Two Colors!

I've been seeing a lot of scrappy quilts with this block (including one tutorial that I'd link to if I could remember where I saw it) and wondering if I could make one with my isosceles triangle die. I knew how to do it, but wasn't sure how that extra seam in each corner would look. And I wasn't sure I wanted to sacrifice some large scraps to find out.

Then I saw the red and white quilt show and got two color quilts on the brain. I went up to the sewing room yesterday to see if I could find that red sheet to try some drunkard's path blocks, even though I have definite plans for that sheet when/if I ever do find it.

I knew I had yellow sheets...and pumpkin sheets...and dark brown....

I didn't know I had this color! (And can be forgiven for not remembering, because this king size flat sheet came in an estate sale box that Grandma picked up for a couple of dollars.)



Even with the extra seams, which I think will be much less obvious once it's quilted and not hanging in a window, I really like this little quilt.

What I really love is how fast the Accuquilt cuts pieces for two colors quilts! It took literally a few minutes to cut my triangles, not counting the corner pieces, which I cut with my rotary cutter and ruler -- and even those didn't take long.

I figured out how wide I needed my strips to be, tore my sheets into loooong strips, then layered them two of each color. I cut pieces for this quilt, and for enough pink and white Drunkard's Path blocks to make a baby quilt.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to use my AccuQuilt for.

Red and White Quilt Show!

Okay, this is worth a second post for the day. Repro Quilt Lover is having an online red and white quilt show. Do you have a red and white quilt of your own to blog about? She's giving away the neatest set of red and white quilt fridge magnets to one of the participants, so if you have something red and white, you really should add it.

I love old two color quilts, enough that my birthday quilt for myself last year was a reproduction of one. Too bad "38" is blue and white, or I could enter it!



But Red Sparks definitely qualifies.



My red quilt probably has too much blue in it to count, and it definitely doesn't have that sharp, wonderful red/white contrast that I love so much.



How about this one? Does it count? It shares a lot of the same fabrics as that first quilt, but I don't think it's got that snappy white/red contrast either.

Red and white quilts make my heart go pitty pat. I was thinking of using a red sheet that's buried out in the sewing room to try out my drunkard's path die, but wasn't sure if I wanted a solid red/white quilt.

This may be making up my mind for me!

a little bit of a binge

I knew I'd have some quilting time yesterday and thought I might be able to piece the blocks for two lap quilts. Everything was cut except for the white background pieces and they go together pretty quickly once I've got a chance to sit down at the sewing machine.

There was an Indiana Jones marathon on USA and my boys watched all four movies back to back. I could go a very long time without hearing the music again.

By early evening, all seventy blocks were pieced. I'm hoping to assemble the tops before the kids get out of bed tomorrow morning.



And while I was piecing the blocks, which are everything-but-the-kitchen-sink scrappy, I wasn't happy with the way the fabrics were playing together. It's not a problem with the fabrics and the quilts will look fine when they're done. It's just that I've used some of these same prints in dozens of little quilts now and I'm tired of seeing them. Once I stick some new-to-me prints in my box of 2 1/2" squares, I'll be inspired by them all over again.

What I wanted to try yesterday was the same quilt, but controlled scrappy with only dark traditional prints. So I cut a new batch of squares. And while I was at it, I cut 1 1/2" strips for that bin (which is going to be a pineapple quilt when I work up the nerve) and 2x5" pieces for a rail fence quilt like the one I gave away. I miss that one now and then, so I thought doing a similar lap quilt would get it out of my system for a while. Either that, or convince me to make another big one for me.



I cut dark fabrics from a thrift store scrap bag I found a few weeks back and was very good about cutting what I grabbed instead of saving it for a future special project. Most of them will wind up in the pineapple quilt anyway.

It was all going great until I picked up my copy of Adventures with Leaders & Enders to see what size squires I'd need to cut for Rick Rack Nines and saw that Texas Braid (which was my whole justification for buying the book) uses 2x5" strips.

Guess I won't be doing that easy rail fence after all. And that I've got a whole heck of a lot more pieces to cut!

This morning, I'm drooling over the cute little girl knits at Aesthetic Nest. Especially this one, which there's a free pattern for. I think I want to knit it for my sister's little one.

Can I claim credit for these?

