Dog Beds

I made extra covers for the dog beds so that while the others are being laundered, these can protect the foam cores. I covered the foam with muslin for protection, but realized that they would get soiled too easily if not covered. The closure for these is velcro. 

I made a backing for the Hugs and Kisses quilt out of a beautiful stripe from Connected Threads. It matches the oranges beautifully and is already loaded onto the quilt frame. 3 yards.

Stash Used: 8 yards

Stash Used, total: 221.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 0

Stash Acquired, total: 350.875

Simple Marks Hugs and Kisses

This is a Jaybird Quilts Pattern using the Lazy Angle Ruler, and I am so glad to have made use of the ruler, the pattern AND the jelly roll. I bought this fabric in a jelly roll long ago, because I loved the fabrics but didn't know what I was going to do with it. Jelly Rolls, priced at $40, are a big commitment to small strips, and I've been hesitant to go whole hog into that process, but in this instance, worked out fine. I've got three more to get crackin' on!

I am only now noticing that my favorite Malka Dubrowsky fabric isn't in this stack. Go figure. I love how this is turning out; the cutting and piecing is working out pretty quickly, and the result is visually striking.

Stash Used: 5 yards

Stash Used, total: 213.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 0

Stash Acquired, total: 350.875

Laptop Cases

Sophia needed a laptop case, and I thought these were both great designs for her.  I chose a brown/pink theme because I wanted to use some cute Minkee fabric as a liner that has pink polka dots on a chocolate brown background. I thought she'd choose the stripe, and I was right. That makes the batik mine! These were done in October; don't know why I didn't get around to posting them.

Stash Used: 1 yards

Stash Used, total: 208.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 0

Stash Acquired, total: 350.875

Quilting for Dog Beds

This project is reminding me how important it is to experience joy while creating. I love this hobby, but never so much as when I am giggling over a great project. This morning, I quilted the fabric for the dog beds I'm making. This is the greatest fabric; it appeals to the quirky weirdness in me. I realized that if I get several days in my sewing studio, something should go onto or come off of the longarm machine. I have so many quilts to quilt that I really should move them along in at least a small way. With all the new projects swimming around in my head, I want to get some off the list.

I used 4 yards each of print and muslin to make the tops and bottoms of the beds. I also made a backing for my latest QOV out of a Laura Ashley print that I bought when Alexandra was born. I was going to decorate her whole nursery with that print...she is now 16 and has her driver's license!

Stash Used: 11.5 yards

Stash Used, total: 207.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 0

Stash Acquired, total: 350.875

Ok, I'm a true geek. I just put the stash log on a Google Docs Spreadsheet, so the above numbers reflect better accounting. 

Comfort and Joy

The theme of our annual Yankee Swap is "Comfort and Joy."  What could be more comfortable and joyful than flannel pillowcases? This year, I will be contributing a pair of flannel snow globe pillowcases in these beautiful aquas.

Stash Used: 7 yards

Stash Used, total: 194.9 yards

Stash Acquired: 0

Stash Acquired, total: 324.25

Dowager Countess Ballerina

This is a relatively easily pieced quilt, but I love the way the colors are coming together. I used Kona cotton raisin for the solid in the background. More is on order, but until I get it, I'm at a standstill.

Got it! All pieced and trimmed today. I'll need to piece the backing, which makes me happy since I use the scraps. Yea!!

Stash Used: 9.5 yards, including the back

Stash Used, total: 187.9 yards

Stash Acquired: 27 from Hancocks; 8 of Honky Tonk, 19 of solids. 

Stash Acquired, total: 324.25

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

This quilt came out so much better than I'd hoped!! I'm not very good at picking colors, and in choosing all blues, I wondered if it would be boring. I knew it needed more lights so I through in some Kaffe Fassett bits.  

I'm planning to quilt it in a bright yellow thread, with an all-over pattern that looks like a twisting ribbon. 

Stash Used: 1 of Tomato Kona

Stash Used, total: 178.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 

Stash Acquired, total: 297.25

True Colors and Downton Abbey

They are going to keep making great fabric, so I am not sure why I need to hoard it when it's just out. Usually, I try to wait until it goes on sale, but lately, I'm affected more by the shadow of regret for not being able to acquire it rather than the the regret of seeing what I've purchased at full price go on sale. Since I get a frequent flyer discount at Hawthorne Threads, it's never at the full, $10 or $11 per yard that it normally sells for; I'm getting it at $8.50 or so, which spurs me further. I saw a FQ bundle of the Downton Abbey fabric collection on an unknown (to me) website, and realized that I didn't really know what to do with a lot of those colors, i.e. the whole "Edith" color story. So I went to HT and purchased a bunch of half and whole yards of the good ones. 

Joel Dewberry does a great damask and a great wood grain, and his contributions to this collaboration, "True Colors," is not to be missed. I suspect a lot of that will end up overstocked, since it's not particularly inventive, and since the design is recycled, but the colors are terrific and I picked up a few yards of his pieces. Since the damask looks like pajama pants to me, I got 1.5 yard bits; Sophia's legs are getting so long, I wonder if that will be enough! I might have to mix and match for waistbands. Not a big deal since we never tuck in our tops and it will be a little secret, what terrific fabric lurks under our untucked tops.

As for stash used, I am cutting into 18 FQs for a QOV with blues and reds. It's not a lot, but it's not nothing!

Stash Used: 4.5

Stash Used, total: 177.4 yards

Stash Acquired: 19. yes.

Stash Acquired, total: 297.25

Sophie's QOV

It's clear that I suck at taking photos of quilts. It is only partially because I do this on my own; there's nobody I want to burden with holding the thing up in the air. Also, I don't have the patience to wait until there's the right lighting; this typically happens well after the sun is down. So I throw the thing down on the hallway floor and stand on the attic stairs so as to get the proper distance. This time, the photos from the step stool came out a little better, but you can see the shadow I throw in the bottom right corner. OK.

