And I'm Off...

my rocker...the deep end... to retreat. Which do you think is the correct ending to that sentence. If you said, TO RETREAT you are correct (yeah, you get the prize - if there was one)! If you said either of the other two, I think I need to review our friendship. Okay, maybe not, but I'm just saying......

I won't be back until Monday so my stash report and design wall Monday will actually happen Monday night or more likely Tuesday.

Enjoy your weekend!!

Design Wall Monday

Here we are, another Monday and I don't have my Weaver Fever to show you! I took an order for three t-shirt quilts and I had to get busy on them. Of course when it rains it pours, and I say this because I began a quilt for a lady in June using the ribbons her daughter won during horse shows - hundreds of them! Anyway, we weren't sure how we wanted to border the quit so I told her that once I had the center together, she could come over and we'd figure out the borders. Well, of course even though the center had been together for months, she called the day after the the t-shirt order was taken. Oh well....

Here are some of the t-shirts that are cut and ready to sew together.



As you can see, I don't have many shirts to work with for these quilts. As a matter of fact, I have six shirts (front and back) in which to make two of them! Of course if I was simply adding borders to the shirts and sashing strips this would be easy, but NNNNOOOOOOOO. I've made a number of these quilts in which you sew them into what is basically a crazy quilt and this is what she wants. I use leftover pieces of the shirts to fill in empty spots and of course, use partial seams throughout the quilt. I enjoy making quilts this way and I was turned on to these by the book How To Make a Too Cool T-shirt Quilt, by Andrea T. Funk. Check it out if you want to make a different kind of t-shirt quilt!



I'm lucky that the shirts I was given have pretty big designs or else these would be really small quilts. I hope to get these done by Thursday because Friday morning I leave for a retreat (YEAH!!!) and I don't want to have to take these with me.

I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Stash Report - Week 4

Nothing to report here this week. I had to stop what I was doing and begin work on 3 t-shirt quilts. I have the shirts all cut and ready to assemble so there was no stash used. I also have to finish up a quilt that I started this past summer for someone. She has finally decided what she wants for border and backing so I hope to get to that early this next week.

Here's the report:
Fabric Used This Week: 0.0 yards

Fabric Used to Date: 34.750 yards

Fabric Added This Week: 0.0 yards

Fabric Added to Date: 26.625 yards

Net Fabric Used for 2010: 8.125 yards

Random Thoughts and Pictures

Yesterday was not as filled with quilting as I had hoped, but it was productive. I had a program for work in the morning and spent the afternoon clearing pictures off of my camera, organizing them and getting lots of odds and end things done. I did sew for a bit last night, but not much.

Anyway, even though some of these pictures are old (Halloween, Dallas 3-Day, and Christmas), I'm going to post some here over the next couple of days. They are just too cute NOT to share. Bear with me as I am a proud mother, grandmother, breast cancer activist and quilter. I will include at least one quilt/sewing related picture in each post. Thanks for indulging me!

These were taken in Sept. when Nikki and Quinn were visiting for a long weekend. Quinn loves shoes, boots and anything she can put on her feet. I guess that size or correct fit don't really matter!





This is one of three memory quilts that that I made for Christmas orders. I was given a couple bags of T-shirts, jeans, sweatshirts, etc. and asked to make quilts for three adult children whose father had passed away earlier in the year. I love making these things! They are so emotional, therapeutic and rewarding.



Come back tomorrow and I'll have more to share!

Design Wall Monday

As I said yesterday, this was not a very "quilty" week so I don't have anything wonderful to show you.

I am just beginning to sew the black and white Weaver Fever blocks together and I hope to get that task completed Tuesday. I can't wait to start playing with the lime green fabric!!



I did pull the fabric together for the guild challenge project from last year. Here is what we were given last year: two fat quarters of fabric, a "What Quilters Really Think" panel (I cut my panel apart), and the directions for making a star block. The rules state that you can make any project but the finished item must include these two fabrics and the star. You do not have to include the panel, unless you want to do so.



I started going through my stash and decided that I have enough coordinating fabric to make a pretty good size wall hanging for my sewing room that will include the panel. My star block will be 6" with the center being the panel sayings. Here are the fabrics I'm going to use.



I'd show you what I am planning, but since I'm having some computer problems (of course it's the computer that has my EQ on it), I had to sketch my design on paper. YUCK!! Hopefully I'll have made some progress on this by next week.

