

What do you do when there are strips left from making a quilt? I was going to toss everything in a bag for making string quilts at some point. Then I decided that I really have enough stings to make lots of quilts so decided to take some time sewing together the extra pieces. I am making 4 patches out of the 2 inch strips and 9 patches out of the 1 1/2 strips. Not sure what I will make with them yet but think I am more likely to make blocks into something vs. strips. It will definitely help me clean off the sewing table and get ready for whatever my next project will be.

kathie

Quick and Easy

I mentioned yesterday that I had another charity top that was just about done. This was quick and easy to do using just 4 1/2 strips. I got the idea from a quilt in the most recent QUILT magazine. I of course didn't follow the pattern as I almost never do but I did use their general idea.

This quilt will be put away on a shelf for now and will try and get a backing made before long. I will get it quilted and bound and it will be part of our guilds donation of wounded soldier quilts that will given in May.

I think this quilt would be a good way to use up some fabric where I don't have a whole lot of yardage. I could picture this with a floral focus fabric and several colors that go with it, or maybe even a bright kids print with some tone on tones.

Kathie

Charity Quilt #5

Yesterday I quilted this little quilt. It is charity quilt #5 for the month of January. Even though they have all been small five charity tops in a month is a record for me. January is usually pretty slow for long arm quilters which is why I had the extra time. My husband made this quilt. It was originally going to be a hospice quilt but ended up smaller than anticipated so it will probably end up being part of the donation to our local nursing home.

So for January charity quilting was 2 Quilts for Kids, 2 quilts that will probably go to the nursing home and one for hospice. In addition I pieced a top for hospice and just about have a top pieced for wounded soldiers.

It has been fun doing so much this month but now will be busy with other things so will have to limit my charity quilting to trying to knock down the number of hospice quilt tops I have on the shelf one or two a month.

Kathie

On the Frame

This is what was on my frame yesterday, a customer kids lap quilt. Loved the bright fabrics in this one and the twisted setting she used for the blocks.


I had several people ask the source of the pattern for my Monet quilt. The pattern is called Monet's Wedding Ring and is by Judy Martin from her book entitled SCRAPS. A lot of piecing of little tiny pieces but worth it in the end. If I had been planning on doing a really large quilt out of this pattern I would have pieced it off and on over a period of months because you get kind of tired of it.

I also took a picture yesterday of the hospice top I completed. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about how a box of batik fabric had been donated to make charity quilts and that I was busy cutting kits out of it. I decided to do up one of the kits myself and this is what I ended up with. Very bright and a little busy for me but I am sure someone will love it.





Kathie

Design Wall Monday

Well I finally did it!!! The Monet top is done. I was going to put on some type of borders but I like it just the way it is. I will put it away for a week or so and then get it on the frame and quilted.

Kathie

Sunday Stash Report 1-24-10

Ok so it is only week #4 and I am already in the red!!! At least the purchases were for specific purposes and after all it WAS ON SALE!! (the magic words)

Used this week 5 yards
Used YTD 14 yards
Added this week 11 yards
Added YTD 16 3/4 yards
Net Used for 2010 - 2 3/4

The fabric I purchased was all red/white and blue fabrics to be used for soldier quilts and also additional white fabric to be used as background fabric for a couple of projects.

Even though I am currently in the red on fabric usage, I feel good that I didn't buy a bunch of additional fabrics with no plans in mind and since at least a couple of the resulting r/w/b quilts will be for charity I am glad to get the fabric all at 40% off.

Lets see how much of this I can use by next week.

Kathie

Cutting Day

Yesterday was a charity cutting day. About a dozen of us met at a local church and cut yards and yards of fabric into kits to make quilts for a local family homeless shelter that had requested quilts.

We got several kits made up and several of the other ladies layered and basted three quilt tops that had already been made up.

A couple of weeks ago I had done all that cutting and making kits with the batik fabric that had been donated. Six kits were given out to guild members willing to make them up.

Yesterday I got the first of the tops back. It is a simple rail fence but with the wonderful batik fabrics it sure makes a great quilt. I was even provided backing fabric to complete it.

I have many hospice tops waiting to be quilted but this one is so pretty I am going to have to move it to the top of the list.

I will try and get a picture of it a little later.

kathie

Kits

Most quilters have more projects running around in their head than they will ever make. Sometimes though when I finish a project I feel like sewing on something but don't know what, maybe don't feel like cutting something out or having to pull all sorts of fabric to get started.

I had such a good time the last couple of weeks cutting up the donated fabric and making it into kits for charity quilts that I decided to do the same thing for myself.