Sophia started this quilt as a Quilt of Valor long ago, and I was inspired by Veterans' Day to finish it. She was fine with that, having flown the coop to boarding school. How the time has flown!! She was learning how to make straight stitches just yesterday. 

I just received a huge stack of fabric from Hancock's of Paducah. Something made me order half-yard pieces of almost all of the new French General line. I was initially going to order a fat quarter bundle, but they were sold out. So, what's next best? TWICE AS MUCH fabric, and excluding the few pieces I didn't care for. I have ideas as to how to use this fabric, but really, I needed maybe a quarter of what I ordered. I also got 10 yards of solid white Konas in two shades.

Stash Used: 11 yards including backing for the QOV

Stash Used, total: 172.9 yards

Stash Acquired: 30 yards from Hancocks!!

Stash Acquired, total: 278.25

Barcelona Jewel Box and Anabelle!

Great news on the project progress front! I finally finished quilting this McKenna Ryan quilt, and this is no small milestone. That baby has been on my quilt frame since February. Shame on me. Well, this tendonitis in my right elbow has me trying to keep my rotary cutting to a reasonable daily allowance, as every time I do some more rotary cutting, it flares badly. What better reason to get some quilting done?  I had a bobbin tension problem that made me rip out a lot of stitches and then...walked away for a long time. I just bought two packs of nice thread from Connected Threads, and wanted to see how it works on the long-arm. Like a charm!! 

These disjointed and incomplete blocks are the work in progress, Barcelona Jewel Box. I started cutting this last weekend in Sugar Hill. It was inspired by a charm pack/solid combination that I ordered from Pink Chalk, and the pattern came from one of the e-magazines, Fat Quarterly. I think it might have been the very first issue. I've since ordered many more issues and thoroughly enjoyed them. A lot of geometry went into these, since I will do almost anything to avoid a lot of half square triangles. I did the smaller "square in squares" by attaching two flying geese, but the larger ones were unavoidable since I was working with charm squares, not yardage. I must keep my eye out for patterns that make good use of charm squares. I love this quilt! 

Mary Jane's first grandchild has arrived! Annabelle was born on October 26, 2013 to Kerri and Adam Burgess. She is a beautiful beloved baby, and needs a quilt, for sure. This one is from the Town Square pattern I worked so hard to simplify. Something about buying a pattern that doesn't make the cutting and piecing as easy as possible makes me feel a little cheated. Not that I don't get a little smug satisfaction from re-writing the patterns, just that for $9 or $10, one ought to get cleverness, no? Especially when there are so many great free patterns out there now. 

OK, now the stash log. It isn't pretty. I bought a lot of white solid at the weekend sale up in Littleton, at One Stitch, Two Stitch. Other stuff has come through the door, that may not have been counted. :)

Stash Used: 7.5 Barcelona Jewel Box, 1.7 Annabelle's Town Square

Stash Used, total: 161.9 yards

Stash Acquired: 20 or so yards solids from Littleton

Stash Acquired, total: 248.25

Quilts of Valor

A recent news story about Quilts of Valor has made the demand for these charity quilts balloon out of usual proportions, and a plea went out from the administrators to get to work! So, I took these two quilts, which were completed, almost, and sitting in my sewing room, and finished the last few onerous tasks in order to get these quilts ready to award to recipients. 

The patterns for these quilts were generously given by Nancy Miller to her yahoo group, MysteryQuilts4Military. If you are interested in free fun quilt patterns, dripped to you in weekly clues, check out the group. It is a community of quilters with generous spirit, and if that describes you, you will fit right in!

These were "Knoll" and "Star Path,", mysteries number 27 and 28. Since they were cut out well before the stash blog was begun, I get no "stash-busting credit" for their completion. 

Relapse

In the last 2 days, I've ordered 41+ yards of fabric from Hawthorne Threads. It all started with "Lindsay's Picks," which hit me in a happy, autumn, creative sort of way.

































I don't like all of these fabrics, but when I got into that Dear Stella grouping, I started hitting the "add to cart" button with reckless abandon. Some of these aren't even available yet, so I was relatively safe there. And then, I found that there are some new, (or new to me,) colors in the Ta Dots collection.
Add to cart: oranges, sorbets, pinks.

How did Timeless Treasures know that adding a whole collection of greys and butter yellows would speak to me, and then what were they saying when they named it after me? I ordered 17 yards of "Ophelia" prints. Just wait until you see them! Oh, here they are...

Ophelia Leaves in Steel	Ophelia Texture in Cement	Ophelia Dot in Vanilla	Ophelia Scroll in Honey
Ophelia Floral in Grey	Ophelia Scroll in Stone	Ophelia Scroll in Oyster	Ophelia Dot in Butter

Ophelia Border Stripe in Grey

Ophelia Dot in Pewter

Ophelia Leaves in Calm

There wasn't even one of these I thought I should live without.

And this Saturday is our Breast Care Center Gala, also known as "The Prom." I have to speak again this year. I donated that pillow I made to the auction, but now I'm going to make a quilt for next year's Gala. It's going to be, yes, gag, pink. But I found good fabric.
I'll put together a quick quilt that says, NOT "think pink," which I'm not even sure what that means, but "Fight like a girl," which I find more palatable. It'll have a great lacy bra appliqued on it like in the pattern but it'll be a little less "Bra" rich. Here's the original pattern:

Stash Used: 0

Stash Used, total: 152.7 yards

Stash Acquired: 41.625. Seriously.

Stash Acquired, total: 269.875. No joke.