2010 Year End Totals

This has been the year of the scrappy little baby quilt -- I finished 47 of them and would probably still be going strong if the group I was giving them to hadn't stopped putting together baby layettes and left me trying to figure out a home for future quilts.

I've got some new plans, but haven't quite got my enthusiasm for the scrappy little quilts back yet. Right now I'm in the mood to tackle UFOs, which wouldn't be such a bad thing. I'm hoping to settle into a mix of UFOs and scrappy little things and maybe a couple of new projects for me.

I only made four quilts (five, if you want to count Strawberry Fields, which is little and not finished yet) for my own household this year, and with the possible exception of Madder Snowballs, I'm madly in love with them all.



I couldn't choose a favorite between Grandma's Donuts and "38" and Courthouse Steps. They were challenges. They're the type of quilts I love.

Poor Madder Snowballs was easy, and really just an excuse to use a particular fabric line. It's a pattern I'd been wanting to try, I still like the colors and prints, but it doesn't make my heart go pitty pat like the other three do.

Knitting

I'm still not knitting anything big. This year, I did a scarf and a pair of fingerless mitts and a hat for Quinn that doesn't count because it came out so badly.

To keep my hands moving when we're watching television at night, I've been knitting baby hats and booties -- 31 pairs of Stay on Booties, 1 pair of Quick and Easy Baby Socks, 25 striped hats, 39 Baby's First Hats, and 4 hats from other patterns.

Thread

Over on Stashbusters, some of us kept track of how many spools of thread we emptied over the course of the year. My monthly totals are over in the sidebar -- it worked out to 14 1200 yard spools and 4 500 yard spools...18,800 yards of thread...forty bucks worth of just thread this year. That's kind of shocking, how much it costs to keep me in thread, even ordering from Connecting Threads.

That's not a bad year of quilting, despite my reinjured knee and Janome troubles. Would it be too much to ask for a cooperative sewing machine and no car wrecks in 2011?

UFOs

It's almost time to plunge into 2011 and start working on my UFOs. As far as I can tell, this is the complete list. I left out one top I've decided to give away, and a set of friendship blocks from long before I started quilting, but this should be everything else.

Projects I can finish soon
Green Postage Stamp Little Quilt
Irish Chain

WIPs
Quinn's Bargello
Monkey Business
My Pink and Green
Leftovers Again
By the Lake
North Pacific
My String Quilt
Lover's Knot
Spools

Projects I can finish
Bento Box
30s Square Cake
Strawberry Fields
Old 2" Scrappy Squares
Scrappy Cats

Projects I don't wanna finish
Scrappy Green Tree
Stained Glass Window
Sandstone Stack the Deck
Chicken Wool

Projects I can't find
Chickens at the Crossroads
Green Crazy Quilt Blocks
Blue Embroidery
Baby Coins
Baby blue 9 patch orphans
red and blue shirt quilt
green and pink kaleidoscope
bulls eyes

Total # of UFOs -- 28

Grandma's Donuts is finally done!

I let this one sit forever before I finally got the binding sewn on. Now my oldest has claimed it because it's "crisp and not broken in yet." Works for me. It'll be safe enough on her bed and she'll get bored with it and return it to me before long.

This is the quilt that made me wonder if I really wanted to buy an AccuQuilt.



Knowing that I traced and cut every last one of those 640 little wedges out by hand makes me feel like I accomplished something huge. Not to mention that it's part of showing off the quilt...I wasn't sure I wanted to give up that sense of satisfaction.

But I don't get any thrill at all out of cutting half square triangles. Those are just a pain. I want to try a couple of variations of drunkard's Path...and apple cores...and tumblers, but I'm not sure when I'll ever have the patience for all of that cutting and tracing.

Start to think about it that way, and the Accuquilt looks very attractive. Start to think about playing with fancy blocks for the charity quilts, and it starts to look even more fun.

