Work in Progress Wednesday Aug. 31

I need to give a loud WOOHOO!!! here. I just finished my Rose Log Cabin quilt. The border is on, and it is ready for quilting. Now all I have to do is finish the quilt that is currently on the machine. That is going to take some more time. But, for at least the next day or 2, my WIP list is one shorter, but my lists still look pretty grim, and there is a lot of work to do to get them finished.

Finishes:            1
Active WIP's, 3, My Tweets, RRCB, and Shakespeare in the Park
Leaders and ender projects: 2
Waiting to be quilted:                  10
Waiting to be bound:         4
UFOs:                                    6
Hopelessly UFO:             9

Yikes, that's still a lot of projects waiting to be finished. Oh well, at least it is now 1 shorter. However, I have another project that is going to get started sometime in the next week, so it isn't likely to get  any shorter anytime soon. The Batman fabric is all washed. So, after doing the ironing of all that fabric, I can start the Batman quilt for my son for Christmas. So much fun!! I'm going to link this post to the Freshly Pieced blog which hosts a linky party for work in progress reports. My numbers are big, but it is a relief to know that I'm not the only one.

I've joined a Quilt along

After much dithering, and back and forth, should I or shouldn't I, I've decided to play along with the Fat Quarter Stars Quilt along hosted by Moose on the Porch Quilts. And after a lot more dithering, and pulling of fat quarters and making a mess of my cutting table with them, these are the fabrics I've decided on. I really wanted to do something other than white or off white for the background, but nothing else I pulled really worked. It all really competed with the colours, rather than be a real background for them. And since I want to do this from stash, this textured white/ecru is going to have to do. Anything else really didn't show up the colours in the fat quarters, but made them look blah and sick. The actual work on this quilt doesn't start until the end of September, so, for all of you including myself who have seen that very long list of works yet to be finished, it gives me time to get some more done. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. My daughter and I are having a girls night out tonight. Dinner and a movie, and maybe some shoe shopping afterwards,  all of which sounds like a whole lot of fun. So, If I'm going to get anything at all done, I'd best get moving.

Design Wall Monday August 29

The blocks are all finished!!! Woohoo!! I can start sewing it all together. And I'll give another woohoo!! I got the last of the dark green triangles sewn on yesterday, at 2:15, 25 minutes before I had to go to work. Plenty of time left over for getting changed into uniform, making my large coffee to go to work with me, and taking out a frozen leftover meal to take for supper. Depending on traffic, it is only a 5 minute drive, so lots of time to spare. I am really looking forward to getting this all sewn together. And that is what I am planning for the rest of today. For more design walls, hop on over to Judy's Patchwork Times I'm making this a short post, so I can get to sewing.

Stash Report Week 35

I missed last weeks' stash report, so I'll have to do 2 weeks worth today, which isn't a bad thing, since there will be bigger numbers for 2 weeks, than one. I've been working on 2 different projects these last 2 weeks, the Rose Log Cabin, and Roll, Roll Cotton Boll.  My Rose log cabin is 10 squares needing the last of the green triangles sewn on from being finished, and ready to sew together. I am hoping that there is enough of the dark green that I've been using for these corner triangle left to do a border. It's an old print, and I'd love to be able to use it, since it has roses in it. Hmmmm, I should do an online search to see it I can find it anywhere.  If not, there might be another fabric acquisition trip to Len's Mills, or some other fabric store to be able to finish this quilt. I think that I only want one border on it, and that a dark green, but I'll decide that once it is all together and on the wall. I am hoping to get a little bit of sewing time in today, before I head in to work at 3, to get the last of the corner triangles on. So, on to the numbers:


Fabric used in 2 weeks:                         5.6 yards
Fabric used this year:                          92 yards
Fabric purchased in 2 weeks:                 0 yards
Fabric purchased this year:                121.5 yards
Balance:                                                  29.5 more yards purchased than used.

If you are interested in any other stash reports, Judy has a linky up for them on her Patchwork Times Tomorrow should see the full Rose quilt up on the wall, providing I get off this computer, and go do a bit of sewing, after I get something to eat. Type at you more tomorrow.

Almost there............

I only have 10 of the green and cream log cabin blocks for the Rose log cabin quilt left to finish. And 2 of the 4 rounds on those 10 squares are done. WOOHOO!! Another day or 2, and I can start putting it all together.
I've been distracted for the last couple of days, though. I've bought myself a new toy, an e-reader. I've done a lot of research, and comparing of them. I know a lot of people who have Kindles, and they seem like a great product, but I didn't like their price, or the fact that they are limited to Amazon products. Our library here has a huge digital ebook section, and I wanted to be able to access that resource. So, I finally decided on a Kobo. I've only had it for a day, and took it to work to read yesterday. I REALLY like it. It is light weight, and I can change the size of the print to make it easier to read. I've already got a couple of books from the library on it. The lending period on them is the same as a real book, 3 weeks, at which point they have some sort of mechanism where they are "returned" to the library. And that's the thing that has been really eating up the time, sitting in the comfort of my own living room, browsing through all the titles available, and adding them to an ever growing wish list in my library digital account. Enough to keep me reading for months, if not longer.  And I'm only up to the letter "K". The other thing I discovered on our library web page was a fairly large selection of audio books, that can be down loaded onto my computer, and from there, to my ipod. They are only good for 2 weeks. But, it is still a nice way to read and sew at the same time. The ultimate in multi tasking. Have I mentioned before that I love technology?

