2011 year end totals

I'm still working to escape that weird limbo I fall into when I've been working like crazy to finish one project and suddenly it's done and a couple of days later I can't even remember what I was working on. Do you ever get that feeling, which is immediately followed by "How could I forget I was working on THAT?!"

Yesterday and this morning, I managed to put together one last baby quilt top for 2011. It's a nine-patch and snowball variation that I hadn't tried before and, although I tend to avoid borders whenever I can and this one was a bit of a hassle, I really think the quilt needs those little points around the edges.



This is going on my list of baby quilts I want to make bigger versions of.

I've had the year of the scrappy baby quilt, the year I made more quilts than I knew what do to with, and the year of knitting big flat things that didn't have to fit anyone. 2011 seems to have been my year of trying to keep my head above water.

I'd hoped to make more baby quilts than I made last year, but that didn't happen. My final total for 2011 was, I think, 26. Did I mention that my record keeping this year hasn't been the best?





The only two big quilts I finished this year were Cabbage Roses and the one I can't show you yet. <!- 30s barnraising>

Six or so UFOs got crossed of the list, mostly thanks to the Stashbusters UFO challenge. Nine more got added, bringing my current total up to 32. I can live with that. Counting the ones that got crossed off the list but not counted because they shouldn't have been there in the first place, I think I'm about even. But I like the new projects more than I like the ones I crossed off, so I'm actually ahead!

I made videos this year, and wrote patterns. And played with applique and pieced curves. I'm so ready to start sorting through my sewing room and corner and get started on some new projects. And dig out the UFOs to see where I left off and what I can get done next.

Weekly Stash Report -- 2011 Totals

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 88.25 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1033.5 yards
Fabric Trashed This Year: 54 yards
Net Added for 2011: 891.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14925 yards
Net Added for 2011: 8285 yards

So that means I added (roughly) 891 yards of fabric and 8285 yards of yarn to my stash this year. For more weekly stash reports, head over to Patchwork Times.


That big finish I haven't been able to show you yet? It's scheduled to appear on the Moda Bake Shop this Thursday and The Fat Quarter Shop is sponsoring a giveaway of enough fabric to make the whole quilt top -- so be sure to check back and enter!

trying to stay out of trouble

I don't do New Years, not as a celebration anyway, so today is our first day back to normal after the holidays. And I'm already finding ways to get myself into trouble.

First, I went over to Cat Patches to see who else had posted NewFO lists, and I found this:



Remember how much fun we all had drooling over Infinite Variety? Looks like theres some more red and white yumminess headed our way. I am NOT going out to buy fabric today. I probably shouldn't buy fifteen yards of fabric for a project I haven't even seen. Do I have any Joann's coupons? (For next week, not today.)

I'm not going to the post office to see if the pattern for Jo's new project is here yet.

I'm not driving to town to look for this, either. I could buy it for my Kindle, but I'm not willing to spend the same price for an ebook that I'd spend for the paperback.



Did you know there's a series of bee mysteries? Our bees have settled down for the season, so except for occasionally wondering why the barn cat is sleeping on top of the hive and if that's going to hurt either the cat or the bugs, there hasn't been much bee-talk around here lately.

I haven't read any myself yet, but these books sound fun and the author, Deb Baker, is giving away a Kindle Touch or Nook Simple Touch to one of her readers.

What I am doing today is cleaning up the last of the Christmas wreckage and starting a new baby quilt...and downloading more free books to my Kindle.

NewFOs!!

I really love this idea -- picking a dozen new projects to start in the new year and actually starting them. There are soooo many quilts I want to make. I've got stacks of magazines bristling with bookmarks...and more saved on my computer from websites and blogs...and more that are just dancing around in my head... And I know I'm never going to start them all, let alone finish them all.

And it Does Not Matter. I don't have to make every quilt I've ever fallen in love with. Unless I've bought an expensive pattern and fabric that can't be used for anything else, I'm not committed.

My NewFOs for 2012

Swoon
Spiral Log Cabin
Pineapple Quilt
Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage
applique ladies
Scrappy Kaleidoscope
Rob Peter to Pay Paul
big drab postage stamp quilt
lego quilt
wedged circles
big version of scrappy hearts
jack in the box
Kiss in the corner

These are just off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'll be modifying the list before long.

What quilts have you been wanting to start?

Merry Christmas!

The presents are open and I'll be spending the rest of the day wrestling toys out of their packaging. Whoever decided to replace some of those awful twisty wires with some kind of cord that you can actually cut with scissors -- thank you!

One boy is playing a new WII game, one is fiddling with a pirate sword and gun, and the other is carefully wrapping a new stuffed toy with rubber bands. Our oldest has vanished to her room.