I'd planned to buy my by Go! with some money I expect to get later this year, but the Black Friday sale was too good to resist, so instead of gambling that I'd find such a good price later, I decided to get the cutter and wait for the dies.

This is a good plan. I'll finish my UFOs that need a zillion triangles and by the time I do that, I'll know for sure that I still love it. If I buy one die at a time, I'll definitely get the ones I really want and use them all.

I had my wish list all planned out and went to Joann's to add up every single die I could possibly want, not that I expect to wind up with them all. I was just curious. The total came to a little over four hundred dollars.

Then I realized yesterday what the weird shaped triangles that I didn't think I'd possibly want are for. There's one for kaleidoscopes... and one for flying geese... and one that'll do the weird shapes from that quilt I fell in love with in Sisters last summer...

I think I'm going to want a lot of dies.

Bear Tracks

I've finally been able to flip through the first of my magazines. I'm not reading anything, just looking at pictures and sticking in scraps of paper to mark patterns I'd love to make, but will probably forget as soon as I see something else appealing.

This is the one that caught my eye last night --



It's not even a pattern, it's a picture in the letters section. The pattern is "Bear Tracks" by Darlene Zimmerman and is in the October 2001 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. I bet I've got that issue in my stack here, but I'm not going to look because I wouldn't follow the pattern if I had it.

My Accuquilt cuts 2 1/2" half square triangles, so my blocks are going to be 12"
I'm not sure if I'm planning to make nine or sixteen or twenty five -- that all depends on how my fabric choices and enthusiasm hold out. And I have no clue what I'm going to back it with.



I couldn't even tell you what it is that draws me to this quilt. Maybe that I haven't done bear tracks before?

Can I take the tree down yet?

The little ones actually lost interest in the tree after the second or third day, so I've stopped venting my frustration on it, but there's something about getting the tree out of the house and onto the burn pile that makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

I'm really looking forward to the new year. There's my UFO list to tackle -- I'm doing two UFO challenges, one at stash busters and one at Patchwork Penguin. I'm going to keep track of empty spools of thread again, and also of how much fabric I can use up.

My big goal is to work on organizing the sewing corner, and the actual sewing room upstairs.

Christmas is coming, isn't it?

There's no way I'm going to be actually ready, so I'm just trying to hunker down and survive until it's over. I did actually know where the tree stand was this year...and where the lights were...and I got the lights on the tree this afternoon.

And I got what I hope is about half of the presents wrapped, which may save me from sitting up until 2am Christmas eve. I think I've got all of the shopping done, except I forgot the gift tags.

So I'm actually doing better than usual! I should be proud of that, right?

Yesterday was going to be a long day. I needed caffeine for the trip up to town, so I ducked into the little market down the road to get a diet Coke....and I came back out with ninety-two quilting magazines.

They had a garage sale in the back room with a sad assortment of dusty old junk, none of it old enough or new enough to be exciting. And three huge boxes of needlework magazines for a dime each. Have I mentioned how much I love old quilting magazines, especially when they're dirt cheap and I can just grab everything that catches my eye without worrying too much about if there are missing pages or it's a duplicate of something I already have?

Assuming I only make ONE pattern that's unique to those magazines, I've still got my money's worth. Because patterns aren't that cheap. Just flipping through one magazine, I've already found a Drunkard's Path variation that I adore and have never seen before and want to start cutting fabric for RIGHT NOW.

Do I already have more patterns than I'll ever make in this lifetime? Sure, but drooling over patterns and daydreaming about making them doesn't actually commit me to anything. I've already got a stack of magazines with things I'm excited about and now and then I'll leaf through one and be overwhelmed with the urge to start cutting fabric.

Do I actually follow the patterns? Not usually. Most of the time I'll look at the measurements and wing it. I change sizes and leave off borders and a lot of my quilts this year haven't even come from patterns.