In one of my recent scrap bags was a stack of half square triangle units. Some unknown quilter went to a lot of trouble cutting those squares, marking diagonal lines, sewing then and cutting then and pressing them open.... So why didn't she put them together into a finished project? Or were all of these squares left over from something she did finish?

My scrap bags are full of these intriguing little mysteries, which is why they're so much more fun than buying new fabric straight off the bolt.

Last week, when I was determined to use up some stash so I'd have decent numbers in my weekly stash report, I decided to put them together into a lap quilt.



There were enough left over to add a border and make a second one. (The border and matching backing are another inexpensive thrift store find.)



I love these little lap quilts enough that I'm thinking of cutting a bunch of triangles on my own and making more like them.


Weekly Stash Report for week starting 2/27/11

Fabric Used this Week: 4 1/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 21 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 195.5 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 178.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 100 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3250 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 900 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4150 yards
Net Used for 2011: -900 yards

To see how everyone else did this week, click over to Patchwork Times.

I'm still sewing down binding

These two were both partially cut with my Go! cutter. I'm sticking with my strategy of using the die cutter for the shapes that would require templates or be a hassle with the rotary cutter. Or the shapes I've got the dies for -- that's actually most of it.

I did all of the triangles for my bear paw quilt with the cutter and the handful of squares by hand. I think I could have cut them with the same die I used for the triangles, but I didn't.



I don't have the die that would cut the corner triangles to go with the isosceles triangle to make a kaleidoscope (and it's low on my list of must-have dies), but it was the isosceles triangles I didn't want to cut on my own.



I've got two more lap quilts almost done with the binding, then I'm all caught up until I piece something new. Which I hope will be soon!

Do your kids play Webkinz? There's a Hopping Bunny giveaway going on right now -- log onto your account and click on the ad for the movie Hop, and you'll win a virtual hopping bunny pet. It comes with all of the same perks you'd get with a regular Webkinz pet, and it's absolutely adorable. Which probably makes no sense at all if you're not on Webkinz, but is a great treat for your kids if they're into Webkinz.

I'm only posting about this one here because my kids are always entering Webkinz contests, hoping to win one of the neat virtual pets. This one seems to be awarding a pet to everyone who enters, and we would have missed it if my son hadn't clicked on one of the ads yesterday.

Finishes!

I've been letting the binding pile up. Mostly because life has been too exciting to allow for much quilting, and partially because it makes sense.

There are days when I can spread out the fabric and spend some time and make a mess. Those are kind of hard to come by. Opportunities to sit in front of the television and hand stitch binding are a lot easier to come by. Some days there's not time or energy for much else. So why would it make sense to spend a day when I have the time and energy to cut fabric sewing binding down just so I can get a picture on the blog quickly?

Last night, I should have had time to quilt. Instead, I was curled up in the corner of the couch, sulking about my sore jaw, and glad to have a slew of quilts to finish binding.

These two lap quilts have been done since January, the most recent of my 2 1/2" postage-stampy experiments...





And this is the finished bee quilt, assembled from some nine patch blocks and parts of blocks that came from a thrift store scrap bag.

Boy Stuff

I've been missing out! While I was distracted by blogs full of mermaid tails and fluffy glittery tutus, I was oblivious to the fact that there is adorable stuff to make for little boys. Like a Jet Pack. Or Paratrooper Softies. And monstery Shadow Makers. There is boy stuff out there!

It's not like I never made cute stuff for my little guys....but I never would've thought of a jet pack!

I'm trying to distract myself from the fact that instead of the Accuquilt dies I was hoping to buy in a couple of months, the money will be going toward a root canal. For me. Because I lost a big chunk of tooth Friday while I was helping Quinn with his speech therapy homework.

Stale red licorice is good for building the muscles in his little jaws. It's apparently not as good for mommies.

So much for getting back to my normal routine this week.

Weekly Stash Report for week starting 2/20/11

Fabric Used this Week: 0
Fabric Used year to Date: 17 1/4 yards
Added this Week: 7 yards (two sheets Mom bought me at the thrift store)
Added Year to Date: 195.5 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 178.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 750 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3150 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0
Yarn Added Year to Date: 3250 yards
Net Used for 2011: -100 yards

Look at those yarn numbers! I might not have finished the three lap quilts I've had pin basted since Monday, but I did knit fifteen baby hats.

You can find the rest of the stash reports at Patchwork Times.

