6 more

I've decided that this quilt, even if I don't make any more blocks, completely justifies my shirt stash. And my scraps. I'm including some fabrics in this quilt that I would've sworn I'd never want to use for anything.





Look at this fantastic magnetic bakery over at Ikat Bag! Never mind that I don't have a little enough girl, I kinda want one of these for me.

There's not much time left to enter, but Jennifer is giving away Go! Baby and three dies.

I spent yesterday beating myself up because I'd lost my camera. I knew I had it in my pocket Sunday afternoon while I was getting the kids ready to go to the park. I knew I'd decided to take it out of my pocket before it fell out. And I knew it left my pocket before we left the house.

What I didn't know was if it had fallen out somewhere, or if I'd taken it out and set it in a safe place. There was also the chance that one my little guys had picked it up and made off with it.

So I sulked for a while. I needed to have that camera tomorrow, and if I couldn't find it, there wasn't any point in finishing the rest of the things I needed for tomorrow.

As soon as I stopped pouting and actually got to work, I found the camera in the box of fabric it had dropped into. If I'd just worked on my project to begin with, I would've found it before lunch and saved myself a lot of worry.

Now that I've got my act together, my plans for tomorrow have been cancelled anyway. I can't blog about why, but trust me, it's a hell of a story.

Far more exciting than what we did here this afternoon, which was opening up the hive to refill their feeder with sugar water. Ten thousand bees are much more intimidating when they're flying around.

I may want my own bee suit for mother's day.

More new-to-me fabric this week, with an explanation that I posted yesterday. A little knitting, no new yarn and no fabric use to report because I've spent all of my sewing time on the hobo blocks.

Weekly Stash Report #16

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 33 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 184 yards
Added Year to Date: 589 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 555.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 100 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3700 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 11000 yards
Net Used for 2011: -7300 yards

See how everyone else is doing over at Patchwork Times

Because I'm stressed enough about the knee surgery I've got scheduled next month, I've decided to stick with the sewing/knitting/whatever that keeps me distracted and not worry too much about how much fabric and yarn goes in and out each week.

I'm having a real love/hate relationship with the Hobo Quilt. The fabric selection stresses me more than anything. I definitely need more drab blacks.

I actually did more blocks than I thought yesterday --



And here's the quilt so far --

explanations

My weekly stash reports almost always claim that there's an explanation for the amount of fabric that keeps following me home. This time, I thought I'd actually explain.



There was an ad on Craig's List:

100 pounds of fabric scraps from quilter's collection, $60 obo

The real ad was slightly more detailed, but not by much. There were no pictures. The only way to contact the seller was by text message. And I'm apparently the only one on the planet who still doesn't know how to text, but I kept thinking about that ad and eventually got motivated enough to figure it out. Got the address, which was a few blocks away from our old house. (The house where I had to check for gang members drinking in the street before going out to buy groceries.) Found another responsible adult to go with me.

I didn't really have high hopes, since one of the text messages said there was no yardage and I was envisioning a hundred pounds of strings and crumbs. But different quilters have different ideas of what a scrap is, and a hundred pounds would be something like four hundred yards...

Do you see that pile of yardage behind my Go Cutter? I can understand that some quilters wouldn't see half yard cuts or fat quarters as yardage, but three and four yard cuts of fabric? Nice, recently manufactured fabric. Even the scraps are big -- lots of wide strips that I was able to run through the cutter with my 2 1/2" square die.

I spent a couple of hours last night, watching a stupid movie on Netflix and sorting through scraps to cut into squares or circles.

There wasn't a hundred pounds, I could tell that just by picking up the boxes myself. One good thing about this weekly stash report is that I'm getting better at looking at a bag or box of fabric and guessing how much is there. I wound up with fifty pounds of fabric, about 200 yards, for $45. Twenty-two cents a yard.

Did I mention that every last bit of it was good 100% cotton?



My goal for last night was to finish five more blocks of the Hobo Quilt. By the time I got through the first two, I was ready to throw in the towel. Many of the online reviews I've read have said that there are problems with measurements for three of the blocks. Nothing I can find actually names those three blocks.

Easy Mark is one that I had trouble with last night. If my math is right, one of those red checked blocks should be 4" long.

My blocks aren't coming out quite right, but I'll adjust it all when I get to the sashing.

I'm not sure if I'm having fun or not at this point -- but I keep making more blocks!

bees!

See that box? The one right next to my husband's hand?