Work in Progress Wednesday August 24

I've made a small amount of progress in my active projects. I have more of the July My Tweets prepped and glue basted down. Unfortunately, I'm really starting to notice difficulties doing these blocks, and the tiny stitching due to the advancing of my cataracts. I can't work on them at work on my breaks any more, since I can't see well enough to do them. I'm going to have to dig out my magnifier that hangs around my neck and hope that makes a difference. I don't get to see the specialist about them until the end of September, and that is only the consultation appointment. (sigh)

Roll Roll Cotton Boll is still on step 3, but I'm up to 274  of the red/cream half square triangles.

Rose Log Cabin has had a little bit done on it, but not enough to photograph.

Shakespeare in the Park is one third of the way quilted, so there was good progress on that this past week.

No progress on any of the other WIP's hanging around. But, I'm hoping to get lots done today and tomorrow, on the Roses and on Shakespeare. I've had to move my big lamp that has a magnifier on it up to my sewing room. I find that if I put it right by my machine, with the magnifier in front of the needle area, I can see much better. This will be the modus operandi until the cataracts can be fixed. I'm linking up to the blog Freshly Pieced which hosts the linky party for Work in Progress Wednesday. Check out other WIP lists.

Play before work

I know, I know, the saying is supposed to be work before play, but somehow I never seem to work it that way, especially when it comes to playing with my fabrics. Today is the last day of that horrible schedule six week period at work. After this I am back to my 4 to 6 shifts every 2 weeks. What a long, and exhausting time it has been. I ended up having to take a sick day on Sunday, due to a headache that simply wouldn't quit, but, it is done, and I made it, more or less intact. What a relief.
I think for diversion, before going in today, I'm going to take this pile of red and cream 2 inch strips

and turn them into more of these 2 inch half square triangles. I want to see if I can't get closer to getting Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll finished, so that I can cross it of that UFO list.

And, just because I realized that I haven't included a picture of our wonderful grandson Avery lately, here he is at 3 months old. Growing like a weed, holding his head up like every strong boy should, and generally melting this Grammy's heart to mush.
I miss him so much. But, we're going to see them on September 7th for a long weekend, and will just have to cram in as much cuddle and play time as we can, as well as tons and tons of pictures.

Making progress

After I wrote yesterday's post about my pile of UFO's. I went upstairs and started to work on one of them. I pulled out the box with Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll in it, and started to try to figure out exactly where I was with it. I discovered that I had all the strip sets for step 1 sewn together, but not cut into units. Now they are all cut. 
Step 2, 120 3 1/2 inch half square triangles were 90% sewn together, but not de-dog-eared. Now they are done. 
Step 3, 600 2 inch half square triangles, I had 40 of them, and more needing to be trimmed. Now I have around 180 of them. So, progress was made on it.
The added bonus is that I have a pile of 2 inch red strips left from cutting out the Rose Log Cabin quilt, so they are going to get used up with the rest of the 420 half square triangles left to go. It sounds daunting, but I was able to get about 80 of them done in a little over an hour last night. So, Tuesday I worked on the Rose log cabin. Yesterday, was spent on figuring out my large list of waiting to be finished projects, and then working on one of them. Today will be spent on working on quilting Shakespeare. In the times I need to rest my legs from standing at the longarm, I'll sit and work on my projects. I think I'm going to try maintaining this kind of pattern, assigning a day to work on a specific task, and see if I can't be a bit more organized, and therefore get more done.

Work in progress Wednesday

In my travels around blog land lately, I've been noticing posts labeled Work in Progress Wednesday where people keep track of their various projects, in various categories, from actively working on, to not touched in years, or at least I have those categories. LOL! It seemed like a useful, if slightly daunting thing to do. So I've spent the last hour or so up in my studio rummaging around in boxes and drawers, taking inventory, trying to come up with an accurate picture of just what is up there. It's pretty bad, but not as bad as I had thought. I like the way Lee organizes her posts on the subject, so I'm going to loosely follow her format.

New projects started this week: none.