I'm forever nagging my best friend not to spend money on patterns that are just traditional blocks in a straight setting. I rarely buy single patterns myself, unless they're something really neat and original (that Drunkard's Path I just mentioned might qualify)

So I don't need the patterns. But they're sure fun to look at, and sometimes I'm just in the mood to read about quilting, even if the articles are decades old. It's usually the old stuff that inspires me the most.

But I do wish that Quilter's Newsletter had more distinctive covers. From the outside, they all look the same and it's hard to tell what I've got and what I don't, so I left almost all of those behind.

process

Grandma's Donuts has been waiting for a binding (even though it was my entry to the latest Blogger's Quilt Festival.) I wanted something bright that would go with the front of the quilt, and also with the blue flowered flannel I used on the back. I didn't want to piece the binding of this one, not unless I found a couple of perfect choices that went with each other well.

I'd pretty much decided to just go buy some red Kona, then convinced myself that it wouldn't go with the backing, then thought about blue...

And then we were at the thrift shop buying shirts for ten cents a piece and I found the dress.



It's not an attractive dress. It doesn't have a tag, so I can't be sure if it's a maternity dress or just cut like a circus tent for modesty's sake.

What it has going for it is that it's hundred percent cotton. No, I didn't do a burn test, but I'd be willing to bet on it. And I'm not sold on the the importance of 100% cotton anyway. It feels nice. The blue floral print goes well with the rest of my quilt.

And did I mention that it cost me a dime to bind the entire quilt, with plenty of fabric left to play with?

Not that I couldn't have gone and bought the Kona when I got around to it, but the floral is a better choice for this quilt. And it's a better story. I'm all for attaching neat stories to my quilts.



I've got a couple of movies on the DVR I want to watch tonight, so maybe I'll finish this quilt in 2010 after all!

my poor wedding ring

I don't like this.

Until last night, it had been at least six years, maybe ten, maybe longer, since I last had my ring off. It's been way too tight for a long time, but it took forever for me to convince myself that cutting it off and having it re sized was unavoidable, then I had to convince my husband that it was a good idea.

Turns out it was a VERY good idea, because two of the tips that hold the center stone in place are completely worn down and two more are almost as bad. We've narrowly avoided another diamond earring incident.

Not worrying all day long about whether my numb left hand is a migraine symptom or nerve damage from the ring is nice. Not having it there to snag on things is unsettling. I figure by the time my finger has gotten its shape back enough to have the ring resized, I'll have gotten used to not wearing it and having it there again will bug me.



I actually got some quilting done Friday night, and the Janome actually cooperated better than it has in months. Now I've got to stop obsessing about my ring and get the binding on.

No words for me :-(

All week long, I've been drooling over blog posts counting down to the release of Word Play Quilts. Especially the ones over at The Patchery Menagerie -- I can't put into words how much I love that fox quilt. Look at the back of this quilt over at A Few Scraps. And there's this neat little button quilt...and Tonya's Slither Eek Boo quilt...and more neat words here...

I was starting to hope that just maybe my copy might come in the mail soon, but I checked my order status this morning and it hasn't even shipped. Not that I'd be piecing letters today, but I want to be able to drool over it in person.

My one attempt at piecing letters didn't come out too bad. Not sure why I haven't tried more of it, but it probably has something to do with the four wild things.



I finally started piecing the blocks for Monkey Business, which is the whole reason I couldn't live without Scrap Basket Surprises. They go together easily enough, but I can't wrap my head around the way the quilt is laid out. Which means I can't figure out how many blocks I need to make it the size I want. Which makes me nervous.



I can do this. I just need to make enough blocks for me to lay out and see how the pattern works.

Baby quilt #4 has been done for a while, but I think I need to start over because I ordered a bunch of fabric from the Cyber Monday sale at Connecting Threads. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty, just frustrated that it messed up my count.

I don't think this is entirely my own fault!

I'm still working away at the sewing corner and every time I come back into the room something new has joined the clutter. Something that isn't mine, and that I didn't put there.