There are 10,000 Italian honey bees in that box. The supplier suggests bringing them home in the trunk of your car, but the mini van doesn't have a trunk. And putting it in the back, directly behind a pair of fascinated little boys, seemed like a worse idea than having it ride home between the grownups.

It's our first year with bees... my first ride in the car with a buzzing box inches from my thigh and arm....

And then when you get them home, you shake them into the box, and bang on the box, hard, to get the stragglers out and into the hive...



I wound up much closer to those bees than I planned to get, without benefit of a nifty while suit and veil. No one was stung, which seems like a minor miracle, but makes me feel a lot kinder towards our new pets.

Today's inspiration:

I'm loving This lace shoulder shawl knit from Caron Simply Soft. Wish the pattern was charted instead of written out, but

I'm also intrigued by the Peekaboo Sweater. And look at the Papel Picado crochet chart! I've wanted to learn filet crochet -- this skull might push me over the edge. If, like me, you don't know what Papel Picadois, it's perforated paper, the same as those flags and banners I'm always drooling over when we travel to New Mexico.

I can absolutely see my daughter making a plan betta, or me making one for her.

hobo blocks

After I posted about Hobo Quilts Monday night, I had a flash of inspiration. All of those odd bits of shirts that were annoying me becaue they're too small to cut five inch squares for the 10 Minute blocks?

They're perfect for this quilt. Combine them with some really drab ugly cotton prints that I haven't known what to do with, and I think I can pull this off!

Hobo Quilts

I've got a thing for sampler quilts. Not the ones with a handful of twelve inch blocks, the impossible ones with lots of itty bitty blocks. Not that I've started my own yet, I'm just collecting the books. I've got Dear Jane, and the Civil War Diary Quilt, and the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt -- which I would've started right away if the measurements were in the actual book and not on a stupid disk that I lack the enthusiasm to mess with!

Hobo Quilts jumped off the library shelf at me a couple of weeks ago. It was the block on the spine with the appliqued loaf of bread. How could I not want to applique a loaf of bread?



The book sat in our library bag with a bunch of picture books, unopened until last night when I got an email from the library reminding me that it would be due soon. So I cuddled up with the book, reading through the first person narratives and looking at the pictures. And looking at the blocks, thinking "That wouldn't be too hard, would it?"

But I couldn't picture a quilt made with those blocks, not until I got to page 154.



I want this quilt!

weekly stash report #15

Fabric Used this Week: 1 3/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 33 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 100 yards
Added Year to Date: 405 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 371.25 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3600 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 11000 yards
Net Used for 2011: -7400 yards

More fabric. Again. I'm starting to see why Judy loses so many participants because, although I'm thrilled with the fabric that's been following me home, I hate to think what it looks like week after week. (And I feel like I need to add the usual "I hardly bought any of it it myself" bit -- this week, I bought ten yards of quilt shop quality neutrals for $20.)

A lot of the new fabric is estate sale sheets that Grandma picked up for ten cents each. There are some great solids and prints, and a couple that will probably be foundation for string blocks. Some is the old calico prints I love, found dirt cheap on Craig's List.

And, although it doesn't fit in the weekly report, I went through my existing stash and threw out thirty yards of fabric that was never going to be a quilt, or a cat quilt, or anything else I want to make.

To see what everyone else is up to, click over to Patchwork Times.

what?

I haven't been able to figure out what to work on today. There's my birthday quilt, which I started a couple of days before my birthday. And there are my 10 Minute Blocks. There's the jelly roll lap quilt, which I want to lengthen with a few more strips. There's the new Accuquilt die that came this week, the one I've been dying for. And it's probably warm enough to go up and start digging through the sewing room.

What I wound up working on was the purple and white lap quilt I started cutting for the Accuquilt video. The top is together, and I've got a striped purple sheet that will work great for the backing -- leaving more of the solid purple for another two color something or other.

And I suppose I've got a list to start working my way through tomorrow.

I'm drooling over the lace jewelry at Whiteowl: found. I love the delicate combination of lace and beads and chain, and I love the way they've photographed the pieces against battered old books.

If I knew how to use power tools...

I'd make myself a clock.

But I don't have the nerve to touch those things, and even if I did, they're my husband's and I don't mess with his expensive toys without permission. Permission would require explanations. And explanations would lead to questions and it's probably just better if I stick with my own fun toys.

