Stash Report Week 5

Used this Week: 1 yard
Used year to Date: 9.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1.4 yards
Net Used for 2011: 8.1 yards

"Used" again means tossed. I went through another box of my MIL's stuff and threw away the unusable.

Snow day

This is what we woke up to this morning:

That's a big piece of cedar tree that fell across the path we normally use to get from the house to the drive. So we shoveled around it. Only four or five smaller branches down from the pine trees across the driveway.

Lots of shoveling - so the kids (i.e., The Lovely Daughter and TMOTH) made a big pile and turned it into a huge snowman. This is the building phase:


The Lovely Daughter with "Vincent van Snow":


The boys mostly threw snowballs and ate snow:


Anyway, we're now shoveled out and ready to go to work/school tomorrow - assuming there is school.

Stash Report Week 4

Used this Week: 6.6 yards
Used year to Date: 8.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1.4 yards
Net Used for 2011: 7,1 yards

YAY for mom's 9-patch. The quilt has odd measurements - 51 x 82 inches - and by my calculations (rounding up for seam allowances!) it's 5.6 yards, plus a yard used for binding.

Mom's 9-patch

FINISHED! First UFO of 2011 is DONE!


You can see the sashing (blue and white seersucker!) in this photo a little better. I used an 80s-vintage small calico for the binding, and plain cream cotton sheeting for the back.


I cranked out most of the final trimming and machine sewing of binding for the Friday Night Sew-In, then finished about half of the binding while waiting for the Lovely Daughter at art class on Saturday, then finished up the rest this morning. YAY!

PIGS stats

How do I keep track? I have lists, and more lists, and even more lists.

I did keep them on the blog sidebar (and they're probably still hanging out there) but don't update them well. I joined a couple of UFO challenges this year, and made the list (as best I could) in my journal, then posted them/e-mailed them, etc.

I don't buy kits, so I think I only have one that a secret sister gave me.

I DO have a bunch of "going to do that project" material, but I have no issues with using it for other projects and eventually making a substitution for the original project.

My oldest UFO is either a dancing ladies applique that I bought at a quilt show (my guess is 40s, but it could be a little earlier or later) OR my mom's 9-patch, which is now QUILTED and the binding material is in the wash! Oldest UFO that I started? maybe a flying geese quilt from the mid-80s which is likely to never get finished :)

Stash Report Week 3

I went to the Quilt Club at the local fabric store, and they had a scrap bag available! It's really more strips that scraps, but it works for me. I figured about 1.4 yards, and since I had a coupon, a grant total of $1.47.





I've also been going through boxes of stuff that DH brought home from his parents' house. Some of the material is usable, but some of it is NOT, and that's just going in the trash. I'm calling it "used" since I had to deal with it, and it used to be part of the stash. Maybe half a yard got tossed.

EDIT: The biggest thing was what I DIDN'T buy this week. I thought about buying some wide backing for Mom's quilt, and even fondled the sheeting at Hancock's last week, but decided to wait until (1) I had the new coupon, and (2) I was ready for the backing. Well, after waiting, I decided that I'd piece the back, dang it. When I went up to the stash to look for backing material, what do I see? A HUGE chunk of nice cream sheeting. And what's this? It's extra-wide? SCORE!!!

Used this Week: .5 yards
Used year to Date: 1.9 yards
Added this Week: 1.4 yards
Added Year to Date: 1.4 yards
Net Used for 2011: .5 yards

I'm hoping for much better numbers next week - I finished the top of my Mom's quilt, and will sandwich it later tonight, and hopefully get it quilted in the next week. I may or may not get my friend Kim's quilt sandwiched and quilted, since I have to work on a guild challenge piece due in early February.

Stash Report Week 2

2 FQ out of stash for guild secret sister gift; 1 FQ from stash for guild FQ raffle (which I didn't win!)

I also made a small quilt from stash for a challenge: 9" x 12" front and back, plus a little bit of applique and binding, so I'm going to call it 0.15 yards :)

Used this Week: .9 yards
Used year to Date: 1.4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2011: 1.4 yards

I DID stop at Hancock's on Thursday, for 50% off thread and batting. Once the quilts the batting is destined for are done, I should be able to bump up the "net used" a little bit.

