Spring Beauty Finished

My first finish for one of my goals in the Charming Girls Quilt Club. Yea! This quilt top has been sitting on a shelf for around three years and with its completion I have an announcement. This is big. I mean this is really, really big. So I announce that I have no more, zip, zilch, zero, nada, quilt tops to quilt. I am all caught up. How about that? Happy dance going on here. Now I didn't say I have no UFOs (actually only two of those) just no quilt tops.

Before I show pictures of the quilt I want to ask, have you ever done something really stupid and then when you realized what you had done you just want to smack yourself up the side of the head and ask what the H*** you were thinking? (When I was a kid my mom used to ask me that a lot.) I had one of those moments with this quilt.

I have been making a lot of scrappy 30's quilts lately and have been cutting up my stash. As I was cutting out circles and petals for my DWR I had this piece of blue fabric that was larger than my usual fat quarters. I began to wonder where it came from. It finally dawned on me, after cutting up a significant amount that it was the binding for my Spring Beauty. Doh! So when it came time to bind this quilt I had to piece bits and pieces together to get enough for the binding. It worked and I eeked out enough. Whew.

The Spring Beauty pattern is from The Rabbit Factory. It is a pseudo pineapple pattern. You sew a frame around the center square with background fabric then you put squares on the coners, sew through the diagonal, cut off the excess, flip and ta da you have a triangle. Repeat that whole series and you have a block that looks like a pineapple block. I did make it bigger than the pattern. I seem to do that a lot.

I think this set around so long because I couldn't decide how how quilt it and I wasn't sure my skills were up to the challenge. I finally asked my self what the worst would be if I messed up the quilting. I figured that I wouldn't take the quilt to quilt guild for show and tell. I decided I could live with that.

I did free motion quilting on this quilt. It was a lot of fun. 

Stash Report - July 25, '10

Fabric in this week:     21 yd.
Fabric in YTD:     96.5 yds.

Fabric out this week:     7  yds.

Fabric out YTD:      86 yds.

Stash busted:   -10.5 yds.

If you would like to see how others are doing check out Judy's blog.

This week I really did buy a lot of fabric. My excuse? Really it is a very, very good one. A local store was closing out its fabric department. I resisted at 50% off....didn't even go in. I tried to resist at 75% off but I went in just to look. There was some really nice stuff still left. I bought three 7 yard pieces for backings. I don't have many backing pieces in my stash. I figured for $2.25 a yard I couldn't go wrong. I also picked up several really nice patterns for a song. 

This week on my DWR I finished appliquing all the circles on the arcs and managed to piece 12 melon pieces. I am so glad to see the circles done. Yea!!!!! I still have 288 petals to applique down but that is just a walk in the park compared to 1,932 circles. Most of the petals are prepped. I still have a few of those to starch. 

This week I put my Spring Beauty on the machine. I have quilted 5 of 7 rows. Hopefully I will have it finished next week. I am counting the backing in this weeks numbers. Want to have a peek?

I hope you have a wonderful week sewing. Don't get overheated and remember to drink lots of water.

Stash Report - July 18, '10

Fabric in this week:     13.5 yd.
Fabric in YTD:     75.5 yds.

Fabric out this week:      1.25 yds.

Fabric out YTD:      79 yds.

Stash busted:   3.5 yds.

If you would like to see how others are doing check out Judy's blog.

What can I say? I did not hang tough this week. I don't have a dog or cat I can blame it on. I can't even blame it on my kids. Would you believe my DH did it? Didn't think so. But honestly, I did look in my stash first and there is nothing there that would work. Although I can still say I am in the black.....not a lot, but still there.

I bought all the fabric (except for the backing) for my next pieced/appliqued quilt. It is called Baskets of Yo Yos and I heart it a lot. Here is a picture of most of it. A few of the fabrics were left out of the picture. 

The white with blue polka dots will be the background. The large blue is for the borders. The two darker greens just above the blue will be the vines and leaves. The rest will be baskets, yo-yos, and the chain blocks. 

I can't start cutting it out until I finish sewing the circles on my DWR. Speaking of which I finished 60 arcs this week and have only 60 arcs to go. I also put together a few more melon shapes. Dang! It is really looking good. This will not be a fast piecing quilt.  I know I am in for the long haul but I believe it will be worth it when it is done.

I hope you have a great week of sewing and creating. If you bust some stash that is even better.

July/August Goals

Charming Girls Quilt Club

I am so excited to be a part of this group. I have read along for quite awhile and now I get to play! Woohoo.

I have been pondering my goals for the last two weeks trying to decide what I wanted to work on. I love having this opportunity to improve. So here is what I am going to do:
 
Personal Fitness
1. I will do cardio 5 times a week.
2. I will lift weights 3 times a week.
3. I will journal what I eat. If I bite it I write it.