Our kitchen is on hold again, but I'm still browsing for 1920s kitchen decor. Today, I found The Dilletante Proprietor. Wow! I think this is going to be one of those blogs that I read from first post to last.

red and white

This is the quilt I thought I added to the Red and White Quilt Show -- sorry I don't seem to have any pictures of it actually quilted.



The disappearing four patch was the first quilt that came to mind, the one I went looking for a picture of. It didn't hit me until the middle of the night several days later that I'd found and blogged about the wrong little red and white quilt.

Not that it makes any difference, but I'd love to know what was going on in my head that day. How do you look at one quilt and write accurately about it and still be convinced it's a completely different quilt?

There's an absolutely fantastic set of photos from Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts on Flickr. I would love to see those quilts in real life, but I'm sure I'm better able to appreciate them as quilts by looking one at a time on my computer screen over a span of days. (And that iPad app is one of the few things that makes me envy the quilters with more technology than I've got!)

Imagine what a quilter could do with a few yards of red and white yardage or some red and white sheets....

dumbing down?

I've been reading post after post about the dumbing down of quilting.

Are triangles really so scary? I swear, I'm missing something here. What is so daunting about just cutting triangles and sewing them together? Measuring that 7/8" isn't my favorite thing ever, but the bias just doesn't seem like that big a deal.

My very first quilt had triangles because I apparently didn't know they were supposed to be intimidating.



What bugs me isn't when quilters choose not to do a technique because they have no interest in it, or after they've tried it and decided it's not for them. It's when quilters want to try something and other quilters discourage them.

My mother has wanted to learn paper piecing for years, but early on a quilting friend told her never to bother because it was way too hard and not worth the trouble. My twelve year old has learned to paper piece from another quilting friend, but I don't know what it will take for Mom to work up the nerve to give it a try.

My best friend, who had only made three very basic quilts at the time, was looking through a pattern book and absolutely fell in love with the improved nine patch pattern. (similar pattern here, but my friend's didn't have the straight edges to make it easier) She wanted to make it for her husband. Her quilting friend told her that even experienced quilters didn't do curved piecing anymore.

My friend did make her quilt, which is an absolute heirloom. Apparently, I taught her to piece the curves by reading directions to her over the phone and cutting out some pieces and trying it myself to convince her that they'd fit together. Did I mention that I didn't know how to piece curves either at the time?

I wonder how much of this dumbing down comes from quilters telling other quilters that certain things are too hard, or too much hassle.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 1 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 32 yards
Added this Week: 28 yards
Added Year to Date: 327 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 295 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3600 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 11000 yards
Net Used for 2011: -7400 yards

Head over to Patchwork Times to see how everyone else is doing.

I've had Accuquilt on the brain all day. I've been talking to Mom about it, making plans to cut a bunch of circles so we can try Jo's Bubbly Quilt. I've been on the phone to Grandma, telling her to watch for the dies I'm having sent to her house so that the local mail thieves won't walk off with them if they come here.

Now that I've saved up enough Swagbucks (there's an explanation of that here) for the Amazon gift certificates, I'm waiting impatiently for my Triangles in Square die to get here.

And while I was looking at something on the Accuquilt site I saw that the two new dies that were sold out when I tried to order them on my birthday are back in stock.

Yippee!

I finally made a video!

I've written before about how quickly the Go! cutter can turn a couple of thrifted cotton sheets into pieces for a two color quilt, and now I've made a video to show you how it works. Tear the sheets into strips, run them through the cutter, and you're ready to start piecing a quilt.

If you've read my blog before, you can probably tell that that's not my sewing room in the video. It's my mother's. She was nice enough to let me use her room (and her sewing machine) and hold my camera. And my father was nice enough to keep the boys downstairs with him.

Mercy House

I've mentioned the baby hats, but I haven't posted any pictures of them because they're not all that exciting. I've come up with some color combinations that I love, but I'm not sure anyone else wants to see baby hats day after day after day.

This is what I've been up to since about mid-December --



Ninety little hats, all on their way to Mercy House, along with a couple of baby quilts because there was extra room in the box. This is the post that made me want to do something for Mercy House. And that's most of what I know about Mercy House, along wih the other posts I've read at We are THAT family. I stumbled across it by accident and it hasn't left my mind for long since.

There were supposed to be a hundred little hats if I met my goal. At one point, I counted and there were a hundred and six. I don't know where the others are. I really thought they'd turn up yesterday as soon as I got home from the post office, but they're still hiding.

I've been up to more than washing and boxing baby hats. Everyone's been talking about the Jelly Roll Races, so I cut some 2 1/2" strips from my birthday fabric and made a little jelly roll quilt.