Haiku Art Group

I'm participating in a Haiku Art Group this year:
http://haikuart.blogspot.com/

Our challenge word for January was "Beginning."

My little quiltlet (9" x 12") is called "START":


Detail of alphabet beads and root:


Detail of leaves:


Overall, I'm happy, and I learned some new things.

PIGS

a.k.a. Projects In Grocery Sacks.

Jill's first questions is how do we store our PIGS?

Why, in grocery sacks, of course!

Seriously, I have a sad obsession with those reusable grocery sacks. If I see one I don't have, I usually buy it. I have them in all sizes and colors. While I DO use them for groceries when I remember to pull them out of the trunk, I also use them for projects in the craft room.

Crafty goals for 2011

1. Shop the stash - I've put my first post in for Judy L.'s Sunday stash report; this should at the very least keep me honest.

2. Haiku art quilt group - commit to doing the best work I can do, but be willing to go out on a limb

3. UFOs - Three challenges combined should give me some progress in this area :)

4. Try something new - I have a gift cert. from Dharma so I think surface design supplies might be on my wish list

5. Organize, organize, organize. I think I'm better off than last year, but not by much. At a minimum, I want to:
a. find all of the UFOs and put their parts in separate bins
b. figure out where the material needs to live. I'd like to have it all in one spot, but I'm not sure that's possible.
c. spend some time every weekend in the craft room working on stash management.

6. Draw more.

Stash Report Week 1

This is easy :) I've been working on this month's UFO, which unfortunately starts with lots of ripping. BUT, I packaged up two FQ to mail off for the stashbusters UFO challenge.

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2011: 0.5 yards

First UFO - and it's Mom's 9-patch!

There's the one big part, and one strip. I need to rip out a couple of the vertical sashings that have holes or tears, and I think only one of the horizonal ones. There are two or three blocks that will need to be replaced.



I may have enough of Mom's original fabric to do the replacement blocks, but if not, I have suitable material that's of the right vintage.

At my house, if you leave things lying around for more than a minute, stuff like this happens:



Don't they look comfy?

UFO Challenge - top 12

For 2011 I've decided to join a couple of UFO challenges.

Judy Laquidara's is to finish (or concentrate work on) one a month. Not many photos, I'm afraid, since I'm about a thousand miles away from the stash.

1. Amish Diamonds. Started as a guild challenge, until I realized it would be too big. Needs another round or two, borders, quilting and bound. These photos don't show it as far along as I got it before I had to set it aside.




2. My husband's Christmas quilt. I gave him squares in a box!


3. My black/white/red 9-patch & snowball quilt. This one is for me :)


4. The Karate Kid's chess quilt. Hand quilting is in progress.

5. The Lovely Daughter's cat quilt. Needs enlarging through either borders or more squares, plus cat applique. ALSO needs input from TLD, which is even more difficult.

6. My mother's 9-patch. This is an inherited UFO that dates from about 1957.

7. Love's the Only House. A small art quilt that I just need to work on.

8. Halloween wallhanging. Needs some Timtex on top to make it hang correctly, then finished quilting.

9. Christmas wallhanging. Very cool Laurel Burch panel that needs to be finished.

10. Cat/kitten quilt. Flimsy finished, made in pinks, browns, with cat and kitten pre-printed panels.

11. Memaw's flying geese. I have flying geese blocks my grandmother made that need to be made into something - most likely a wallhanging, based on how many blocks I have.

12. Wonky flannel quilt - something else inherited from my grandmother. I've had the flannel for sashing it for YEARS now.

That's the top 12 that don't have some other deadline :)

Fun in the Florida (chilly) sun

It's been pretty cold here, so no beach play for us :( Looks like swimsuits will go home unworn.

Yesterday, the Lovely Daughter and I went with my mom to the next town over to go thrift store shopping. I scored a major haul of work clothes, with 6 pairs of pants, three vests, and a cardigan. The Lovely Daughter found a couple of really nice sundresses, and of course some other stuff. Also a quilting ruler, of all things!