So far, I've dealt with coloring books, clothes, dismembered Barbie parts, stacks of fabric, Christmas decorations, and school books. This is like trying to bail out a sinking boat. While rabid pirates are firing things that aren't cannon balls at me.

Because I also got to call the bank and try to find out why they send a letter with our complete checking account number, and routing number, and loan number, to the wrong address.

And yesterday I got to do the dishes without a functioning drain in our kitchen sink. The kitchen sink and I have been at war for going on five years now, because if anyone puts anything at all down it, it'll start draining slowly. And it'll get worse and worse until we hit the point we were at yesterday, when I wind up bailing water and hauling it to the toilet because the dishes have to be done. I'm the only one who does the dishes, so I'm the only one who fully grasps how hopeless the whole situation is. I desperately want a garbage disposal, but for now I'll be content with my freshly unclogged drain.

Less time fighting with the sink means more time to work on my corner. And I'm going to sew a bit today, even if I have to do it while the house falls down around me.

I'm supposed to be cleaning my room

Mostly, I'm procrastinating because I'd rather cut triangles with my new toy than sort through fabric and haul it out to the sewing room. It could be done in a couple of hours, but not if I want to be able to actually work on anything once I'm done.

Maybe some before shots will shame me into faster progress, but don't expect a miracle.

My life is noisy

Wow, it's been a loud morning!

Oldest went out to feed the chickens and came in complaining that there was a cow on our property, on the other side of the stream. Mooing. Maybe that last detail was supposed to convince me that it was a cow and not the deer who sometimes do hang out back there. Or one of the chickens the guy across the street was ranging on our front lawn until recently.

It was a cow. And it was mooing. The girl has at least that much of her barnyard education down. Now we need to discuss property lines. At least I got a nice walk up the hill to verify that the fences are exactly where I think they are and the cow was on it own side. Wonder when they got a cow up there?

The little two wanted to walk up and see the cow, and big sister told them it was gone, that we were going to eat it for dinner. Which led to a delightful musical outburst by the four year old. He makes up his own songs at random, just rarely enough that they always catch me off guard. One night on the way home, I had to pull off the road because I was laughing so hard I couldn't drive.

He made up another song at Safeway -- this one about turkeys, because a little boy in a cart we passed was holding a Beanie Baby turkey. I don't keep my kids occupied in the store by letting them carry around things we have no intention of buying. I think it's mean to the kid, and rude to the store. It's also mean to other mommies who finally got their son to stop singing loudly about turkeys and then walk past the spot where that other mommy dumped their stuffed turkey next to the cracker boxes!

We're home now and, although I don't think they've gotten any quieter, I'm the only one who can hear the insanity. Works for me!

I'm sorting out my sewing corner and making a list of my UFOs. Today, that mostly means I'm sitting and trying to remember them all. So far the list is at twenty-nine. Not bad, considering how many things I tend to start and set aside with intentions of coming back to them later.

I've decided to participate in Patchwork Penguin's UFO Challenge 2011. The idea is that you pick ten UFOs and number them. Each month, she draws a number and that's the project you try to finish.

My projects are pretty much chosen, unless I finish some before the first of the year, or dig up something else I'd rather work on instead. Before January 1, I'll post the list of projects on my sidebar so I won't be tempted to cheat.

I want to be warm

About ten years back, I got rid of my bulky purple bathrobe with the zipper down the front. The thing was super warm and the house rarely got cold enough to justify wearing it for long. I was sure it took up more space than it was worth.

Once we moved into our ninety year old farmhouse and I started to question my decision. If I still had that robe, I swear I'd wear it over my clothes all day long when the temperature drops. (The robe I have now belts at the waist and it's just not the same.)

You would think I could find a cheap replacement at a thrift store, but I can't even find the nasty velour ones. What I think I had was a fleece or sweatshirt robe and I just looked up new ones online and saw the prices -- yikes!

