A Productive Week!

These 2 projects are on my design wall at the moment. On the left, the beginning of a mosaic-type wall-hanging I'm working on for my quilt guild's challenge, the theme being the same as our quilt show: "Blooming Fun". I'll show you the rest of it the end of next month when I complete it.

The other is the first block in Anne Sutton's free 2011 BOM. She's the creative genius behind Bunny Hill Designs and if you click this, you too can get her free monthly patterns for "Henreitta Whiskers", her adorable squirrel quilt.

I also finished a quilt, made huge progress on Judy's UFO Challenge #6 and have pinned and am ready to quilt the quilt I made in a mystery class last weekend! Woo-Hoo! I'll show them all in a future blog post. (Don't want to be a show-off!)

Stash Busting Time!

This week I managed to put backs on 2 quilts so used 8.5 yards of fabric from my stash! Backs are great stashbusters, aren't they? There was a time when, every time I'd run across a $4 or $5 per yard sale rack, If buy 5-8 yards of some not-so-beautiful fabric, but nonetheless, in "my colors" to use on the back of some future quilt. When I remodeled my sewing room last year, I found I had 41 of these bulky wads stacked on my precious shelves!! E-gads, what was I 'saving' them for? They are going to be used nicely this year because of Judy's UFO challenge and also the UFO challenge I have going at my quilt guild. YAY!

So, my stash report is as follows:

Yardage purchased this week: 0

Yardage purchased year to date: 4.25

Yardage used this week: 8.5

Yardage used year to date: 20

Net used 2011: 15.75

"Geese in the Wild Roses"

Three times a year, I attend a mystery class given by Linda Ballard of northern California. It's something my quilting buddies and I have been doing for, oh, about 10 years! (yeah, do the math--this may be why my mystery quilt tops take up a large portion of my UFO list!)

So, Friday night and all day Saturday, we worked on this quilt: The line of fabric is "Wild Rose" by Maywood Studios and I just LOVE it! My DH put up a new quilt rack for me for Xmas and I'm going to be making quilts that fit it just right so I can change them out on a regular basis. This one's only 42 X 52 so I'm sure to finish it quickly and put it right up!

BTW: the 6 blocks in this quilt are from an identical pattern. The value of the fabric is what makes them look different.

My First Stash Report

The Stash Report on Judy's blog always intimidated me and I never posted. When I read the last Stash Report post of the year and saw that some people had purchased hundreds of yards of fabric (and USED hundreds of yards of fabric), I decided i needed to see what my totals were. (I'm secretly trying to convince my husband that I really don't buy THAT much fabric!) I'm desperate to lighten up the stash I've been accumulating for 15 years so I'm going to be good and buy fabric only when I absolutely HAVE to. Judy's stash report is going to help me do just that!

And so, here is my first post of totals:

Yardage purchased this week: 4.25

Yardage purchased year to date: 4.25

Yardage used this week: 11.5

Yardage used year to date: 11.5

Net used 2011: 7.25

Design Wall/UFO Challenge in ONE!

This photo will have to do for my "design wall" because I blew a fuse while sewing on my UFO Challenge #6. It was cold and I turned on the space heater while my iron was on--CHeeze! (This photo was taken in a totally dark room.)!

This is a top I completed in a mystery class last summer. It was supposed to be a Christmas quilt but really didn't look Christmas-y when I got done. I bought 'chili pepper' fabric for borders but didn't like that either. SOOO, I was 'forced' to go out today and buy fabric for a border--right??! You see that little black area under the presser foot? That's a 1" black 1st border before the final border. I needed 'something' to differentiate between the main body of the quilt and the 6" border I plan to put on. When in doubt, use black!

Did I mention how proud of myself I am for starting my #6 UFO at the beginning of the month its due! I'm serious about lightening my UFO stack!

What's on YOUR design wall?

My very first Stash Report

I've never posted a stash report because, frankly, I didn't want to know how much fabric I was buying and using! I like Judy's rules though: don't have to know how much is in your stash, clean slate for the start of the year, etc.

But wouldn't you now, I had to go to the quilt shop today to buy border fabric for the UFO Challenge #6 I signed up for, also on Judy's blog! See, I made this top last summer at a mystery retreat. I wanted it to be a Christmas quilt but it ended up not looking like one. So I bought chili pepper fabric. But I didn't like that (and put it on the back of another quilt!) The stash report below reflects my purchase today for said borders and the amount I'll be using for them . . . after I get my husband to flip the breaker in my sewing room: It's been so cold, I ran the space heater and the iron at the same time and KA-blooee!

Used this week: 1 yard

Used year to date: 1 yard

Added this week: 2 1/4 yards (I don't like pieced borders)

Added year to date: 2 1/4 yards

Hooo Do You Love?

This is a baby quilt for my daughter's best friend's sister's baby (got that?). Hey! I have to quilt and I have over 100 quilts in my house (although some of them are the antique quilts I collect) so I need to have excuses to make them. What better than a baby?

This is a panel kit I purchased while on vacation near Portland Oregon. Holly Hill Quilts in West Linn Oregon is a fabulous quilt shop! We were on our way to the airport to fly home when we stopped here and when my husband, who likes to take a nap in the car while I'm in quilt shops, came in looking for me after about 40 minutes. I took one look at him and said, "You go ahead Dear. I'm going to just stay here. LIVE here. IN this quilt shop".

I bought the kit before we knew the gender of the baby but now we know it's a boy so this fabric with all the adorable little owls on the border, will be perfect. It's backed with orange Minkee.