Ongoing projects:
My Tweets, a BOM hosted by Erin Russek. I'm a little behind on it, but not by much. This is July's block, and she hasn't posted August's yet. There is still quite a bit to do on this one though, and the new block is expected on Friday. The Rose Log Cabin is making good progress. I have the last ten of the green and cream squares started, and then there are 16 more rose blocks to do before this can be put together. Considering I only started it back in July, that's not bad.

                                 

Ongoing Leaders and Ender Quilts:

-16 patch and pinwheels. This one, if I make it exactly like the pattern, needs almost 400 4 patch squares. I'm up to almost 300 of them. It will shortly be time to move it into the active list.
-Beach Cottage from the Scrap Sensations book

Top being quilted:

Shakespeare in the Park

Tops waiting for quilting:

Round Robin in the Window
Spring Swap
Peas in a Pod
Double Duty
Dot to dot mystery quilt
Burning the Midnight Oil BOM
 Pieceful Kwilter BOM
Orphan blocks
Buckeye Beauty. These last 2 are older than my blog, so I don't have pictures of them.

Tops waiting for binding: 4

Active UFO's: I'm not going to do any more links with these. Most are listed over in the labels, if anyone is interested.

Double Wedding Ring
Cactus Rose
Roll, Roll Cotton Boll
Log Cabin Sampler
Endless Chain
Disappearing Nine Patch
100 block challenge squares

Nearly Dead UFO's these all pre-date this blog, so there aren't pictures of them.
Cosmati Stars
Double sided quilt as you go. The blocks are all done, and just need to be sewn together.
Pansies and Butterflies. This might end up as a table topper, so it might get added to the pile that needs to be quilted.
Hand pieced and Quilted compasses
Antique Rose Sampler. This one needs to have a lot of applique done on the borders.
In Bloom
Baltimore Applique. I have a lot of applique squares, of various sizes that need to go into a quilt. But I've had difficulty with a layout for them, so they sit in a box.
Stained Glass squares
Jacob's ladder.

Wow, that's quite the list, but it has been an extremely helpful and eye opening exercise.

There have also been so far this year,  8 complete finishes. That adds up to one per month, which is encouraging. So, now that I've spent a fair amount of time composing these lists, I can make an effort to finish some of these things, and keep track of where I have been, and where I am going. I would like to be able to say, and mean it, that I'll get one UFO a month done, but I know that isn't realistic. So instead, I'll do a current project and a UFO at the same time. I think I'll get back at Roll roll cotton boll, and see where I can get with it, also while working on the current project. I think I'm going to dedicate wednesdays, if I don't have to work, to UFO's. S, after I finish this extremely lengthy post, I'm off to drag out RRCB's box.

Design Wall Monday August 15

As you can see, I've made some progress on the Rose Log Cabin. I first saw this pattern quite a few years ago on the APQS forums as designed by a very talented lady named Deloa Jones. I fell in love at first sight, but never did anything about it, until I finally ordered the pattern a month or 2 ago. I worked on it for quite a while yesterday, and the blocks are now more than half done. I'm really, really liking it.
There's not a whole lot more new here, and I have to run and get  DH back to work, so that I can get to work this afternoon. To see more design walls, check out  Patchwork Times where there is always lots to see.

Stash Report Week 33

I'm not doing too terribly well with blog posts lately, it seems. Sunday Stash report, and monday design walls, and that's it. My long six week stretch of lots of shifts at work is coming to an end. The work, now that I'm on only one unit, is quite heavy. It is an Alzeimer's unit for WW2 and Korean Vets. They are all beyond being able to do anything for themselves, and require total care. A lot of them have no idea who they are, or who the nurses  are, and are unable to understand what is happening to them. Consequently, when we attempt to look after them, they don't understand why we are trying to dress them, or wash them, and they react badly, resisting and fighting us, and they are really strong. My poor 57 year old body is beginning to let me know that it doesn't appreciate what it is being asked to do these days. Consequently, my days off are mostly spent resting up for the next shifts. Two weeks left of it, and then, hopefully, I can get back into doing more of the sewing and quilting. The fabric that I ordered a couple of weeks ago from the Fat Quarter Shop arrived on Friday, and it is every bit as lovely in person as it was in the pictures. I have a pattern already decided for it, and I can't wait to get at it, but I WILL resist. I will finish what I have already started before starting something else. I have decided, though, that the next quilt that I start will be the one using the Batman fabric I think I'm going to use the BQ pattern which stands for Big Quilt. It uses 12 inch squares of fabric, which is perfect for those fun, large scale Batman prints. Plus the added bonus that it will work up quickly. I'm looking forward to starting it, but I WILL finish the Log cabin quilt first. Now, on to the numbers:

Fabric used this week:                          0 yards
Fabric used this year:                            86.4 yards
Fabric purchased this week:                 15 yards
Fabric purchased this year:                   121.5 yards.
Balance:                                               35.1 yards more purchased than used. (yikes!)