THIS is why I'm so hesitant when it comes to decluttering. Lots of times it turns out that you really do need it later.



My natural gas heat doesn't make feel this warm and cozy. Could be the combination of ninety year old farmhouse and aged furnace. Some spots get warm. Most don't. So we keep the heat down and pile on the quilts and once in a while I realize that my feet are numb because someone turned the heat off.

I can't imagine knitting all of that just so it could be unravelled later (watch the making of video - it's amazing) I can't even figure out HOW you'd knit tennis shoes that could be smoothly unravelled again.

an envelope full of culture

Lier over at Ikat Bag gave away a little bit of culture, and I was lucky enough to win it.



These goodies actually came last Tuesday or Wednesday and the contents of the envelope quickly scattered through the house. There are gorgeous pictures of everything at the original giveaway post.

There were gummy bubbles (I was sure I'd had the same kind of bubbles when I was little, but either the ones I had weren't nearly as good, or my kids are way more capable of using them than I was.)...And an inflatable paper ball....And a little wooden top that spins and spins and spins...

I'm torn between taking the cute little food erasers out to play with them and keeping them in the cute packaging. Same with the building block pencils. These are going to have to live up in the sewing room with my grownup toys.

Alex has happily adopted the strawberry bag and paper ball.

The needles and seam ripper and pencil will be used soon, and I'm already trying to figure out the best use for that yummy batik.

A few days ago, I read this post about buyers-leavers remorse over at Pinksuedeshoe. It totally sums up how I feel about the sheets I left behind at the Salvation Army on Wednesday. I thought I was being good. I've got sheets. Lots and lots of sheets.

But in hindsight, those solid ones would've made perfect binding and backgrounds and sashing and I kind of wish I'd checked for stains to see if they were even worth buying. Now I'm crossing my fingers that they'll be there next week.

I was going to check today, but at midnight I convinced myself that I should stay home this morning instead of going out to shop before dawn. By the time I spent two hours driving and however many more hours in line, there was no way I could get everywhere I wanted to be and home by the the time I needed to be back. And when I started cutting down to what I could get done in the time I had, I decided not to even try.

I did get some great deals yesterday on the way to Thanksgiving dinner, toys my kids have been wanting for unbelievably dirt cheap. They would've got the same toys if I had to pay full price, but I paid half price and got twice as much for what I did pay.

Joann's had the Accuquilt Go! on sale this morning. I've totally convinced myself that I want one. Probably not need, but I definitely want....saw the sale flyer for Joann's and was very happy about the price....did some research earlier in the week and found out that the store only had two....listened to the little inner voice nagging at me that being first in line at Joann's might not be the safest plan and decided not to even try...

Then got a call from Mom that she'd gone in later this morning and had a Go! in the back of her Jeep for me in case I hadn't been able to get one myself. Neither of us realized that we could order one online -- or that if they sold out we could order one in the store. Guess I'm so used to those first come first serve doorbusters that I never thought to check further.

I've spent the afternoon searching for Go! reviews that I hadn't already read, and it really sounds like this will work for me. I'm anxious to get my hands on it.

I found it!

But as anxious as I was to find my camera cord, it wasn't enough to make up for the horrible morning I had.

At least I get to show off my pretty stack of folded shirt backs. I'm in love with this stack of fabric.



One of my big problems with shirts for quilting is that if one gets into the regular laundry I sometimes can't tell if it's one of mine, or a shirt my husband bought and only wore once or twice. Plaid shirts all kind of look alike.

In an effort to really truly keep things straight, I washed all of my new shirts and cut the backs off. Now there's no question that these are meant for quilts! I also cut off all of the buttons so I won't have to worry about separating them from the scraps later. Not sure why I bother, since my boys always seem to make off with them, but maybe I'll get this batch out to the sewing room first.

I thought I had lots of plans for these until I got a better look at the neutrals and realized how much I like them. That's when I froze and got scared to actually CUT them and make some decisions.