It was easier than my last little attempt, since someone told me you don't have to worry about the strips twisting, but the measurements aren't quite what I wanted.

And I got a second little top done, but that one deserves its own post.

the numbers

Weekly Stash Report for week starting 3/20/11

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 31 yards
Added this Week: 90 1/2 yards
Added Year to Date: 299 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 268 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 100 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3600 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 6400 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 11000 yards
Net Used for 2011: -7400 yards

The explanation for this week's yarn and fabric is in yesterday's post. The only thing I bought myself was the yarn. And if you add up what I spent on the yarn, what Grandma spent on my birthday fabric, and what Mom spent on my share of the estate sale stuff, the grand total is only around $30. For almost a hundred yards of great fabric, and a huge bag of yarn. Did I mention that the fabric is mostly one yard cuts and that most of it is the old small scale prints I love so much?

I think the fabric numbers are fairly accurate, but the yarn is a wild guess. I weighed the bag, figured out how many skeins of worsted weight acrylic would be in eight pounds, and guessed at the total yardage from there.

The numbers sound insane, but at the rate I've been going, that yarn is only five months worth of baby hat knitting. And the price was definitely right. And the fabric was a birthday gift, which means I don't have to worry about it at all.

To see how everyone else is doing, click over to Patchwork Times.

birthday stash

I might've been a little spoiled this week....

It stated with the four books and Joann's gift card Mom gave me for my birthday, early because I wasn't going to see her today.

Then Grandma showed up with this...



By weight, I'm estimating that it's sixty-eight yards or so....but there's some metal in the bag, so maybe my numbers are a bit high... And she got it all for $13.50. Have I mentioned how good at this sort of thing that woman is?

Friday morning, I saw the ad for the estate sale --

Quilters (tons of everything you have ever wished for), sewing, knitting, crocheting, pretty-punch, unimaginable amount of material, yarn, crochet thread, silk flowers, styrofoam, so much more!

The kids had an activity that afternoon, I had commitments that morning... there was no way for me to make it up there before they closed. So I called Mom and read her the ad. She called me from the sale a bit later and said it was all too expensive. I've seen garage sale fabric priced higher than the clearance rack at the nice quilt shops, so I assumed that was what she meant and got on with my morning.

Then the kids' activity got cancelled and the barber shop was closed and I had time to drive up myself. By the time I got to the sale at three, there was nothing even vaguely resembling cotton left. The people running it were taking down the signs -- an hour early.

I did get a largish box of partial yarn skeins for $4.50, which was plainly labeled "Do Not Stir." Seriously? I understand that you don't want people dumping it all over the garage floor, but is it that unreasonable to want to know what's under the top layer? I gambled that what I could see was worth the money. I thought about moths, but we've got a freezer and I promised myself I'd look at it all closely before it got close to anything edible. Because I knew I'd have doubts whether I bought it or left it.

Then I went over to Mom's and saw what she'd bought. Forty-five yards of really nice fabric, that she bought for $2 a pound. Unlike me, who weighs or measures roughly with my arm or just makes wild guesses, she took her tape measure to this fabric and measured it to the inch.

So I know I've got 22 1/2 yards in this pile.



And after seeing how nice and clean this fabric is, I'm not worried about bugs anymore.

Does adding 90 yards of fabric to my stash in three days count if it was all birthday gifts?

I'm locked out!

I don't really want to clean the sewing room, but today is my chance. My husband's at work, I don't have anyplace I've got to go, or anything else I've absolutely GOT to do, and the temperature's actually above freezing...

And the keys aren't on the hook. I'm hoping they're in my husband's pocket at work, but I'm afraid that I was the last one out there and maybe I'm the one who didn't put them back on the hook. I've already checked all of my pockets, and the floor under the hook, and the other places the keys have turned up when I've been the one who forgot to put them back.

I'm not happy.

Weekly Stash Report #12

I slacked off last night and, instead of quilting the two new lap quilts, I read a book and went to bed early. Would have been earlier, but I had to wait for the boys to fall asleep so I could play tooth fairy for Quinn, who lost his first two teeth yesterday and spent the whole day showing me how he was going to sleep with his hand held out so the tooth fairy could put his money in it.

Who came up with this tooth fairy idea, anyway? And who told my kids about it? Quinn told me yesterday that the tooth fairy comes every night and checks all of your teeth... I'm pretty sure he came up with that theory on his own.