Stash Report - Week 3

This week wasn't a very "quilty" week, but I did manage to get the binding on the blue quilt completed. I've been picking out fabric to use for the guild challenge fabric from last year, but since I'm not done and I'll probably toss aside what I've already picked out and use something entirely different, I'm not including that in my report this week.

Fabric Used This Week: .75 yards

Fabric Used to Date: 34.750 yards

Fabric Added This Week: 0.0 yards

Fabric Added to Date: 26.625 yards

Net Fabric Used for 2010: 8.125 yards

Even though I didn't get much quilting done, I did spend some time visiting friends and family that we haven't seen in a long time. Friday was spent in Canton visiting Jack's 92 years old aunt and his cousin. On the way home, we stopped in Canal Fulton and visited with my brother-in-law who is "batcheloring" it for the long weekend. As usual we had a great time and really can't wait so long to visit either of them again!

Last night we went to Fremont to visit friends and expected to be home around 8:00but didn't return until after 11:00! Again, if we didn't wait so long to visit, we wouldn't have to spend so much time catching up. It was worth not getting any quilting done Friday or Saturday!

Have you been putting off visiting someone? Take the time and do it. You'll have a great time.

I Did It!

I'm no longer a long-arm (actually a mid-arm) quilting machine virgin!!! I used one of my BFF's Handi Quilter 16 yesterday and finished quilting the blue quilt that was posted earlier this month. The binding is sewn on and ready to be hand-stitched down. I was going to do it last night but decided to wait and do it tonight while I relax after our volleyball game.

Here is Kare getting the machine ready for me. She sure is a trusting friend to let me take the controls here!



Here's the quilt in progress. This was a lot of fun and after I quit being worried that it wasn't going to look just right, it had a blast and the quilting went really fast. I simply did an allover meander.



I didn't get much done on the black and white Weaver Fever quilt. I got involved in some projects for work and then Lynn (my youngest daughter), invited me to dinner and how could I say no?

Design Wall Monday

Here it is Monday already and another Design Wall day!

I am in the process of making the strip sets (14 needed, 8 complete) for a five-fabric Weaver Fever quilt. I had a lot of black and white fabric in my stash and decided to use it here. To "kick it up a bit", I'm using purple as the background and in the borders, along with lime green. I'm hoping this turns out as fun in reality as it is in my head! Of course, the picture isn't the greatest since it's on a white background, but I think you get the idea.



Here's the pattern:



What are you working on this Monday? Check out Judy L's Patchwork Times (see link on my sidebar) to see what everyone else has on their design wall.

Stash Report - Week 2 and A Question

I've been finishing up a lot of loose ends this week so, with one exception, all of my yardage used this week was pretty small. I had been putting off adding binding to three large quilts because I didn't know what fabric to use. Of course, since all three quilts were pieced a LONG time ago (one was pieced in 2005 or 2006 and the other two were pieced early last year!), I didn't have fabric that was used in the quilt to be used for binding. Trying to get into the spirit of stashbusting, I decided to raid my bins and find binding fabric. I was successful on all three counts! YEAH!!!!

Trying to clean up things around here, I've pulled some tops that I made and am ready to quilt. One of the older tops is at one of my BFF's house ready to be quilted on her HQ. It has a pieced backing and I already have the binding for that quilt so it won't count on any stashbusting report, but I'll be thrilled to have it done. I took my blue quilt to her also and it is loaded and waiting for me to get over there and quilt it. This will be my first attempt at using the machine and I'm a bit nervous but what's the worst thing that can happen - I have to take out the stitches?!? I have a couple of smaller quilts that I will quilt here and they shouldn't take long. It's just a matter of sandwiching them and making the time to do it.

I decided that I can't start a new project until I finish one and so far that's been working. Since I finished three quilts, I started working on a Weaver Fever quilt that's using quite a bit of fabric. I did buy some backing fabric for it and I have a question for you all. Since this fabric is wide (108"), do I count the 3 yards I bought as 3 yards, or do I count it as more since everything else is being counted based on 40" WOF? I know this is a technicality, but I plan to finish A LOT of projects this year and I know this will come up again.

Besides busting stash, I am also trying really hard to keep at least part of my work area clean and organized.