But now I think I've narrowed it down to Star Stuck, Smokey Mountain Stars, or Random Ohio Stars.

Shirts!

When I took the kids trick or treating downtown, I I got the times wrong, so we showed up a half hour early. The thrift store had huge signs that they were closing and everything was 75% off...

So while we were waiting for trick or treating to start, I cleared out a good chunk of her men's shirts for between nineteen and thirty-eight cents a piece. I thought I'd gushed about it here, but can't find the post so maybe I was too caught up in the Halloween whirl to actually manage to translate my giddiness into words.

Wednesday, Alex wanted to stop by the thrift store. I figured they were already closed and only drove down there to shut her up...

Bad, stupid, dumb Mommy! I really should listen to that girl more often.

Clothes (and shoes) were ten cents a piece. I got twenty or so shirts and three old wooden hangers with logos on them. Alex got three pairs of shoes and a pair of ice skates. She's eyeing the wedding dresses, but they're still more than I want to pay for a future craft project.

We went back today. Ten more pairs of shoes and a formal dress for Alex, and two huge bags of shirts for me. I didn't look at the boys and women's sections Wednesday, because they've got less fabric than the men's shirts. But for ten cents, I can deal with darts and shaping.

Counting the Halloween shirts, I think I've probably got seventy shirts here. And I was being picky. They're all 100% cotton (or close enough) and decent colors.

Tonight, I'm doing laundry. Loads and loads of laundry.

47 to go

I totally lost my momentum this weekend when I got a call that the group I've been making the baby quilts for has stopped doing layettes for needy moms. I expected it to happen soon because the ladies in charge are both in fragile health, but wasn't ready for it to be right now.

Because my quilts aren't all 100% cotton, and most of them contain at least some repurposed fabric, they don't fit the guidelines for a lot of the groups that need baby quilts. And I'd rather donate locally so that my quilting budget is going for quilting, not postage. After making some calls on Monday, I think I've found a pregnancy center that can use some, so I've got my fingers crossed that they'll like the quilts I'm going to take in later this week.

The other group had me so spoiled. I got to make my own rules and knew that if anything ever wasn't up to their standards, it would go back to me and not into the trash. Out of thirtysome quilts, they used them all.

Once I stopped sulking, I quilted and bound the first three of my fifty quilts. They were all done and pin basted, so even if I didn't know where they were going, I might as well finish them, right?







Loading pictures onto the other computer is a huge hassle. I really need to find my cord, but playing with fabric is more fun and the cord is in the room where the fabric is. It'll turn up eventually. Probably about ten minutes after I break down and buy a replacement.

I've got stew simmering in the crock pot for dinner, school amost done for the day, and since I don't have to leave the house, I'm going to see if I can pinbaste the next three tops during nap time.

I can do this!

Not today, because I made the mistake of actually realizing how long it had been since my last bad migraine and promptly got a nasty one. Now that my Caffergot has kicked in, I'm moving slowly and carefully.

But, at some point, I'm going to be able to do those fifty baby quilts. I've been digging through my sewing corner today and already found more batting and potential backings than I thought I had. Enough for fifty? Who knows, but I'm sure I'll unearth more options as I work on using what I've got laid out now.

Matching up potential backings with tops I'm either working on or planning soon is fun -- more fun than making a top and then stressing about what to match it with.

I'm taking baby steps towards a more organized sewing corner -- and once I've got room to breathe in here, I can go out and tackle the actual sewing room. I'd love to be organized before it gets really cold out there.

And to find that camera cable....

Earlier this week, I was busy playing with 2 1/2" squares. Now I'm wondering if I should set more aside for my own projects.

Care at Obessively Stitching is saving little I Spy squares to make a quilt for her own bed. And she's framing them into adorable little blocks.

And look at the scrap quilt by the Curious Quilter here -- 2900 different fabrics. I did a little digging and found a post about how she made it.