I guess this is another of my semi-weekly "I'm not quilting" posts. Partially because there's still no time, and partially because I'm not jumping desperately at every scrap of time that comes my way. To be honest, the last time I had a decent chunk of time, I was too distracted to decide what to do with it.

All's not lost -- I'm still knitting a lot of little baby hats. As long as the needles and yarn are where I am, those don't take much thought or concentration or motivation, and I can do them while I'm doing something else. My goal has been to have a hundred to send off by mid March, and I think I'm almost there. Then I think I'm going to take a break from baby hats for a while, or at least try some different patterns!

This has been done for almost two weeks, but I didn't get around to taking a picture until today. It's a Heartstrings top that was sent to me to finish. I don't know who made the top itself (I'm guessing one person because the same fabrics are repeated in so many blocks), but it's wonderful and I was very anxious about quilting it.





Now to make sure there's nothing scary lurking in the washer so I can get it laundered and off to its final destination.

Once the dust settles around here, I'm hoping to come up with some lime green fabric and make a set of blocks for the Lime Green Project.

a little time to play with fabric

I've made a couple of asterisk blocks...



They're fun to make, and cute, but I'm not sure what to do with them now. I don't really want to make an entire quilt worth...or maybe I do. this quilt is awfully cute.

The quilter responsible for one of my thrift store scrap bags left me eighty-two half square triangle blocks to play with. I always wonder about these odds and ends. Were they extras? Was it a project she abandoned?



It was a lot of work for someone to just give up on. And now it's going to be two little lap quilts for the nursing home. I suppose it could've been one bigger quilt, but I'm thinking lap quilts this week.




While I was writing this all, my mom called to tell me about the reporter who started speaking incoherently on the air. I just want to cry for that poor woman. I thought having it happen to me in the middle of a play date (not to mention in the checkout line at walmart) was awful.

Stash Report for week starting 2/13/11

Fabric Used this Week: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 17 1/4 yards
Added this Week: 9.5 yards
Added Year to Date: 188.5 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 171.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 250 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2400 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 3250 yards
Net Used for 2011: -850 yards

I did manage to use up some fabric this week. And Grandma showed up with some unexpected yardage and sheets -- which I wasn't about to turn down!

Life will settle down. I will be able to do some serious stash busting. Soon, I hope!

I've really got to keep my camera in my purse. We stopped at an estate sale and the house was an absolute time capsule of mid century modern goodies. Which was great when it came to the furniture (not for me and my 1920s farmhouse, but I'm sure someone went absolutely ga-ga over it!)

The time capsule effect wasn't as appealing when it came to the fabric for sale. Imagine a whole bed buried in bundles of double knit polyester. I wasn't even the slightest bit tempted.

And then I got distracted by the kitchen and its fantastic double oven and pull out stove top. I thought about driving back today to take pictures, because it was just so incredible. But that wasn't necessary. Turns out it's a Frigidaire Flair and there are whole websites devoted to it. And Samantha had one on Bewitched!

Honestly, I get more excited about old kitchen stuff, or stuff that's trying to look old, then I can get about granite countertops and brand new toys.

using up some fabric

Jo commented yesterday that if I ever want to get rid of my fabric I can easily donate or sell it. (Or, in the case of some of my fabric, throw it away or stuff cat beds for the animal shelter!)

That's it exactly! I don't have to use it all. I probably won't use it all in this lifetime. Except for the newest bags, and some yardage I've bought for specific project or just because it was pretty, I've already used enough to get my money's worth and justify the purchases.

But I'm not getting rid of the rest because I want to use it up. I don't look at fabric and think "that's dated.....that's too thin....that's not cotton....why does that have hot pink gambling coyotes on it?" I look at fabric and think "What could I do with that?" If it's dressmaking fabric, I probably won't want to do what I could do with it and will pass it on to someone else. If it's something I think I might ever actually use, I hang onto it.

How much fabric I've got doesn't bug me, but I would like to get it a lot more organized. And use a lot more, because that's kind of the point of hoarding it in the first place.

We've had a rare string of calm days, so I've taken full advantage of the chance to stay home and play.

I've made some cat quilts to take to the local shelter --



And used someone else's cast off nine patch blocks to make a little bee quilt --



This isn't how I would have done it if I'd started from scratch, but I challenged myself to work with what was already done and it's not a bad little quilt. It's even got bee backing and will have bee binding when it's done.