And, between requests to open toys, I'm happily searching Amazon for free books to download to the three Kindles we just added to our household. Apparently the girl is doing the same thing, since a couple of confirmation emails just popped up on my screen.

For months now, I've been reading Bonnie's suggestions for free Kindle downloads and hoping to get one of my own, and downloading books to Kindle for PC just in case. I'm not going to admit just how many free books I've downloaded since I unwrapped my Fire last night. It's like adding patterns to my Ravelry queue -- it doesn't matter if I read them all or not. And I'm having fun browsing and finding all sorts of weird old stuff that sparks my interest.

Weekly Stash Report

Judy says this is our last stash report of the year, but I'm not quite sure how that works. The next six days are still part of 2011, and I definitely plan on restarting my totals January 1!

Next year almost has to be better than this year as far as fabric in/out. Not that I plan on completely giving up the thrift store search.

Fabric Used this Week: 6 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 88.25 yards
Added this Week: 9 yards
Added Year to Date: 1033 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2011: 945.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 400 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14925 yards
Net Added for 2011: 8285 yards

I'm totally wiped out from Christmas and the big project I can't show you, so it may be a couple more days before I'm totally back up to speed.

I guess it's three days now...

The countdown to Christmas is starting to feel like a loudly ticking clock...or maybe a hissing, rapidly burning fuse. Have I mentioned that I'm not nearly ready yet? Whatever doesn't get done today or tomorrow just isn't going to get done.

The randomly chosen winner of my Blog Hop Giveaway is @pril. Congratulations! The rulers are on their way. And I'll be having another fun giveaway in January to celebrate my 1000th blog post, so stay tuned for a chance to win some of my absolute favorite quilting books.

As I'm scrambling around trying to get things done in time for Christmas, I've been thinking about what I want to work on after the holidays are over and I've got time to breathe again.

I'm definitely going to participate in the NewFO Challenge over at Cat Patches. There are quilts that have been on my to-do list for ages, that I desperately want to make but I never start because there's always something else waiting in the wings. I've still got plenty of UFOs from prior years, and a few more I added this year, but I could use some NewFOs to go with them.

And Jo's having a Quilt Square Along. I just ordered my pattern, along with Dr. Frankenstein's Monster Wall Banner pattern. I saw that quilt somewhere a couple of years ago and never knew where the pattern came from.

What are you anxious to get started on?

five days left...or is it four?

All I know for sure is that I've got a lot to get done and I'm not sure when exactly I'm going to do any of it.

The quilt I can't show you yet is almost done. I rarely play with solids, so this one has been a lot of fun.

eight days left?!?!

Look at this post of antique mall eye candy over at Quiltville. I'm loving those Christmas stockings, even though the whole idea of cutter quilts makes me a little sad. As a last hope for quilts that only have a couple of good bits left, maybe...but I have this sad feeling that some people cutting up old quilts to make things to sell might be using quilts that still have some life in them. They do own the quilts and they can do what they want to with them...and it really is better than giving up on them entirely and tossing them in the dumpster. I'm going to keep having mixed feelings about this one.

So because I don't like the idea of cutter quilts, I'm thinking of making some little quilted sections to make stockings of my own. I think I might want to make every antique quilt Bonnie has ever posted pictures of. Someone please tell me not to even think about that too hard until long after Christmas. I just looked at the calendar and did the math and realized that I'm in serious trouble here!

Weekly Stash Report

No fabric to report as used this week, but I've been working on one big project all week. That Jelly Roll I showed you on Monday is now a finished quilt top.

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 82.25 yards
Added this Week: 1 yards
Added Year to Date: 1024 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2011: 942.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14525 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7885 yards

a whole bolt of batting

For a long time, I've wanted to buy a roll of batting. Specifically, I've wanted to buy a bolt of Warm & Natural cotton batting, my favorite stuff.

I'd been given a bolt of thick polyester batting by a quilter who didn't want to use it and, once I figured out that I could separate it into two thinner layers, I used every last bit of it in the baby quilts.

When you're making little baby quilts, a bolt of batting lasts a long time! I got so used to having batting there in the closet that it was almost a bit of a shock once it was finally all used up. I buy packaged batting when it's on sale, but I go through it as fast as I get it home.

Think the bolt of Warm & Natural that came in the mail a couple of weeks ago will last me a while?

Wrestling it out of the van, though the house, and into the closet just about did me in. That big box of cotton is heavy. Not to mention awkward. I was dreading pulling it back out of the closet tonight to cut off enough for the quilt I've been working on this week.

Out of the box, it's a lot easier to handle. And once I'd cut off enough for the new quilt and my Bento Box, it went back into the box again. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't.