I had bought the most recent Quilt magazine at the store the other day. In it were three quilts I would like to make. I usually tuck the magazine away and the quilts get made months later or not at all. I decided while they were fresh on my mind I would pull red/white and blue fabrics and make up kits of two of the patterns.

I cut the fabric and also put a copy of the magazine page in the envelope with the fabric. Now when I finish the Monet top (made the last of the blocks last night) I will have something cut and ready to go.

I intend on making one of the kits for a donation quilt and the other for next falls craft shows. The best part of it is that if I for some reason decide I don't want to make that quilt after all I can take it to the guild or our next charity sew in and get a volunteer to make it up for a soldier quilt.

Kathie

Time

With the limited time I had yesterday between errands and taking my daughter for physical therapy I managed to get a customer lap quilt quilted.

My knee was bothering me then so I wanted to sit down and do some mindless sewing. I needed to take a break from piecing on the monet quilt. I had already had some 2 1/2 strips cut so sat and made about 40 4-patch blocks. They are going to be alternated with a couple of blue/teal/gold florals of donation fabric and made into a charity quilt.

I quilt so many charity quilts for our guild that I never get the chance to piece one so will enjoy making this one.

I also purchased some fabric yesterday. At my one guild we are going to be making wounded soldier quilts for the next few months to be presented to the representative of the organization in May. These quilts are presented to the wounded when they come into Andrews Air Force Base. I already had several r/w/b and patriotic fabrics but wanted a few more so that I could make interesting scrap quilts. I took advantage of JoAnns 40% off fabric sale this week and purchased 6 one-yard pieces.

Well I am off to the doctor today to discuss results of my MRI and see if I might have to have knee surgery. I hope I don't have to have surgery but on the other hand I just want it to finally feel better.

kathie

Quilting Monday

I got a lot done yesterday. I quilted a customer lap quilt, did some straightening around the house, took my daughter to a doctors appointment and quilted this little charity quilt.

One of the ladies at my quilt guild was given a king sized rail fence quilt top. She had no idea what to do with it so handed it off to me for charity quilting. I "unstitched" it into 4 lap quilt sized sections.

This is the first section to be quilted. No borders were put on this one which will make it small enough for a nice sized nursing home quilt as they are looking for ones that people can put across their laps while sitting in wheel chairs.


I think one more I will do the same way and then the last two will have borders added to them to increase the size a bit and will then be destined for hospice.

Kathie

Design Wall Monday

Everyone is going to get tired of seeing my Monet quilt but it is what is still on the design wall. I am making a lot of progress, just not as quickly as I want. I did spend an hour working on it last night and managed to get another handfull of blocks made.

I hope to get the top finished this week so that just maybe there will be something else on the design wall next monday.

kathie

Sunday Stash Report - Week 3

The week started off with a purchase at the new quilt shop in town. We used to have to drive 35 to 45 minutes to a quilt shop and now have a small one just 15 minutes away. I HAVE to support a new small business right!!!

I won a gift certificate at quilt guild monday night so tuesday went and spent it plus a little more and came home with 4 1/2 yards of fabric. I started to think that this is only my third stash reporting and already I would have to report that I had bought more fabric than I used. I decided to get busy and cut up some no longer wanted fabric into 10 1/2 squares to use for backings for some of the hospice quilts. I think having to account for my purchases/usage is going to be a good thing.

Week 3 Stash Report

Used this week 9 Yards
Used YTD 15 yards
Added this week 4 1/4 yards
Added YTD 5 3/4 yards
Net used for 2010 9 1/4 yards

Our guild had a charity sew in at the local library yesterday. There was probably a dozen of us working on various projects. In addition to individual charity work several ladies assisted me by making backings for hospice quilts, taking 3 kits that I had made up home to make up tops and several people cut donated fabrics into squares to make more backings.

Fun, laughter, sewing and doing something for someone else, what more can you ask of a saturday.

Kathie

Accomplishments and Plans

I did manage to get this little customer quilt done yesterday. I think it is the yellow brick road pattern, love all the bright colors she used.



I also got one more kit put together for saturdays charity sewing. Someone in the guild had donated a huge bag of 5 inch squares and I have been gradually using those up on various tops. I made up two hidden 9 patch kits out of some of the squares.

This is a stack of all the unquilted hospice tops I have (14). I am going to pull out a couple of small ones and take with me to see if I can convince someone into quilting them. I am also going to see if I can get enough backing fabric together to take so that I can get a couple of people to make backings for some of the tops that don't have one.


