Quilt Blocks for Flood Victims

You may have heard about the recent devastating floods in the Nashville area of Tennessee. Anna Maria Horner is a fabric designer and quilting/sewing author who lives in the area, and has decided to help out her community. She has put together a program called Rainbow Around the Block, where you can make 12 1/2" blocks (see specifics) and send them to her. She has a crew that will assemble the blocks into quilts and distribute to local families. She will also accept completed quilts -- hop over to her site for all of the details and help out our community!

Memorial Day 2010

Heartfelt thanks to all who have served.

Quilt Bingo

This sounds like a fun thing to do! The Quilt Shoppe's blog is going to have a Quilt Bingo game running on their blog next week. All you need to do is choose some words from a list and as they call off words, cross them off your list. If yours are all crossed off first, you get BINGO! Check out this post for all the details. The prize is amazing!

Stashbusting 2010 - Week 20

Just a quick post to report my stashbusting efforts. Sorry no picture today, but I'll link to what I bought! The week before last, I purchased a pack of batik fat quarters from the Fat Quarter Shop for a project that I really want to make soon. It has 12 fat quarters, so 3 yards added. I did wrap a gift in a fat quarter, and I made two small gift bags for Mother's Day which together probably took a quarter yard, so 1/2 yard out.

No sewing for me this week. This weekend we saw Iron Man 2, which was awesome! Then Sunday, Lance and I did some major Spring Cleaning at the humble abode. It was sorely needed. We're not done yet, but we got quite a lot done. Then we were off to a member's event at Savvy Cellar in honor of their new Mountain View location, which opens this Thursday. It is a really nice location near the train station with a nice, comfy patio area. We'll definitely be going there again once it opens!

Fabric added this week: 3.00 yards
Fabric used this week: 0.50 yards

Fabric added this year: 12.50 yards
Fabric used this year: 15.50 yards

Total stash used this year: 3.00 yards

Sewing Day Mother's Day

Last Saturday we celebrated Mother's Day by having an all-day sewing day at my Mom's house. My sister and I brought our projects and sewing supplies and we talked and sewed and ate and had a great time. We started out with a little show and tell. I showed my recent class projects that they hadn't seen in person. My sister's project was in pieces - but during our day she got the whole top together and was working on the borders when we decided to call it quits. My mom had some recent finishes that I snapped some quick pictures of.

The first one was all made with fruit and vegetable prints, which she calls "Farmer's Market". It came out really great! I had seen it a while back when it was in pieces and I am amazed at how it wonderful it looks all together. I've seen these prints in the shops and I could never figure out how I would ever use them in a quilt. Well done, Mom!

The next one is all done in black prints and white on white prints. The entire quilt is made of squares of different fabrics that are pieced together. A lot of work went into this one and the end result is stunning!!

Meanwhile I'm still working on my last class project until fall. Then a much appreciated break over the summer. It will be really nice to be able to sew without deadlines. Maybe I'll be able to work on my Dear Jane quilt again! I'm still plugging away at the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along for fun. I have the third block done and the fourth is cut out. Those will (should) be done over the weekend. I have some fabric purchases to confess, so I'll be back for the stash report on Sunday. Enjoy your weekend!

Stash Busting 2010 - Week 18

So I just couldn't resist! I had to join the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along. I'm using scrap stash instead of a jelly roll. With all the scraps I have, the toughest part was choosing which colors to use. I decided on pink and brown. I tried to make a pink and brown quilt once before, but that quilt had its own ideas and the colors changed. I like how this is starting out - kind of a chocolate cherries type of thing. The first two blocks are shown above. I'm only 3 blocks behind now. The next one is pretty simple, so I might be able to get that one done later tonight. We'll see...

On a sad note, Quilter's Studio, one of my local quilt shops is going out of business. There are some great deals to be had there right now. I stopped in on Saturday in search of fat quarters and possibly a layer cake for a couple of class projects that I have in mind. The shelves are getting bare there now and there were very few pre-cuts to be had. I did manage :) to buy four fat quarters - one of which will be for my Dear Jane quilt. So I guess that gets added to my stash! There were some great deals on yardage -- 50% to 70% off some really nice fabrics, but I was strong and didn't buy any. Maybe I won't be as strong next time I go by there...

Fabric added this week: 1.00 yards

Fabric used this week: 0.00 yards

Fabric added this year: 9.50 yards

Fabric used this year: 15.00 yards

Total stash used this year: 5.50 yards

Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along

I've seen so many fellow bloggers who have joined the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along, I'm getting really tempted to jump in! I don't have any jelly rolls hanging around and I can't justify buying one right now, but I practically have a room full of fabric that I can cut into 2 1/2" strips. I've been enjoying the pictures on people's blogs - the blocks are fairly simple, but very contemporary and striking! It would definitely count as stash busting. Oh, what to do... If you want to see what it's all about, hop over here for the info!