I've got fabric, I've got thread, I've got batting (hooray for Black Friday sales and ordering online)....I'm a happy quilter!

Strawberry Stars tutorial

I was waiting to start this project until I saved up for some new Acuquilt dies, but Orca Bay changed my mind. These specialty rulers were just what I needed to cut my triangles!

Want to make your own? You'll need red and green scraps and the Companion Angle and Easy Angle rulers.

Quilt Size - 24" x 32"
Block Size - 6"

Fabric Requirements:

12 red prints - one 2" x 18" strip and one 3 1/2" square of each (you can piece together two 2" x 3 1/2" rectangles to make the square if you're working from strips)

12 green prints - one 2" x 15" strip of each

background fabric - 1 yard

binding - 1/4 yard

backing - 3/4 yard

Cutting Instructions:

For each block, you'll be cutting eight green half square triangles, four red half square triangles, four red center triangles, and four background half square triangles (not pictured).



To cut the green triangles, fold one of your green strips in half. Use the Easy Angle ruler - the bottom edge of the black triangle goes along one edge of the fabric and the 2" line goes along the other. Cut four pairs of triangles.



To cut the red triangles without wasting any fabric, fold one red strip in half. Use the Easy Angle to make the first cut, then the Companion Angle (line the edge of the fabric up with the 2" line) to cut two pairs of center triangles, then the Easy Angle again to make the last cut.



Assembly:

For each strawberry, you'll be constructing four flying geese units. Sew one green triangle along the side of a center red triangle. Press open. Sew a second green triangle along the opposite side and press open.

Don't have the rulers I used? There are several techniques for making flying geese here.




Sew one background half square triangle to each of the red half square triangles to make the corner sections.

Assemble the block as shown.



I put together my quilt with 2" sashing.

another kind of hole in the barn door

This (try to ignore the fact that it might be the dustiest piece of cross stitch in existence) is why I quilt...



I don't even pretend to understand how I went from cross-stitching quilts to quiting quilts, let alone how knitting crept into the mix, but that's what happened. It's been years since I did any cross-stitching, not since before the move. All of my patterns and fabric are packed away behind everything else in the sewing room.

Take a look at these quilts and wheelchair totes that the members of World of Charity Stitching have been making. Aren't those just the best justification for every single cute pattern you've wanted to stitch?

I'm forcing myself to wait until after Christmas to go up and dig my supplies out. The floss is on the shelf under the window, but I won't get much done with just that!

design wall monday

My big Orca Bay triumph for the week is that I know where all of the fabric for the project is. Probably. I know where enough to actually make the project is, but I won't be surprised if I find and throw in more reds and blues along the way.

I'm not done with any of the clues, but I've done at least a few pieces of the first three and I'm going to get to those red strips just as soon as I'm done with this:



UPS said it would be delivered by the end of the day tomorrow, so it was a happy (if a bit frightening) surprise to check my email this morning and read that it had already been left outside on my porch steps. I got to it before the local mail thieves, so I've got an extra day to work on my project.

I've also got two turorials to write and a tree stand to find and presents to buy and wrap....how many more days 'til Christmas?

To see more design walls, click over to Patchwork Times. For more Orca Bay updates, head over to Quiltville. And don't forget the Blog Hop Party and the rulers I'm giving away!

keeping track of the fabric

This has been my first year of keeping track of my fabric acquisitions. Not purchases, because at least half was given to me. And most of what I did purchase was dirt cheap. I think I've spent an average of fifty cents a yard this year, and that was on the nicer stuff. I bought very little new yardage.

Next year, I'm going to follow Jo's example and separate my fabric into categories -- new fabric purchases, old fabric purchases, and fabric that was given to me.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 1.25 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 82.25 yards
Added this Week: 3 yards
Added Year to Date: 1023 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2011: 941.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14525 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7885 yards

And then there's this:



When I add up the fabric that I've used for the week, I only count what's actually in the finished quilt, not the little leftover bits that are too small to be strings or crumbs. I've been tossing those bits into a bag when I cut scraps, intending to weigh them and add that total to my yardage used at the end of the year. I don't feel quite right counting it as "fabric used"....but it's not thrown away, either.

So I've got twenty-four yards of trimmings, and 30 yards of fabric that I donated back to Goodwill because it was still useful, just not for quilts.

And then there's the yarn -- most of the unused yarn for this year came in one box I bought at an estate sale for four bucks. Do I really have to count that as yarn I bought but didn't use? I don't want to toss it, because it's decent stuff and I've got kids making craft projects. But if it gets used for whatever they're tying up, it doesn't get counted toward my totals....and I threw away a whole bunch of tangled stuff last week without even thinking of counting it.