Kathie

Doctors

No pictures today as I spent most of yesterday running around. Now I have one questions, how many doctors appointments can one family have in one weeks time?

myself - one doctors appt, one dentist appt and one MRI
Husband - dentist appointment
daughter - two physical therapy appointments

So between the three of us SIX appointments this week. Monday was the only day without some type of appointment. No wonder I feel like I am getting nothing done this week.

I did get a quilt loaded on the frame yesterday but only managed to get about a foot of it quilted and I made 5 additional blocks for the monet quilt.

Hopefully today will be more productive.

Kathie

Gift Certificate

Last night at quilt guild I won a $25 gift certificate to the new quilt shop in town. We had a year long UFO challenge to see who could complete the most UFOs. I worked on many of them the beginning of last year and completed 11 of them (5 of them were table runners). I then got busy with customer quilts, charity quilting and craft show items and kind of forgot about the whole thing.

My friend Mary reminded me yesterday that we had to turn in our list of completions last night and I won first place!!!

Even though I am trying to bust stash this year I am definitely going to have to go take advantage of the gift certificate.

I did get one more quilt kit for hospice cut out yesterday. Here are some of them I have ready to go for our sew in on saturday.


In addition one of the ladies at our guild is trying to bust some major stash. She had yards of pre-quilted fabric so cut it into 4 quilts and bound them. Two of these will go with hospice donations and two to one of the local nursing homes.

I also received several customer quilts yesterday and inquiries about others so I guess I need to set some goals for the rest of the week.

1. Quilt 2 customer quilts
2. Make up 2 more quilt kits
3. Work on Monet quilt

Kathie

Design Wall Monday

I have been slowing continuing with my Monet's Wedding Ring quilt this. I have a few rows put together but have not sewn the rows to each other yet.

I can see the rings but my husband says he can't. Do you think it looks like rings?

For anyone interested this pattern is by Judy Martin and is in her book titled Scraps.

Kathie

Another quilt

I quilted this little Quilt for Kids quilt today for my friend Betty. Love the bright fabrics and these little ones don't take long to do.

I put together another charity quilt kit today. This one out of donated 5 inch squares with basic directions on how to do the hidden 9 patch. This bag of squares has been at my house for awhile so I want to get them all made into kits and out of here. With rolls of batting etc. I have long ago run out of space and need to get things out of here so I can get more organized.

kathie

Sunday Stash Report Week 2

Well it is only week 2 of the sunday stash reporting but I have already adjusted how I am going to report "used" fabric. I found that it is to hard to figure how much fabric I have sewn into something unless I am putting together a backing or something like that. So I estimated how much fabric I have cut and started piecing for the Monet quilt I am working on and that will be my report for this week.

Used this week: 4 yds
Used YTD: 6 yds
Added this week: 0
Added YTD: 1.5
Net Used for 2010 4.5 yds

To bad I could't add all the fabric that I have been cutting the last two days for kits to make hospice quilts but since this is all donated fabric I didn't add or subtract from my stash.

Kathie

Charity Quilting Day

Yesterday turned out to be a day to work on charity quilts. I cut 3 kits out of some of the donated batik fabrics. One is a strippy quilt and the other two will be rail fence quilts. I am going to take them to a charity sew in we are having next weekend and see if I can get some interest in taking them and returning a finished top or better yet a finished quilt for hospice.

In addition I basted a quilt on my frame. This is the first time I have basted only a quilt. It was easy but took longer than I thought it would and was very boring to do. The quilt is lovely, I took a picture of one block only. This is going to be a fund raiser quilt for a local senior center that lets a sewing group I am part of meet in their facility at no charge. Each of the redwork blocks depicts a scene from Southern Maryland so hope they are able to sell lots of tickets to raise funds for their senior activities.



Kathie

Oh My Gosh

I went to one of my guild meetings today and a one of the members donated a whole box of mostly batik fabric for charity quilts. The colors and fabrics are so pretty I am just having a great time looking at all of them.

The guild is going to use part of the fabric to make twin sized quilts for a local shelter that is requesting quilts. The rest of the fabric will be used for hospice quilts.

All sorts of ideas are going through my head. I am going to settle on 2 or 3 different ideas and hope that my other guild will use its next "sew in" day to cut and put together kits for members to take home and sew up.

Kathie

Wacky Wednesday

Ok, not really wacky but what goes with Wednesday?

Today is a busy day with probably no sewing. I had to drop my daughter and her science fair project at school early this morning. They all looked like a bunch of ants going into the high school with their big tri-fold display boards.