And I've got enough bee fabric left over for another complete bee quilt. I'd love to see what the original quilter did with this project. The way some of the scraps were cut makes me think there were wide borders involved. And the way the nine patch blocks were pieced just confused me. Which is why I hacked them into a disappearing nine patch.

And when I haven't had time to quilt, I've been finding new projects to try:

This heart wall quilt at Remember Your Karma, which is made from a recipe at the Moda Bake Shop. It's 40" square, and I think it would make a great baby quilt.

This one from Crazy Mom Quilts looks like a great way to use up some of those shirt pieces I cut a while back.

Weekly Stash Report, Week 7

Fabric Used this Week: 3 1/2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 10 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 179 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 169 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 350 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2150 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 3250 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1100 yards

Last week, Bonnie asked when my year started. I did start January 1, and I have really bought 179 yards so far in 2011.

But I've got my reasons!

Cheap second hand fabric is more plentiful in January. I'm sure it's because other quilters have made New Year's resolutions and decided to cut down on their stashes. Which I'm happy to take advantage of. I found two good scrap bags last month. That accounts for fifty yards (a wild guess that might be a little low.)

I also bought 120 yards of really nice yardage on Craigslist for fifty dollars. I had hoped to go back and buy the rest of her stash, but it didn't happen.

When will I ever have time to use it all up? I don't know. I'm not stressing about that too much.

staying home

Today is the first day in far too long that I've been able to just stay home and play with fabric. I actually got to use my newest Go! cutter die.

If the only thing I ever did with my Accuquilt Go was cut 2 1/2" triangles with the bonus die that came with the cutter, I think I'd still love this thing. There are a lot of projects I want to tackle that use triangles. But there are a lot of other dies I want to add to my stash.

The ones that were my top three choices when I was entering some of those Accuquilt giveaways have scooted down the list to make room for others.

The isosceles triangle? It makes kaleidoscope blocks, which is what I did today --



I posted last month about how desperately I want a Drunkard's Path die. Then I saw what I could do with a triangle in a square and I couldn't decide which one I wanted more.

I'd settled on the triangle in a square, then was browsing on Amazon and saw that the price for the Drunkard's Path die dropped to $29.99...and I had to make up my mind all over again. First to decide which die I wanted most, then whether I should wait a few more days for my latest two gift certificates from Swagbucks to post to my account, or if I should just pay cash and not gamble that the price wouldn't jump back up. I did wait, and the die wound up costing me fifteen dollars or so of real money and $20 worth of gift certificates I earned by indulging my children's' curiosity. Which works for me!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had a few brief and scattered chances to quilt.

I was looking for yardage to back a quilt and stumbled across a box of cut pieces I'd stashed up there months ago. I knew that I had those pieces, but I thought they were all diamonds. The top layer is diamonds. Then there's a layer of squares. And at the bottom is a layer of Drunkard's Path pieces.

The fabric is seriously weird -- I'm not even going to guess what it was intended for. Too thick for clothing, too think for upholstery, definitely synthetic. Definitely old. It'll make great animal shelter quilts. So I'm practicing piecing curves without pins while I wait for my die to be delivered.

Whoever cut them out was even less concerned about accuracy than I am, so it's a little hard to tell how I'm doing.

I pieced some of the diamonds into a cat quilt, which was anything but flat until I stippled it into submission.



And I got that backing I was looking for into a quilt that just needs me to stitch down the binding. I'm going to work on that tonight. And tomorrow I'm staying home again.

my new hobby

I've apparently given up quilting for a new hobby this week -- trying to keep four kids quiet in one end of a very small house while their daddy recovers from surgery. Hopefully I'll be back to the quilting soon, because that's a lot more fun.

At some point over the past week, my rotary cutter and both of my seam rippers and the little stand that the seam rippers have vanished. This isn't good. I'm going to need those when things finally settle down.

And things will settle down. Someday.

Weekly Stash Report (a day late this week)

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 6 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 3 yards
Added Year to Date: 179 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 172.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 450 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 1800 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 200 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 3250 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1450 yards

North Pacific

Now that I've pulled out the pattern and pieces and taken a good look at it, I'm feeling better about North Pacific. It would be possible to finish it in a month. Not likely, but possible.

Things have changed since I packed it away.