Spiritual Fitness
1. I will read scriptures 15 min. per day.

Quilt Projects
1. I will finish all the applique for my Double Wedding Ring.
2. I will make the August schnibble project.
3. I will quilt my Spring Beauty which has been sitting patiently waiting for at least 3 years.

I look forward to cheering you on and hope you will do the same.

Stash Report - July 11, '10

Fabric in this week:     0 yd.

Fabric in YTD:     62 yds.

Fabric out this week:      .75 yds.

Fabric out YTD:      77.75 yds.

Stash busted:   15.75 yds.

If you would like to see how others are doing check out Judy's blog.

This week I was able to use 3/4 yard binding  the ugly quilt that could. I love to use bias and the black I had was a scrap so I was cutting out strips that were only 13" long. I don't think I have pieced a one color binding with so many seams. Good thing it is black because you just can't see the seams.

I dodged a bullet this week. On Wednesday a few of my quilt buds I went on a mini shop hop. We returned to the store that had the Fresh Cotton fat quarter bundle. Oh let me tell you temptation was great. I picked it up, fondled it, and dithered. In the end I put it down, patted it lovingly and told it I had too much going on right now and it just wasn't fitting into my list of things I want to do. Do I regret it? No, because I have figured out that fabric manufactures keep making beautiful fabric. When I am ready there will be something new that I will love just as much if not more.

I did buy a pattern from a local designer and now I am looking for fabric for that. Simply Sweet is calling my name as well as Flower Sugar. We will see. I am trying to hold off until I get more of the DWR put together. I appliqued the circles on 50 of the arcs this week. So total arcs done is 200 with 132 left to do. Woo Hoo.

Since I don't have any pictures of quilts made this week haw about one of a quilt I made several years ago. This was a fun string quilt. I was made for a guild auction. Pattern is from Quilter's Cache.

I hope you have a great week busting that stash.

The Ugly Quilt That Could

This quilt was pieced by my mom many years ago....at least 40 if not more. It was made in a completely different quilt era. This was a time when the ladies at the church would get together and quilt around a large frame. If you saw a pattern you liked you would get a cardboard template and take it home. Now whether that template was accurate was a risk. There were no rotary cutters, mats, or rulers. No template plastic nor quarter-inch sewing machine foot. There weren't any quilt books that explained how to go about doing it. You just used the cardboard template, pencil and scissors. I should mention that this is not an easy pattern. Y seams galore plus lot of "pinwheel" centers. I would hate to put this together today even with all my fancy quilting paraphernalia.

All of the fabric from this quilt is scraps leftover from garment sewing. There are several pieces that I absolutely love. I do not recognize any fabric from my clothing. There are some gauzy pieces, some seersucker and the usual broadcloth.

My favorite fabric is this black background print with the names of the items in french.

The cows cracks me up.....maybe it is a cows on crack.

How about the cowboy? It reminds me of some jammies my brother had. Not out of this exact fabric but something similar.

Mom was busy raising seven children, helping on the farm, ranch, dairy, and going to school to get her college degree. She made tops for her sanity. Sound familiar? After Mom pieced this top it was put in a box and eventually moved several times and was completely forgotten. Lately Mom has been going through her stuff to get rid of, organize and generally downsize. She found this top and a couple of other tops she had put together. She said that this quilt was the ugliest quilt she had ever seen and wondered if it was even worth quilting. One of my DD was there and expressed an interest in it, so the quilt top was rescued from the trash.

I brought the top home and quilted it this week. This quilt has it's problems....lots of pleats and tucks before I even quilted it. One corner is missing a block but I decided to quilt it as is.....just let it be. I don't think it is all that ugly. It speaks of a different time. One to be treasured.

Stash Report - July 4, '10

Happy Independence Day! Break out the grills and the watermelon. I hope you have a fun and safe holiday. Now on to the stash report:

Fabric in this week:     4 yd.

Fabric in YTD:     62 yds.

Fabric out this week:      10.5 yds.

Fabric out YTD:      77 yds.

Stash busted:   15 yds.

If you would like to see how others are doing check out Judy's blog.

This was a very good week. I managed to get the Merry-Go-Round quilt put together and quilted. The fabric in was for the backing of this quilt. It took me two weeks from the time I purchased the jelly rolls to getting it bound. I love it when that happens. 

I used two Eden (by Lila Tueller) jelly rolls plus a few extra strips to get this twin size (65 x 80) quilt. DD wanted purple and she got purple.

I used my Circle Lord to quilt the spirals on the "plates". I like how it turned out.

Because I was working on that quilt not much was done on the DWR. I did sew a couple of arcs to a melon to see how hard it is going to be. I can tell that I am going to have to be very careful to match up the seams where the pink and the while meet. I do like the look though. Hopefully I will get more circles appliqued down this week.

I hope you have a great week creating from your stash.