I know it's only been since Christmas, but that's a long time for me to have my pressing/cutting area cleaned up and have only the current project on it. It sure has made getting some work done easier. Now I can just run in and start working rather than having to take time to clean off the table, figure out where I'm going to put the stuff so I'll remember where it is, etc. I'm finding that I'll run in and sewing for even just a few minutes now because everything is ready and the task of cleaning up is not so daunting.

Ok, here's the report:

Fabric Used This Week: 10.125

Fabric Used to Date: 34.0

Fabric Added This Week: 3.0

Fabric Added to Date: 26.625

Net Used for 2010: 7.375

Work and Meetings Mean No Sewing For Me

Between work, meetings and grocery shopping, I didn't have a chance to sew at all today! I thought about going to the sewing room tonight and do just a little bit, but I know that I'd end up getting involved in something and staying there way too long. Hopefully tomorrow will be more "quilter-friendly!"

Change Is Good

Ok, so I was going to add two more borders to the quilt that I posted yesterday but I changed my mind. I realized that I wasn't thrilled with the look of the additional borders because I thought that they were distracting attention from the center of the quilt. Besides, I really like the fabric that I was going to use for the large border and found another pattern that I wanted to use it in. Also, I realized that I was really only adding borders to make the quilt larger. I hadn't decided if we were going to keep this quilt or not and with the first two borders on, it was only 60" x 80". Well, I made my decision. This quilt will have a different home (not sure what yet, but I do have two options), and the size is perfect for both of the options. Here's the quilt, ready to layer, quilt and bind. Hopefully that will happen by the end of the week.




The decision-making process that I went through with this quilt was pretty funny. I was actually having a conversation with myself about this. (Not out loud, just in my head!) Anyway, I had to chuckle when I remembered something that Nikki and Lynn gave me for Christmas.


Even though I hadn't made a mistake, I plan to continue to live by this saying!



Here's the back side, and I like this saying just as much as the front.



Here's the quilt that I finished binding today. Do you notice that this quilt is the same pattern as the blue one? This one has bigger blocks, no borders, and a lot more contrast in the blocks. It's actually the same size as the blue one also (60" x 80").



I like this pattern and it's quick to throw together. I'll have to remember this when I need a quick gift!

Design Wall Monday

I guess it's better to be late than never, right? I had to work today and didn't get home until late so here is what's on the design wall (or in my case, ironing table) today . This quilt is from a set of charm squares that I received in a swap A LONG TIME AGO (at least 6 or 7 years I think). Included in the package were some triangles that had been cut from the 5" squares. I had no idea what to do with these pieces of fabric so they just got put into a tub to "rest" until I gained a bit more confidence and just started sewing!

That moment of confidence occurred Dec. 31st when I played around and decided what to do. I started sewing that afternoon and by 6:00 I had the inside done. Of course I had no blue to match the fabrics in the body of the quilt so I went shopping Saturday and Sunday. As you can see, the red border is on and I have 2 more borders to add (a blue and a multi-colored). My goal is to get that done tomorrow so I can quilt this baby. Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the completed top as well as the quilt that I began Jan 1st and finished binding yesterday!

Be sure to see what others have on their design walls by going to Judy L.'s Patchwork Times. (See the link to her blog on my sidebar.)

Stash Report: Week 1

Ok, I've decided that if I participate in Judy L.'s Weekly Stash Report and Design Wall Monday it will force me to update my blog regularly. I know that I used a lot of stash last year (since I hardly went to any fabric shops and bought anything) so I figure that it would be fun to see how much stash I actually use.

Of course after making this decision, I went to two, yes 2 shops in the last 2 days and walked away with fabric. On the positive side of things though, I have actually been sewing and am binding one quilt (started 1/1/2010) and I am putting the borders on another that I cut out on Dec. 31st. I did have to get some border fabric for this one so part of today's purchase is for that.

Also, today I picked up the remaining fabric needed for our annual guild retreat mystery which is held in February. Out of the 9.75 total yards needed I was able to get 6.25 yards from my stash. I needed more background fabric (isn't that what I always need?) and a couple of cuts to round out the medium/dark fabrics. I have begun my cutting and will begin the pre-retreat sewing later this week.

Ok, here's the report:

Fabric Used This Week: 23.875

Fabric Used to Date: 23.875

Fabric Added This Week: 23.625

Fabric Added to Date: 23.625

Net Used for 2010: .25 (WOW. That was close.)