I've got the Go! to use for the rest of those 1500 half square triangles. Not having to measure them perfectly or cut them...and then not having to press the squares open and trim the dog ears...that could be the difference between this quilt happening or not happening. I don't mind sewing the triangles, but if I can make the cutting easier, I'm all for it.

Those bonus half square triangles I was saving from Monkey Business can be trimmed down to the size I need for the itty bitty sail pieces. So I don't have to cut those, either!

The long side pieces of boat background are supposed to be 2 1/2 x 4 1/2, but I decided to piece them with 2 1/2" squares I already had cut. I like the way it looks, but the background for the whales is an odd size I can't figure out how to piece.... so I may be redoing my boats after I finish some whales and see how it looks together.



Bill took the kids and I to the movies today. A local theater has fifty cent admission on Mondays, so it works out to about $20 for all six of us to see a movie and gorge on popcorn -- and most of that cost is the popcorn! Over the past couple of years, if it's Monday and we feel like going out, we see if there's something playing that the little guys will sit through.

Between the content advisories on the Internet Movie Database, and the Common Sense Ratings on Netflix, I can usually figure out if movies are going to be appropriate for the kids or not. I don't always agree with their logic, but it's better than guessing blindly based on a couple of commercials and the actual rating. Do those make any sense to anyone anymore?

I really wish I could find something like that for books. My teenage daughter brought one home from the young adult section of the library this week that absolutely horrifies me. She was in a hurry and picked it based on the intriguing title and cover. I looked through her books, read the description, was concerned, then started to read the book. I'm on page 68 and have lost track of how many times the main character has been sexually assaulted -- and that's not the worst of it.

This is a young adult book, not an adult title that wound up in the wrong section. The publisher's site says it's for readers age sixteen and up. That's great, but are the sixteen-year-olds still getting books from the young adult section? I'd rather my teenager didn't read it, but the world wouldn't end if she did. But my ten year old is starting to read YA books, and if I literally read 24/7 I wouldn't be able to pre-read everything the kids want to know if they can read.

I don't think for a second that they should rate books, but I would love a cheat sheet somewhere!

#8

I've been waiting anxiously to see what the UFO number for February was going to be, crossing my fingers that it was anything but #1 (Chickens at the Crossroads, which I can't find) or #2 (Spools, which would be impossible to finish in a month.) It was a huge relief when I saw that Patchwork Penguin had picked the number for the month and it was #8.

Then I checked my list and realized that my goal for this month is now to finish North Pacific. It's not a good month for this one....or maybe it is. Maybe I can channel my stress into a whole lot of Ocean Waves blocks and that intricately pieced border full of whales and sailing ships.



I've already given my Go! a workout this morning, cutting hundred of the 2 1/2" triangles I need for my blocks. Not that I couldn't cut them all with the ruler and rotary cutter, but it's so much easier not worrying about that 7/8" and cutting all of the squares in half.


Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 6 1/2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 6 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 30 yards
Added Year to Date: 176 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 169.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 200 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 1350 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 450 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 3050 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1700 yards

Yes, I bought more fabric. The thrift stores have more scrap bags in January, probably a result of quilters who made New Year's resolutions and decided to declutter. I'm still picking up the good stuff when I find it, knowing that there won't be as much later in the year. My goal is to organize my stash, not to get rid of it!

limits

I would've probably said that I didn't like limits on my quilting, if I hadn't been finishing these two quilts when the discussion came up.



When I started this one, I had a big hunk of off white muslin that didn't match any of my other muslin. So I cut enough for the green and white baby quilt, then cut as many 2 1/2" squares as I could from what was left. There were just barely enough for another 30x30 inch baby quilt.

Then I decided to make a lap quilt instead, which meant making the center as large as possible with the white squares I had and adding borders to bring it up to the size the nursing home asked for.



I saw the quilt that inspired this one from across a quilt shop. The fabrics I wanted to use were a sampler of fat eighths, which meant figuring out what size squares I could cut from them, and how many I'd have, and then working with what I had.

Those would be limits, right? The kind of things I'm always limited by without really thinking much about it. I work with whatever was in the stash bags...I quilt in the time left over after taking care of my family...I choose patterns based on my current skills and ability...and now and then I put silly limits on myself just because it seems like a good idea at the time.

I rarely stick to those for long.

trying to be patient

Wondered why I'm stressing so much over a binding?



This thing won't be heading for any quilt shows, but it's turning out okay. I've still got two sides to go, but it's going to get done -- maybe even by the end of January.