Have I mentioned that my record keeping isn't 100% accurate? But it does confirm that I brought home much more fabric than I used this year.

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times. And don't forget the Blog Hop Party and the rulers I'm giving away!

finish it up Friday - Strawberry Stars

Some of my favorite red and green scraps found their way into this little wall quilt. I started playing with the idea for this block back in July, drawing it out with pencils and graph paper. I started the blocks on Monday, because I wanted to see if that Companion Angle would do what I thought it would. And now I'm working on a tutorial for the little quilt. Check back for it later this week.

Strawberry Stars Tutorial

If you want a chance to win a Companion Angle and Easy Angle, leave a comment on this post before midnight on the 18th.

And to see lots more great finishes, head over to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

my new favorite toy - and I'm giving one away!

Quilting Gallery is celebrating its fourth birthday with a blog hop of quilty giveaways, which sounded way too much fun to miss out on.

If you haven't been by my blog before, I'm Michelle. I'm a stay at home mom to four kids and when I'm not homeschooling or running around with my family, I'm usually making scrap quilts. Sometimes knitting, but quilting is my main obsession these days. I love traditional quilts and the more different fabrics I can fit into one project the happier I am.

I've only been quilting a few years, but I'm fortunate to have a fantastic fabric stash thanks to my grandmother who, until recently, owned an antique mall. While she was looking for furniture and vintage treasures to resell, she was also keeping her eye open for fabric for me. Now that the antique mall has a new owner, she still hasn't stopped looking for furniture or fabric. I sew with whatever I can get my hands on and have an absolute blast doing it.

Now for my giveaway -- I'm giving away a Companion Angle ruler and an Easy Angle ruler.



I've had an Easy Angle of my own for a while, but never took it out of the packaging until the Orca Bay quilt along started. In the past two and a half weeks, I've used them to make hourglass units, and half square triangles for Orca Bay, and flying geese units for my own Strawberry Stars quilt.



I can't tell you how excited I am about these rulers! My biggest problem with triangles has always been that pesky 7/8" measurement. I can handle the bias edges, but it's that measuring that I go out of my way to avoid. With these rulers, I can cut triangles from the same strips I'm already using for squares. They're going to be great for projects where I only need a few triangles of each color.

To enter, just be a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post before midnight, December 18. I'll draw a winner and send them off. Please make sure that you're not a no-reply blogger so I have a way to contact you if you are the winner.

meet Evil Santa

This guy used to scare me every year when Grandma put him out for Christmas, in the same way that Red Riding Hood and the wolf hiding behind her grandma's bonnet did. They scared me, but I loved them just the same.

For as long as I've known him, he's had that blue spot on his hand and I've been wondering where it came from. His belt is around here somewhere - it fell off earlier this week when my youngest was dragging him around the house in a bear hug.

I think I've seen one of his twins lurking in every antique store I've ever been to. He doesn't scare me anymore -- although I do wonder who decided to give Santa that particular face. What about those features says "Merry Christmas?"

Grandma decided to get rid of him a few years back and of course that meant he had to come live at my house. My kids, most likely inspired by Invader Zim's Santa Song of Doom, have named him Evil Santa.

And of course they've never been even the slightest bit afraid of him.

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, and Vintage Thingies Thursday

they're strawberries!

It's not a Christmas quilt. Just forget that it's December and try not to make assumptions about the red and green. I got the idea for Strawberry Stars last summer but didn't start the quilt until this week.

What finally motivated me? The Easy Angle and Companion Angle. I'd been waiting until I got the 1" finished half square triangle die for my Go! Cutter, but after playing with my rulers for Orca Bay I decided to just go for it.

I chickened out a bit and I'm making slightly larger triangles than my original plan -- these are 1 1/2" finished -- which means I'll wind up with the same finished dimensions as my Grecian Squares quilt. Appropriate, since it was the Grecian Square quilt that inspired this one.



To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

Orca Bay - Clue 3

While I was working on the first Orca Bay clue, I cut extra 2" strips of my black and neutral fabric to use in another project. That gave me a desperately needed jump start on the third clue.

It's the first time I've used my Easy Angle ruler and I'm loving this thing. My biggest problem with triangles has always been that pesky 7/8" measurement. I can handle the bias edges and I don't love the dog ears, but it's that measuring that I go out of my way to avoid. With this ruler, I could cut triangles from the same strips I was already using for squares. It's going to be great for projects where I only need a couple of triangles.

Need your own Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers? Come back Friday -- I'll be giving away a brand new pair of them as part of the Quilter's Blog Hop Party! And be sure to visit Bonnie's Linky Party for this week.