But a little more sleep deprivation was worth it to hear him screaming this morning when he found his money under his pillow.

I didn't quite meet my goal for this week, but 3 yards isn't bad. The "new" fabric is a set of two red and white checked sheets that will be so perfect for backing baby quilts I couldn't leave them behind -- and then it turned out they were half off and only cost me $2.50 for the set.

Fabric Used this Week: 3 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 31 yards
Added this Week: 7 yards
Added Year to Date: 208.5 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 177.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 200 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3500 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 450 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4600 yards
Net Used for 2011: -1100 yards


Katrina at Sunshower Quilts is giving away a baby Go! with your choice of three dies. Wouldn't that be fun to win?

I've saved up enough Amazon gift certificates for my next die purchase -- triangle in a square. Yippee!

And I think I know which die I'm saving for next. Since I got my cutter, I've been wishing there was a die that cut multiple 2 1/2" squares. Now they've got one. And one that does multiple triangles, but I can probably make do with the strip of triangles on the value die.

I know, I could cut the 2 1/2" squares by hand too, but I wind up with some very oddly shaped scraps and I could turn them into squares quicker with the die. More squares means more little quilts.

It's warmer in here today.

The alligator says it's 70 in the house, which is about what it should be. I picked him up for a dollar at a junky yard sale last summer, because he just looks like he belongs in our house.

I can't figure out when he came from (where is easy), but while I was Googling, I found some fun blogs to drool over --

Retro Roadmap
Eccentric Roadside
Roadside Architecture

Lots of great old signs and buildings and places that probably won't be around for much longer....



It's been far too long since I participated in Show and tell Friday! I'd forgotten how much neat stuff there is to drool over every week.

new ways to have fun

Last week, someone told me that her family used to describe coping with bad luck as "finding new ways to have fun." I think I kind of like that description.

We've been having lots of fun.

There was the windstorm on Sunday, which hit out of nowhere and knocked out the power just as we were leaving the house for a drive. I totally wimped out on that one, and instead of cooking dinner on the gas stove and winding up with a pile of dishes that couldn't be washed until we had power (and running water) again, we headed a couple of towns north and got dinner at a drive through, then wandered around the Dollar Tree and Target and Fred Meyer until it was late enough to plunk the kids straight into bed when we got home. Just as I got the oil lamps burning properly, the power came back on.

Monday morning, it was a computer virus on the laptop that wouldn't let me open any other programs. I cried, I called around to see how much it would cost to have someone fix it, I cried a bit more, then I tried to be patient until evening when I could call my cousin the computer god. By the time he called me back, I'd convinced myself that it made more sense to reinstall windows and lose my data than spend the hundred something to get it fixed. (The money that I'd otherwise be using to get the Janome serviced -- I've got my priorities!) But he gave me some easy directions to follow and it's all better now.

Last night, a part on the furnace broke. One of those important parts that makes it make heat... So I spent my morning tracking down a replacement, and my afternoon driving to get it. If all goes well, we'll have heat back tonight.

And there's the usual chaos. But really, I think that's enough fun for the first half of the week, don't you? None of it is all that serious, but it's wearing me out.

There've also been a coupe of new ways to have real fun. I finished the drunkard's path blocks and made myself try a couple of different layouts before deciding how to put them together.





I'm going with the traditional drunkard's path layout, but will probably do the circles later with a different fabric choice.

And I got the other two color quilt meandered and bound. Those extra seams are there if you look for them, but they're not at all distracting.

It's the backing!

I wasn't happy with these two little tops. I didn't love the way the fabric scraps played together. Probably because I'm nearing the bottom of this particular scrap box and have used these same prints over and over and over again.



I'd gone up to the sewing room to dig out something else. Because I thought I had the backing for these quilts already. And to get to what I wanted (which I never did find) I had to move a pile of yardage from that wonderful Craigs List find earlier this year.

The two yard cuts of bright and cheerful what-was-I-thinking that I had second thoughts about as soon as I got it home? (But only because I decided I should've got some more traditional prints instead)



It makes these two quilts work. And now I really do love them! Not to mention that I'm happy I used up that hunk of fabric.


Weekly Stash Report for week starting 3/6/11

Fabric Used this Week: 6 1/2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 28 yards
Added this Week: 6 yards
Added Year to Date: 201.5 yards
Net Used for 2011: - 173.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 50 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3300 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 00 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4150 yards
Net Used for 2011: -850 yards

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