I still don't like this quilt. While sewing the binding, I realized that I'd love it if it was a postage stamp quilt, if the big blocks were patches of sixteen little squares, and the little blocks along the edge were four squares... gotta dig through my stash and cut more squares. Almost a thousand for Scrap Vomit, at least another thousand for this new idea, and more for that other postage stamp quilt I saw in a magazine last week...

I am getting really desperate for things to settle back to normal so that I can spend a couple of days wallowing in my fabric stash.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 120 yards (there's an explanation for that, a very good one!)
Added Year to Date: 146 yards
Net Used for 2011: -146 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 200 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 1150 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 2600 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1450 yards

sometimes you need a deadline

Quilting the 30s top shouldn't have taken longer than an afternoon, maybe two. It's not a large quilt. I'm only doing a basic meander, and I'm not being too picky about technique.

But somehow the quilting dragged on and on like you would not believe. This has got to be the free motion equivalent of the Yarn Harlot's black hole of knitting. Not a fun place to be, especially on a project you've fallen completely out of love with.

Yesterday, I decided that I had to be done quilting by the boys' bedtime tonight so I could do something actually fun with my Mommy time tonight. I finished with an hour to spare, and I've already started the binding.

If I can do a side a day (four days for the machine stitching, and four days for the hand stitching) I can get this done by the end of the month.

I am going to get this done.

this quilt may be jinxed

I've free motion quilted a couple of small quilts since my last tension war with the Janome. I don't remember having much trouble with Grandma's Donuts.

But the 30's quilt and the Janome and I are not getting along well at all. There's the tension. And the fact that I've got a zillion different corners to work with. And it just doesn't feel right.

But I am going to get this thing quilted so I can move on to the binding. Which is the whole point of the quilt.

done is better than perfect, I guess

It's seriously tempting to just curl up in the corner of the couch and sulk, even when we're having a good day and I could get some sewing done. I'm still stressed and waiting on things that are beyond my control, so I've decided to loosen up on my quilty goals for now, except for the Patchwork Penguin UFO challenge.

To pin baste the 30s quilt, I needed the front room to be free of kids and their stuff. There are only a couple of chances a week to make that happen, and I've been missing my chances. It doesn't help that I'm not enthused about this quilt.

It finally dawned on me that I've got twelve yards of lavender stuff that might be Kona left from that barn sale last winter. It's perfect, and I won't miss the few yards that this quilt will take. I got my back pieced, tossed it into the dryer to warm the wrinkles out, and then found the mud stains my daughter's cat left when she slept on it.

So no pin basting that night. I called the cat some mean names and got out the good stain remover, the stuff that got bright blue food coloring off of my carpet, and treated the spots.

They did not come out. I am not a happy quilter. I do not love my daughter's cat.

I also don't love this quilt, or want to sink any more money into it. That purple fabric is perfect. And while I was fighting with the rest of this, I found a couple of problems with the top. Did I mention that I don't love this quilt?

Done is better than perfect. Most of my quilts, except the ones I've deliberately hidden away from my family, have some sort of damage to them. If I put this quilt away until I figure out another backing, I'm not likely to return to it anytime soon.

So I basted the quilt with my original backing. I'm too annoyed at this point to even go through the other eight or so yards of purple fabric to make a spotless backing. Because that stupid cat will sleep on it once it's done. Or someone will duct tape pennies to it, or throw up on it, or spill something.

If I unexpectedly fall in love with this quilt, there's always applique.

What about you? Would you use damaged fabric to back a utility quilt you intended to keep for your own family?

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 6 yards
Added Year to Date: 26 yards
Net Used for 2011: -26 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 300 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 950 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 2600 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1650 yards

Six yards of fabric sounds like a lot, now that I'm thinking in terms of using enough to balance it out. But if I look at what it is, I've got no regrets.

Two yards is a crinkly, bright sort of floral not quite stripe and will be absolutely perfect to back that lap quilt I just finished. For a buck twenty-five, I got enough to back two, or maybe three little quilts.

The other four yards is a vintage sheet in a big splashy blue and green floral print that I absolutely love. I'm thinking of using it to back By the Lake, since I've already used the blue and green flannel sheet I was going to use for By the Lake on Grandma's Donuts.

We ask a lot of questions around here.

Are rat skeletons really made of cartilage?

What's a dredge?