Weekly Stash Report

Not a lot to report this week...

Fabric Used this Week: .75 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 81 yards
Added this Week: .5 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2011: 939.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 450 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14525 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7885 yards

Chickens at the Crossroads

This red fabric was supposed to be chickens. I bought it to make a chicken quilt. And then I found something else I wanted to try, decided that I wanted to make it in red and yellow, and didn't realize until too late that I was using my chicken fabric.



So I totally embraced the chicken thing and bought a chicken novelty print for the backing. And then it sat for five years because I wanted to quilt it with chickens and didn't know how to quilt at all. Now I can quilt, but I still don't know how to do chickens -- which I'm sure has a lot to do with the fact that I've never actually tried to quilt a chicken.

I pulled out the top a couple of weeks ago, dug out the backing fabric from the drawer it's been in since I bought it five years ago, and thought about trying something feathery.

And then the urge to get it done and cross another UFO off my list before the end of the year was stronger than the urge to wait until I could figure out feathers and I just meandered it.



There seems to be a pattern developing here, one I'm not sure that I like. Last week's finish was supposed to be a bed size quilt, but I made it into a small throw with the blocks that I already had finished. Not because I didn't want to make a big version of that quilt, but because I convinced myself I'd never get around to doing it with those blocks.

Enough people are out there saying - to me and everyone else - that we're never going to do things. I don't need to start doing it to myself.

This post is linked to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

not the way she planned it

We want our projects to turn out well. We're upset when something goes wrong -- a color bleeds, a line isn't quite right, a yarn over in the wrong spot distracts from the otherwise perfect lace pattern. But I think too many of us are ready to completely give up on a project when it doesn't turn out as planned.



My grandma...my father's mother, not the one who finds me all of the wonderful bags of scraps at the thrift store...made this honey jar. She didn't date it, but I'm guessing it was 1979 or not long after, when she'd just taken up ceramics and was spreading the bug to the rest of the family. She was brand new at ceramics, otherwise I probably wouldn't have it today. Because it would have come out the way she intended it to.

The colors were applied in a layer of under glaze, then the piece was fired, then it was glazed and fired again. In the heat of the kiln, the powdery glaze melts into a permanent, glassy layer. Pieces with glazed bottoms are set on little metal stilts to keep them from sticking to the kiln shelves. Lids are fired separately from their bases.

Or that's how it's supposed to be done. The lid of my little honey jar is permanently attatched because that's the way it was when she fired it.

I remember standing in Grandma's kitchen a few days after it happened. I can't remember the story word for word, but I can remember how much work she'd put into this little piece and how disappointed she was. And I can remember exactly where the little ceramic house with the thatched roof was sitting on her kitchen counter. It stayed there until she died many years later.



Now it sits on the window sill in my kitchen. If it had turned out the way Grandma planned, it wouldn't have the story, or the memories. It might've gone to Goodwill or the estate sales. Instead, it is mine and my kids know its story. Maybe they'll save it themselves. Or maybe they'll save a quilt that's had scissor damage repairs or light stains where there were pennies duct taped to the back.

Or something else entirely.

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, and Vintage Thingies Thursday

WFMW - more movies than we can possibly watch

When I was a kid, my parents owned an appliance store. It was in the first days of VHS tapes and they had a handful of movies to rent...Heckle and Jeckle and another cartoon that I can't remember right now. Then videodiscs came along and they had a rental section of those.

I remember being so jealous of my friend whose parents had a VHS player because she got to rent movies from the Movie Shack. In hindsight, I'm thinking it might've been because they had movies I hadn't seen yet, not because they had that many more movies.

Fast forward a few more years and the appliance store moved to a different location and bought out the rental inventory of a place that was going out of business. For one glorious weekend, we had that inventory in boxes the middle of our kitchen floor. Hundreds and hundreds of movies right there and permission to watch them as long as we didn't get them out of order. Of course we didn't have the boxes with the descriptions, just titles of a bunch of movies we'd never heard of...but it was fun!

That's what streaming Netflix reminds me of. More movies than I could possibly watch, all of them right there. And they're not going away at the end of the weekend. (To make it even more fun, they've started adding lots of those dumb old horror movies that I never got to rent from the Movie Shack.)

Besides providing me with horror movies to listen to late at night when I'm quilting after the kids are asleep, there area ton of old television series for the family to watch. I was surprised by how much my little guys liked Flipper. Who'd have thought they'd like that one?

Right now, the kids are loving Ruby Gloom (kind of an animated girly Addams Family -- it's hard to explain, but absolutely adorable..and you'll have the song in your head for days) and Sgt. Frog (like a Japanese Invader Zim, but better).