Stash Busting 2010 - Week 16

I finally made a zig zag quilt!! I had a great fat quarter bundle from the Hopscotch line made by Red Rooster. I didn't know what I was going to do with them when I got them about a year ago, but they worked perfectly in this quilt. It turned out bigger than I expected and I could only get a good picture of it when I hung it for the class preview last week. A draft blew over the lower left-hand corner that I only noticed the next day. It really is square down there in real life! The picture is a little dark, but the white is nice and bright and crisp in person. I am teaching the "no triangle" technique for making this design in class this session. I'm very happy with it. I didn't get a really good count on the yardage used because I have a lot left over, but I'm going to count this as 5 yards that is finally GONE from my stash. I only had to buy the border fabrics, but I did add those to the stash count already.

Next is Friendship Star Twist. I was playing around with colors and I decided the stars looked a bit like flowers and if I colored those red with gold centers, and made the corners green, I would get that flower effect. For some reason, it just didn't occur to me that this would end up looking like a Christmas quilt. Oh well, I didn't have one of those, so now I do! Christmas in Spring! This is not a very large quilt, so I think it will end up mostly as decoration during the holidays. All but the outer border came from stash, which was already added into the count, so I'm figuring a good three yards here.

The third project is a table runner that is actually finished (the other two are tops only), but there is just a small run of binding that is still not sewn down, so I'll take a picture of that one later. That one came completely from the stash. Not sure on yardage here, either -- I'll say 1 1/2 yards out (including the backing and binding).

It's so nice to have some "finishes" to report. I also gave away some fabric as a birthday gift, which amounted to about 1 1/4 yards.

Class officially starts tonight. We'll be zigging and zagging and having a good time, too! If I'm lucky, I'll be able to squeeze in a Dear Jane block tonight. We'll see...

Fabric added this week: 0.00 yards

Fabric used this week: 9.25 yards

Fabric added this year: 8.50 yards

Fabric used this year: 15.00 yards

Total stash busted this year: 6.50 yards

Check out this giveaway

ETA: This giveaway is closed now

Isn't this little quilt adorable? If you go over to Jaybird Quilts you can leave a comment for an entry to win this kit from the Fat Quarter Shop. There are other ways to get entered, too. Check it out!

Stash Manicure

I thought I'd share a blog I just found called "Stash Manicure". It just started up this month, and the posts are made by a variety of different people -- all lending ideas for reducing our fabric stash. Can't go wrong with that! I'll be checking back often to see what new ideas they have for me!

Happy Easter 2010

Easter Greetings to all. We're off to my sister's house for dinner with the family. Stash Report to follow (possibly tomorrow).

April Quilting Month II

Sew, Mama, Sew! is having their second (annual?) quilting month all during April. They will have information, ideas and tutorials every day this month. And, of course, Prizes! Here's a schedule of events. They are starting off with the basics, which I always find informative even though I've been quilting for more years than I can remember. I am always interested to see if other people have different ways of doing things than me. Hop over there often to see what's going on. There will be lots of inspiring quilts to see!

Stash Busting 2010 - Week 13

I'm a little late, but finally back to the stash report! Really, I waited yesterday because I am so close to a couple of finishes, I thought I might have something to report, but no luck. The day got late and I didn't finish anything.

Last Monday I finished another Dear Jane block shown above. I have another one half way finished, so I'm rolling right along with those at the moment. The bits of time I have during class are great for this project. I don't want anyone to see the class projects before they are ready, so I can't work on those there.

In the weeks that I didn't post a stash report, I bought 2 yards of white for one of the class projects, then yesterday I bought 2 yards for borders also for class projects. For the most part I just have borders left, so I'm really close to calling all that fabric busted!! In the mean time, I've fallen the "wrong way" in the stash report. Not for long, though!!

Fabric added this week: 4.00 yards
Fabric used this week: 0.00 yards

Fabric added this year: 8.50 yards
Fabric used this year: 5.75 yards

Total stash busted this year: -2.75 yards

Things of Inspiration and Interest 03/23/10

In my travels around the blogosphere, I have found some really interesting things. There are a lot of people doing great things out there! Unfortunately, I usually cannot find my way back to these websites after I leave them. In an effort to keep track of these things and to share them with you, I'm going to just make a quick post and link to them as I find them.

First up, a blog project by Lisa Congdon called "A Collection a Day, 2010", where she posts a picture of a collection of items every day in 2010. The collections are as fascinating to me as is the fact that she does this daily. As in Every. Single. Day.

I can't link to a picture, so you'll have to hop over there to check it out!

National Quilting Day 2010

I'm back! I couldn't let National Quilting Day go by without posting! I've been a little out of sorts since posting last. I got that nasty head cold that seems to be going around lately. After I got over that I went through a couple of weeks of just generally not feeling well -- very tired and low energy to the point of not being able to get much done other than work. I feel like I'm finally out of that funk and coming back to life. Right now I'm scrambling to get my projects ready for the next session of my quilting class which starts next month. I have one quilt that just needs borders, a table runner top that needs quilting and finishing, and another twin sized top that I'm a little farther behind on. I have all of the smaller units made and I need to assemble the blocks and then put those together. Yikes!

I did put together a Dear Jane block in class last week, and I'm really happy with it (see picture above). It is C3, and I foundation pieced it. It is a pretty straightforward block that I could have pieced the traditional way, but I like the accuracy of the foundation piecing, so I did it that way. I have another DJ block that is partially made, so maybe I'll be showing that one soon!

It's getting late and we're going out for burgers later (at my favorite burger joint) so I better get some sewing done before National Quilting Day is over!!