I will be off to my day time guild meeting in a few minutes. This is the greatest guild. Wonderful friendly ladies, great programs and lunch on top of that. Four or five ladies take turns each month to bring in lunch and it is always great.

Later today is yearly doctors appointment and then tomorrow morning I take my daughter to her first physical therapy appointment for an injured knee from dance.

I will have to reserve tomorrow afternoon to do nothing but sew.

Kathie

Second Charity Quilt

Well I am definitely on a roll. I am trying to average quilting 1 to 2 charity quilts a month and here is my second one for January. This was a little Quilts for Kids quilt made by Penny. Love the fabrics in this and she did a great job of sewing it together. I quilted this yesterday afternoon after finishing up a couple of small panel pictures for a customer.

I really enjoyed yesterday and was glad school was back in session. I love my daughter dearly but you know teenagers, I seem to have spent all her Christmas break hauling her from one place to the next. Also with everyone up and moving early I get a whole lot more done.

I think I need to get back to setting weekly goals to keep myself focused. I use them more as reminders to myself than HAVE TO lists. My goals for the next few days

Keep plugging away on my Monet quilt
Quilt small customer quilt
Baste (on the frame) queen size raffle quilt for my sewing group

I think that is enough. I would like to add do a little more organizing in the quilt room and pull out patterns and pick out the next project or two to do to start on next years craft show items but I need to stay focused on the monet quilt.

I was getting tired last night of piecing all the mini 9 patch blocks so think today I will switch gears and piece some of the alternating blocks that have a little larger pieces.

Kathie

Design Wall Monday

I finally have something of interest on my design wall. This is the start of my Monet's wedding ring quilt. Just a few blocks made and pinned on here but I am starting to get the idea of what it is going to look like.

Easy piecing but LOTS of little tiny pieces in these blocks. I am current sewing up a bunch of the tiny 9 patch blocks using 1 1/2 strips. I usually don't do that tiny.

My daughter is back to school today after a two week break. It was time..........

Kathie L.

Sunday Stash Report

Ok, I thought I would jump in with all the people making sunday stash reports this year to try and make myself more aware of what I buy and use and try and make a big dent in my stash. I am not sure when people are going to report fabric as "used", if it is when they cut it, when the quilt top is finished or what?

I have decided for myself I am going to report it as used once the fabric is sewn into something (blocks, borders or whatever). I have cut up a lot of fabric this week but the actual "used" is much less.

1/3/10
Fabric Purchased This Week 1.5 yards
Fabric Used this week 2.0 yards

I also quilted my first charity quilt of the year yesterday. I cut out this little quilt a few months ago and my husband sewed it up for me. Someone in the guild had donated some puffy batting so I used that for this. It is way to thick so I just did a meander. I will use up the donated batting but only on small quilts and then I will split the batting in half so it isn't so thick. I hope someone will still enjoy this quilt even though it will probably stand up by itself!!!


Kathie

Last Years Resolutions

Took a look at my posting from New Years Eve a year ago. My resolutions/goals were
1. Sew up at least 3 PIGS (I know I accomplished that)
2. Piece 1/2 backings (I continue to piece MORE than half of my backings)
3. Piecing backing before putting the quilt tops away (totally bombed out on this one, I don't think I did that maybe but once all year)
4. Finish at least 2 UFOs. (I think at last count I completed 11 UFOs last year. Now some of them were just table runners but glad to see them done).
5. Buy less fabric so notice a dent in stash. (I guess that is a yes. I don't know if I purchased a whole lot less but I only purchased when I needed something for a specific project. I just didn't purchase for "someday" and add lots to my stash)
6. Quilt at least 15 charity quilt tops and piece at least 3 (I quilted a total of 23 quilt tops and pieced about 6 so far exceeded this goal).
7. Do at least 1 project using 2 1/2 strips as the bin was overflowing. (I did at least 2 Christmas quilts using the 2 1/2 strips but the bin is STILL overflowing).

For 2010 - less specifics, just more general goals.

1. Continue to get rid of PIGS. Either make them up, return the fabric to stash for use on other projects or give them away.

2. Finish/give away a few more projects from my old old old UFO listing.

3. Continue to quilt as many charity quilts as I can between customer quilts and my own quilts and to not feel guilty if I tell someone NO. Each quilter has their own personal charity of choice and I don't have the time to do quilts for each of those. I will continue to primarily quilt hospice quilts but will do an occasional one for other causes.

4. Seriously work on using up or giving away scraps, strips and orphan blocks that just add to a messy quilt room.

Hope everyone has a happy healthy 2010.

Do you realize it is TEN YEARS AGO that we were all worried about Y2K?

Kathie