And now, I'm off to do a little bit of sewing on my quilt, so that I will have some progress to show tomorrow for design wall monday. To see more stash reports, check out Patchwork times

Design Wall Monday August 8

There isn't anything new on my wall this week. The Rose Log Cabin blocks look exactly the same as last week. they have been on the design wall, 2 flannel backed vinyl tablecloths, with the bottom of the cloths brought up over top of them to protect the blocks. We've been laying laminate flooring in that room, so we needed to protect them against all the dust from cutting. I have been working on machine quilting, though, on Shakespeare in the Park. I have never been able to do feathers properly. they always looks weird, kind of like limp cigars. But I suddenly this week had a sort of epiphany, and suddenly figured out how to do them, and I am loving what I am seeing. I'm using a Rainbows thread called Zebra, and it's shades of pale grey to black . There is a spiral feather in the snail's trail block, and I'm continuous curving all the stars. And then I'm continuing the feathers into the background of the large stars, with the hope that it will continue the overall motion in the quilt. I haven't got enough of it done to know whether it will do that or not. So, for the next 2 days, I'm going to work on this. When my legs and back get tired from standing at the longarm, I'm going to sit and piece on the log cabin squares. In between, of course is boring mundane things like laundry and meals.
If you have a few minutes, and want to see some fun stuff, head over to Judy's Patchwork Times to explore more design walls. 

Stash Report Week 32

Fabric came out of my stash this week to make the binding for Bear Tracks It felt so good to get this quilt done. I enjoyed every single part of making it, from choosing the fabrics, to sewing down the binding. I love it when a pattern is well designed, and well written. I have no affiliation, but if you get a chance, check out the patterns at Glad Creations I have their Auntie's Choice pattern as well which is in my want-to-do-very-soon list, as opposed to my want-to-do-someday list. I gave in to the desire to purchase a large amount of fabric this past week, but it hasn't been delivered yet, so it doesn't have to be counted yet. Both have specific purposes, though. Both are from the Fat Quarter shop, the rest of the Batman fabric and a collection of fat quarters, and entire design line which, up until these batman fabrics, I'd never done before. But I saw this collection, and it was instant love. It's called Etchings and I think I even have a pattern that I want to use for it, but I'll decide that for sure once it arrives, hopefully sometime this coming week. And now to the numbers:

Fabric used this week:                                       32.5 inches
Fabric used this year:                                          86.4 yards
Fabric Purchased this week:                                0 (I'll count it when it arrives)
Fabric purchased this year:                                106.5 yards
Balance:                                                               20.1 more yards in than out.

And now I'm going to go finish prepping July's My Tweets so that I have some stitching to do while on breaks at work for the next week. To see how others are managing their stash, check out Judy's Patchwork times

Bear Tracks is finished

 It's done, finished, binding on, sleep under it finished. The last stitches on the binding went into it yesterday, and it was on the bed last night. I love sleeping under newly finished quilts, although it took the fan blowing at top speed to be able to do it in the heat of summer. LOL!! The Bear Tracks pantograph that I drew up worked really well. I wanted the quilting to stand out a bit, so I used King Tut thread, which is a bit heavier, and is a variegated cotton. The colours in the thread are mostly oranges and golds. I love this quilt, everything about it sings to me. It feels soooooo good to have it done. My Rose log Cabin quilt is stalled at the moment. We're finally putting down the laminate floor in the room that has my design wall in it, so it's a bit inaccessible. But that's OK, because I've loaded my Shakespeare in the Park back onto my machine, and am slowly working on that. With the new wheels on my machine, I'm able to do a lot more on it than before, so I'm glad I had all the thread issues with it a few months ago, and had to rip it out. And now, after I grab something cold, like a Coke, out of the fridge, I'm going to go back and do some more on it.

 

Design Wall Monday August 1

There is something kinda sad about August. It's still summer, but it means the end of summer is in sight, now. I love summer, even with all the heat and humidity. I love being able to hook up the trailer and go. I love being able to sit out on the swing in the yard for my morning coffee. I love being able to head out the door without all the layers of clothes winter requires. I love the smell of laundry dried outside. I love the colours and scents of flowers, especially roses and dahlias and lavender. There is lavender planted right beside our patio, and when the breeze comes from a certain direction, the scent is wonderful. All those things, and more, that I don't want to see end. I guess I'll just have to make sure I enjoy them all the more while the time is still here.

On another note, I was able to get a lot of sewing done on my Rose Log Cabin yesterday. So it has grown, quite a bit, and I am definitely liking what I am seeing. The lighting in the room where I have my design wall has changed, as the sun has moved, so it is difficult to get a good picture, with consistent colours. The light greens are the same in all the blocks, but the lighting has washed them out in the bottom right section.
To see more design walls, go on over to Judy's Patchwork Times And now, I'm off to do a little quilting before I go in to work this afternoon.