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

Barn Charm Tuesday

I love this old barn and its view of the mountains. It's next to a little white house that we drive by almost daily and the place is just so peaceful and well tended that passing by makes you feel that all is right with the world.

For more barns, visit Barn Charm Tuesday. There are some spectacular sunset shots, and an interior shot of sunlight emphasizing the gaps between the boards of an old barn.

Makes me want to go for a drive and look for old barns, but today we're staying home and I'm working on Orca Bay units. I set the timer yesterday and chain pieced hourglass units -- they really do go together fast if you can stop thinking of how MANY of them there are!

Orca Bay Step 2 -- I may be a convert!

I was going to use muslin in my string blocks, because that's the way I always do it. Even after Bonnie said not to, I was going to go out and buy some really thin interfacing. The idea of ripping out paper scares me -- what if all of my seams fell apart?

Friday and the second clue came, and Bonnie was kind of adamant about not leaving anything in those blocks. She's never led me wrong before, so I took a deep breath and grabbed one of the phone books.

We live in the land of the thousand phone books. There's a book for the little town we live near, and one for the county, and another one for the county that has a different assortment of towns...and I have to have one for Salem where we do most of our shopping... Just to function, we need half a dozen. And they always deliver duplicates, and books by competing companies, and the whole thing is a bit ridiculous. But I've got phone books for string piecing! And for the kids to try out some of the things they saw on the Mythbusters phonebook episode.

I wasn't prepared for this step. I've got blue fabric, lots of it. All buried under other things. But it didn't take long to cut strips for a couple of test blocks.

It took even less time to assemble the blocks and peel off the paper. I think Bonnie's made me a convert, at least for this project!

Now it's time to find my strings and pull out the blue ones, and some blue crumbs for the corners.

I'm linking this post to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Bonnie's Orca Bay Linky Party at Quiltville.

My First Quilt

Bonnie is having a First Quilts Linky Party!

Before I started my first "real" quilt, I did this. I can't tell you what I was thinking, other than that I'd read how to make squares in triangles and wanted to give it a try. It was a looong time before it got finished into a baby quilt. I think a big chunk of the binding still needs to be stitched down.



I do know what I was thinking when I started this one.



I'd been watching Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting on PBS and fallen in love with the split nine patch. But I was afraid of the triangles, so I did the whole thing with three inch squares. I think the layout I used came from a library book with different ideas for log cabin quilts.

The fabric is a combination of thrift store scraps and red tag clearance fabrics from Joann's. Half of the binding is cotton left over from a shirt I made in high school home economics. The muslin is the least expensive stuff I could find at Joann's using a coupon.



At the time I started playing with these blocks, I was still completely obsessed with knitting, so I made them a couple at a time, whenever the mood struck. It was a long time before I had the blocks all done -- by the time I laid them out on the floor and assembled the top, we were living in the new house and I'd had another baby. By the time I quilted it, my mother (who I don't think had started quilting when I started the project) had her longarm...did I mention that finishing this quilt took a while? And I'd started blocks for a bunch of other quilts that still aren't finished. There was the monkey quilt for Alex, and Dot to Dot, and my rail fence, which I wound up giving away to my best friend. And not long after that was the first of the log cabin quilts. It really feels like I've been doing this more than four or five years!

weekly stash report

No new fabric for the second week in a row. I found a mistake in last week's math and fixed it, but I'm not sure how many other mistakes I might've made over the past few months. I've actually been wondering about that for a while now. Next year, I'm going to figure out a better way to keep written records.


Fabric Used this Week: 3.5 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 80.25 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 939.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

skipping Black Friday (and showing off a finish)

I started this quilt early in 2008, probably not long after I started my first "real" quilt top. There was a smaller experiment before that one, but I don't really count that one. The Plan was to make a big quilt. I cut some squares, made some blocks, and then a bunch of other quilts happened.

And somehow along the way the plan changed. I convinced myself that the blocks I'd already pieced wouldn't work with the scraps I've got now. I didn't like the muslin I'd used for the block centers, and didn't have any more of it to make more that would match. I wasn't going to take the blocks apart and put them back together -- why do that when I could just make a fresh batch?

I assembled the blocks into a top. And I let them sit. They'd still be sitting if I hadn't gone looking for a project to finish this week. Of course now that they're quilted, I'm back to wanting a bed-size version. I really do love those tiny squares of fabric -- they finish to one and a half inches.

Most years, I'd have been out standing in line long before dawn, after Black Friday deals. This year, I was more excited about the second Orca Bay clue. And Bonnie did not disappoint!

I had a feeling the strings would make an appearance soon -- and here they are! Itty bitty strings which actually look a lot of fun to piece.

they're all cut!