Today the plan was to go to the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium. On the way there, TMOTH pointed out that we'd get there about 11, and what would we do about lunch?

I thought about other things to do, so turned into the Manatee Park. This is a little park just outside Ft. Myers whose only claim to fame is that it's next to a canal that picks up the warm wastewater from one of the FPL power plants, which attracts manatees in the cold months. I'd never stopped, but since there's been such a cold snap, I figured we'd stop and maybe see one or two, so we paid our $2 and parked.

Well:


It was amazing. Probably at least a hundred manatees, lots of babies. I think you can see a mother and baby in this next picture:


Kids had fun:


And then we went and had super pizza, were joined by the Brother, and on to the nature center. That was also fun - nature hike:


I love the palmettos:


There were also animals - natives and invasives. These included an albino raccoon, who clearly wasn't happy about being caged :(

The planetarium was actually really good - their fancy computer display wouldn't start, so they used the old-fashioned one narrated by one of the people that run the planetarium, and it was WAY better than the computer one that came after.

Burgers for dinner, and Transformers II on video for the evening. Ah. Life is good.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Greetings from sunny Florida! We're at my brother's and mom's house.

Pre-Christmas bounty:








And this morning's present-opening frenzy:


The Lovely Daughter in her new rain boots:


She also got some blank canvases that she's supposed to paint:


The Small Man with his stocking:


And with a wolf hat:


The Karate Kid with his Swedish Fish:


And getting ready to open another present:


Brother (in green) and TMOTH:


TMOTH opening something:


and me in my Stitcher Secret Santa gift, a beautiful scarf:


Dinner was great, mostly cooked by the brother, and I got to have a nap today!

Composition book cover

A quick project I made today; a quilted cover for a composition book.

The front (or back, if it was flipped):


Inside:


Open flat to see the whole bit:


I'm really pleased with it, but have a bit of a dilemma. I originally planned to have a button closure - some sort of elastic or bias strip loop to go over a button on the front. BUT. I'm not sure that I don't like it better without a closure.

What do y'all think?

Christmas Sweatshop 2011

Lots still to do here before Christmas.

This is a Secret Santa gift:


It's quilted, and just needs the binding finished and a label before I can mail it off. Yay!

I made a top for a friend that still needs quilting, but don't seem to have a picture of it yet. It may be an after- Christmas gift! It's black and white with blue and teal and green bits.

The Lovely Daughter said that she'd prefer purple and yellow if I made her one:
Front:


Back:


The Karate Kid wanted blue and purple and red:


and Small Man likes "rainbow" colors:


I woke up yesterday with a vicious headache. I didn't go to work, but just laid around on the couch and watched TV all day. Pizza from Julliano's (yummmmm...) for dinner. Work today, and hopefully quilting tonight!

FINALLY some quilting time

I got some work done this weekend on a couple of works in progress.

A snippet of a Secret Santa gift - I won't be able to show any progress until after the gift's been delivered.


And more string quilt blocks:


I wound up buying another yard of Moda Marbles to make the center strings. It's a little lighter than the brick color I originally had, but it was all Capital Quilts had that was close, and since the quilt is overall so scrappy, I believe it will work out fine. I'd already used a couple of other "close" marbles for strings, but really didn't have anything else in the stash that I would've been happy with.

Annual Halloween Sweatshop

Actually, this year the costumes weren't all that difficult.

The Small Man wanted to be "the Moon."


And the Karate Kid was "a shadow."


While The Lovely Daughter went as a s'more:


The s'more costume was the most work, but wasn't all that bad and was kind of fun to make. And it actually looked like a s'more!!!

On Halloween we carved pumpkins, after I found some of the LAST pumpkins in Montgomery County.

Carving:


Getting ready to light:




The Lovely Daughter's jack'o'lantern:


Small Man's jack'o'lantern:


I didn't get a picture of the Karate Kid's jack'o'lantern, but I actually liked it the best - just a traditional scary face!