What's a towhead?

Can we find a picture of a....?

How do signs spin without twisting the wires and breaking them?

The kids and I look up a lot of stuff. Most of the time I do know the answers to their questions, or have a pretty good idea, but it's a whole lot more useful to have my son read an illustrated article about dredges than it is for me to try to explain my own vague understanding of them.

We look up vocabulary words, and recipes, and historical events. For the past couple of months, we've been using Swagbucks instead of Google, because they reward random searches with points that can be used towards Amazon gift cards. They sell AccuQuilt dies on Amazon, cheaper than I've found them anywhere else. So I got myself an isosceles triangle die by indulging my children's' curiosity.

How amazingly cool is that?! Maybe it's a stay at home mom thing, but having something I really want fall into my lap is more fun than going out and spending money on it, probably because there's zero guilt.

Swagbucks awards points for searching, participating in surveys, watching videos, and playing free games. They've got some word games that I think could be easily addictive. Right now, you can get thirty extra points when you register by using the code SBGames. If my printer wasn't broken, I'd be using some of of their printable coupons, too. I buy store brand just about everything, but they've got dollar off coupons for the brand of shampoo I buy and the Jello cups Quinn is using for his speech therapy homework.

Mostly, though, we use it for searching and I rack up enough points for a $5 Amazon gift card every two or three weeks. It says in the rules that if they detect "unnatural" search habits, you may be shown the rules page. I keep expecting it to pop up, but surprisingly it never has.

Who knew our search habits could be considered natural?

15 minutes at a time

Here's my first little quilt top of 2011, pieced in fifteen minute chunks of time that I pretty much forced myself to spend sewing. I think I like it. I'm sure I'd like it better if I wasn't comparing it to the image of Scrap Vomit I'm carrying around in my head.

I really want to work on Scrap Vomit. I also really want to play with the two new Go! dies I got last week.

While I'm waiting, I'm browsing for inspiration.

Itty bitty dollhouse quilts. Pieced itty bitty dollhouse quilts. These are just amazing. I love the flying geese and the pink Chinese Coins with matching pillows and the little wall hanging with the trees...

I need Scrap Basket Sensations. I need to make Blessings from the Hollow and the first two quilts pictures here.

And Barbara Brackman has a Civil War Block of the Week. I don't know if I'll get any blocks done, but the history will sure be interesting.

burning yarn

It might have been best not to let my teenage daughter come into the kitchen and find me setting lengths of yarn on sale with the burner of the gas stove. Or it might have been worth it to see her reaction.

I had a good reason for what I was doing. Setting yarn on fire is an easy way to figure out if it's acrylic or wool. (Wool is hard to light and burns to a crumbly ash. Acrylic melts to a hard black knot.) Now I'm disappointed that so much of the yarn I found at the thrift store this week is actually wool and can't be used for the baby hats. Nine times out of ten, unidentified thrift store yarn is going to be acrylic. This week, someone was getting rid of the good stuff.

I'll get over my disappointment. The wool is in great colors and when I'm working on something else, I'll be glad to have it. Right now, though, I'm not in the mood for anything more complex than more baby hats.

I've been wanting to make myself this hat, and I even found a skein of Homepspun in a great shade of green for fifty cents. The printer is dead, but the pattern is simple enough that I could copy it by hand... It might be something good to work on while I'm in this stressed-out limbo of waiting.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 20 yards
Added Year to Date: 20 yards
Net Used for 2011: -20 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 650 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 650 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 2600 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 2600 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1950 yards

Like I said earlier, I'm guessing at numbers because I'm working with scraps of fabric and partial skeins of yarn. I didn't count the 800 or so yards of yarn I threw out over the weekend because it should've been gone before now.

Now I think I've got a little time to play in the new bag of scraps I found earlier this week and see if there really are twenty yards here or not.

off to a lousy start

Five years ago today, I had just been released from almost three weeks of hospital bed rest and was home in my own bed, expecting to rush back to the hospital at any time and hoping not to give birth on the way.

Four years ago today, we were on our eleventh day without running water, waiting until we could get the new well dug and trying to figure out how how to pay for it.

Last year, I was mourning the loss of my diamond earring, one of the pair my husband bought me because I was too young at the time to get away with an engagement ring.