My original goal was to get 100 of the hourglass units done this week. That
seemed like enough to count as decent progress, but not enough to overwhelm me. Now, I've got all of the pieces cut, and half of them sewn into pairs. And a few more assembled into the hourglass units.

All of those loose little triangles sitting in a pile at the side of my sewing machine make me nervous. I'm afraid that something will happen to scatter them and then I'll have to count again.

As much as I love playing with little pieces of fabric, I hate counting them --especially 448 of them. I'm not sure I've ever needed 448 pairs of anything before! The entire drunkard's path quilt took 320 units. Grandma's Donuts took 320 wedges.

I avoid counting pieces as much as I can.

For Quinn's Trip Around the World I know I need two hundred and sixteen strips. So I cut a bunch and assembled them into blocks and at some point I'll count the blocks and see how many more blocks I need and multiply it by six to see how many strips short I am. I did something similar with the pieces for Cabbage Roses, my drunkard's path quilt.

That's one of the reasons why I make so many quilts with 2 1/2" squares. I cut a bunch, use what I need, and toss what's left into my box of squares. Sooner or later they get used up. Or I need to cut more for the next project.

While I wait for the next clue, I'll see how many more of those hourglass blocks I can get sewn and finish up another UFO.

wfmw - a warm bathrobe

We've lived in a series of old houses, each one a bit older than the last. There was the rental, an awesome little mid-century modern place that I wish I had more pictures of. After that, we bought a a house that had been built in 1944. It was old enough to have plenty of quirks, but not old enough to be neat. Now, we've got a ninety year old farmhouse.

This time of year, I start paying attention to whether or not I can feel my toes. I don't think the boys slow down enough to ever feel the cold, inside or out.

It was fall of 2005 when we moved in and by the time it was cold enough to turn the furnace on for the year, all Hell had broken loose. I was in the hospital, both houses had been broken into, and we were still trying to finish up the move from there to here and sell the other house. The furnace got turned on, we installed a brand new monoxide detector, and we didn't think much about it until the next gas bill came. Keeping this house really warm would cost more than we're willing to spend. So we bundle up.

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post mourning my old bathrobe. My husband bought me a replacement for Christmas, and I bought a second replacement when I found it for five bucks at the thrift store a couple of months later.

I still wish I had kept that old purple robe. But the ones I've got now do the job. And I'm still keeping my eyes open for my dream robe. Sooner or later, I'll find it. (It may or may not be purple.)

It makes more sense to me to stock up on warm robes and quilts and socks than to spend extra money trying to keep the house a certain temperature. And it doesn't hurt that I'm finally off the blood thinners! Which also means I can have cranberries at Thanksgiving dinner and stop limiting my green veggies. Life, or at least this part of it, is good!

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

I love little pieces

Quilts with little pieces make my heart go pitty-pat. Most of my quilts are made up of 2 1/2" squares, and sometimes I start to wonder if those aren't just a little too big. Usually, I convince myself that 2 1/2" is a perfectly reasonable size, especially for baby quilts that I'm giving to someone else's baby. But I will do a postage stamp quilt for myself with much smaller pieces one of these days. And a Lego Quilt.



The first step for Orca Bay is right up my alley. I hadn't done many hourglass blocks before. And I hadn't used this ruler. But I'm loving the technique and I'm using some of my favorite neutrals. Bonnie said to use up the icky stuff, but it only takes a 1 1/2" strip of each print and I plan on keeping this, so I'm using fabrics I love. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if I even have any neutrals I don't love.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Bonnie's Orca Bay Linky Party at Quiltville.

there was a reason I couldn't find it

When I first discovered Quiltville a couple of years ago, I bought the two rulers Bonnie recommended. I knew one was the Easy Angle and, looking back, I assumed that the other one was the Companion Angle. That was the one she talked about when the clues for Roll Roll Cotton Boll came out.

Turns out, she also recommended the Easy Square Jr. and now that I look at the picture of that one, I'm pretty sure it the second one I bought when I bought my Easy Angle.

No wonder I couldn't find a ruler I never bought in the first place! (And no, I can't find the Easy Square Jr., either. But I'm not looking for that one, so it doesn't count.)



Now that I actually own the ruler I need, I've started cutting pieces.

Thanks for the advice on how to make this work without the special ruler. I knew I could do it, but trying to find that ruler was driving me nuts. And I really like that I can cut the pieces out of 1 1/2" strips. Whatever black and neutral strips I don't wind up using for this project will go into my pineapple quilt, whenever I start that.

Weekly Stash Report

Another week that no new fabric followed me home! Not a whole lot used up, since I've been recovering from the baby quilt binge.

Fabric Used this Week: 2 1/4 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 76.75 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 868.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

more blacks!

While I was searching around my sewing machine for my Companion Angle ruler, I found these blacks --

And some smaller pieces that I'll be able to use if I either find the ruler or decide that I never bought one in the first place and drive into town to buy one. Can I start with a different method and then switch to the ruler once I make it into town to buy another one? Or is that just asking for trouble?

While I'm cleaning up the sewing corner (because Thanksgiving is coming in less than a week, so it's time for that fun annual ritual), I'm also pulling out yellow fabrics because I stumbled across the instructions for Kiss in the Corner. How did I never see that one before?

Now what?

I made a terrible mess of my sewing corner while I was working on the baby quilts. So the first thing on my to-do list is to get that straightened up. Then I need to finalize my fabric choices for Orca Bay, and figure out where I moved my green strips to. And I've got some little quilts that I'm anxious to get started on.

But right now I'm holding my breath waiting for the results of yesterday's ultrasound on my leg. I really hope the blood clots are gone, but I've been feeling something in there for the past six months. And the ultrasound tech did a lot of clicking. How is it that I'm not allowed to look at the images of my own leg?

I should get back to the fabric and distract myself.

I won goodies from Needles and Pens. Isn't that yellow print gorgeous? And the buttons -- I don't know what I'm going to do with those, but it's going to be cute!

wfmw - the space bar

Did you know that instead of scrolling down with your mouse wheel and hoping that it'll stop on the right line, you can use your space bar to page down through one screen of text at a time? It makes skimming through the eye candy on the quilt blogs much easier on your hands!

There are all kinds of useful shortcuts. Especially when your daughter's bird bites a hunk out of your mouse cord. There's a more detailed list here that shows which shortcuts work in which browsers.

Just a handful can make your life a lot easier. In addition to the helpful space bar, try these --

Ctrl + c -- copy
Ctrl + v -- paste
Ctrl + f -- find
F5 -- reloads the screen

For more Works for Me Wednesday posts, visit We are THAT Family

only nine quilts

The stupid pulled muscle won, and I only finished nine quilts. But seven of those quilts didn't exist at all a week ago, and the other two would've sat until who knows when. And isn't that the point of a challenge -- trying to do something you know won't be easy?

The two other times I've tried this ten-baby-quilts-in-ten-days madness, I've had a stack of partially started projects to start with. This time, I had one top and nine blocks and no real plans.

So I'm calling it a success. I'll try it again, but it's not going to be soon!



This post is linked to Fabric Tuesday and Finish it up Friday.

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 10

#9 is done --



It's just this one with brighter colors and without the pieced background.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for the last quilt, but I've got fifteen hours or so to figure it out and get it done.

To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

12 1/4 Yards!

That's got to be a record for me, especially since all of this week's little quilts were brand new projects. Excuse the bindings, they'll be sewn down soon!

#7 is the same as one of the blue sheet quilts



#8 is the isosceles triangle die again. And it's polyester. I cut the pieces for it when I did the two color quilt video. I'm not going to claim that it goes together the same as nice cotton from the quilt shop, but it's really not that bad to work with.



Two more quilts to go and two days to do them in...and one very pulled muscle in my shoulder. Have I mentioned how much I miss Ibuprofen?

Fabric Used this Week: 12 1/4 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 74.5 yards
Added this Week: 8 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 945.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 7

I've caught my breath and I'm back to work. This is baby quilt #7, all quilted and waiting for me to measure the purple binding and see if there's enough left. And I've got definite plans for #8 and #9. Three quilts to go....three days to go...I can do this!

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 6

I'm going to step back and catch my breath today. The next three quilts are planned out and I'll be up early tomorrow morning, making them a reality. I'd forgotten how much fun these little quilts are to whip up one after another. Decide to try something to see how it will look, cut some squares, make a few blocks, dig out something to back it with, meander fun little curves and swirls, repeat!

Did I mention that I've been operating my the foot pedal of my sewing machine with my right foot for the past five days?

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 5

Today, I am going to work on a quilt without a blue background! Because, as much as I love this color, they're all starting to look the same.

This is the third time I've made this heart pattern, which I found in an old quilting magazine. I changed the setting triangles to make them pieced and totally ignored whatever measurements the designer used, and I've gone by memory for the past two versions, so I'm not sure how mine compares to the published version. I thought I might have it out of my system for a while, but looking at it this morning, I still think a bed-size version with a white background could be a fun way to show off scraps.

I won't have as much quilting time today and tomorrow, so I'm going to try to find a quick idea that'll work with the fabric on top of the pile.