2011 is getting off to a similar start. Nothing I feel like I should post on the blog -- the kids are all fine, Grandma is fine, and I'm just amazingly stressed and can't do anything except wait for the other shoe to drop. In two completely separate and unrelated situations. There are a couple of other things I'd normally be upset about, but they're so minor in comparison they don't even count.

I think I'm holding myself together with quilting thread. My goal for the new year was at least fifteen minutes a day of mindless piecing. Except for one day, I've managed to carve out the time. And it is WORKING! Fifteen minutes is enough to feel productive and not enough to feel guilty about.

Although I'm really looking forward to the day when I'll have a longer stretch of time to play with. Things will settle down. It would be nice if it was soon.

There's a new doll quilt along at Humble Quilts! It's called Midnight Stars and it's just as adorable as Strawberry Fields. I've got cheddar...I've got red...I've got shirtings....do I have blue for the setting blocks...I can buy blue for the setting blocks....but it turns out it only takes a fat quarter and I've probably got that if I actually make any effort to look.

There is an adorable little snowball quilt over at Inspired by Antique Quilts which I'd love to duplicate. I even asked permission like a good girl.

I could start Cheddar Cheese and Crackers...or something from the Schnibbles patterns I got for Christmas.... when things settle down a bit.

my little pool of light

Have I mentioned that my house, especially my little sewing coroner, is dark? Especially in winter. With the dining room light on, and the lights on in the adjacent front room and kitchen, I can almost see what I'm doing.

But it's better now!



One of the fun new toys I got for Christmas was a portable Ott Lite that fits neatly in the corner behind my sewing machine. I am loving this little pool of light!

One of the things I've decided to do this year is keep track of how much fabric comes in and how much goes out. I don't buy fabric in measurable amounts, but I can make wild guesses -- I'm thinking 30 yards a bag, less if I immediately sort through it and get rid of what I'm never going to use....4 yards for a sheet....one yard for a man's shirt, depending on size...

Guessing wildly (two yards each for the baby quilts, and eight yards each for the bigger ones) I think I used at least 125 yards of fabric last year.

So, because I'm silly, my numbers to beat for this year are --

18,000 yards of thread
125 yards of fabric
100 baby hats/booties

UFO #3

This month's number is three, so I guess I've got to finish my 30s quilt. The quilting should be straightforward enough, if the machine cooperates. It's the zig zag binding that I'm thinking may be a challenge.



I still feel like this one was a waste of fabric, which is why it's sat unfinished for a year. This is probably going to be the last of my make-a-quilt-to-use-a-fabric-collection projects.

I'm actually relieved that I get to start with something I know how to deal with, and have everything I need to finish.

Inspiration

I love reading end of the year posts and seeing how much fabric people have used, what projects they've finished, and what they've got planned next.

Some leave me in awe, like this one at Diary of a Sampler Lover. That is such a huge amount of work!

And the little quilts at mamacjt make my heart go pitty pat. There's a tutorial!

The last bit of the free motion quilt along is up at A Few Scraps and I'm just awed by her branches and words.

I want a drunkard's path die. I think I might actually want it more than the isosceles triangle die I ordered a couple of days ago. Because look at these. Especially Berry Strudel and Chocolate Go Round. And Dottie and Many Paths and Friends and Flowers. I like this layout too...and this one has 500 different fabrics in it...and I found one with strings...and there's devil's puzzle (along with a bunch other other layouts)...

I did not know there were so many things you could do with that block. I've got enough self control not to order myself a die, but I might start cutting templates out of cereal boxes before long.

making myself a little crazy

I'm making this a whole lot harder than it needs to be.



I'm thinking no more than five squares of any one fabric...which would mean at least two hundred different prints. I've got that. I've probably got enough to make every single square a different color.

The stress kicks in when I think about distributing that many different fabrics and colors and styles somewhat evenly over the whole thing.

I can do this. I have done this, on a smaller scale. If I'm going to make a quilt called "Scrap Vomit" I'm going to go all out.

Last night, I went through my bin of 2 1/2" squares and pulled out some prints I want to use. As I keep cutting squares in my efforts to sort out my stash, I'll add a few more at a time to the Stash Vomit pile and sew them into strips of seven. When I've got enough of those done, I'll think about sewing them into blocks.

Not sure how I'll do the alternate blocks. They've got fewer print squares, so I may just do them when the mood hits and trust that they'll work with the rest of it.

Looks like I've chosen my first big project of the new year!

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.