Sunday Stash and Stitching report, week 13, 2015

There is no great surprise, or even mystery or question what I've been hand stitching on, is there? La Passacaglia, of course. I finally finished putting the stars around the second large rosette. This things take forever to do! It's a good thing this fits in to the bigger piece, rather than having to surround the whole thing with those stars! I found a really fun fabric that has african style masks on it, and I used those for in the filler diamond shapes. However, I have made a note to myself to not use any more fabrics with large amounts of metallic on them. It's tough to get a needle through. And here it is, with the latest large one set loosely into where it will live. Now I get the fun part of digging through all the new fabrics I've received in the last week or two, and decide which will go where in the small rosettes that will go around this big one.
This rosette used up a bunch of fabric, and I've had other bits and pieces of stuff that I've done in the past week that added up to some used numbers. But I'm still in negatives..... oh well.

Used this week:                              2.3 yards
Used this year:                            28.25 yards
Added this week:                               1 yards
Added this year:                              31 yards
Net stash added:                           2.75 yards

I'm linking up to  Fabric Report,  Slow Sunday Stitching and also to WIPs be Gone. Then I think it will be time for some supper, followed by some more fun fussy cutting.

Scrappy Saturday....... yellow

It has taken me all month to finally get this month's Silly Car from Fat Cat Patterns done. I love this pattern. It is just so very cute! This is the only sewing I got done this month for the SoScrappy colour challenge. And technically, this doesn't really count as sewing, since it is only fused down, but not sewn yet. I found some yellow variegated thread in my thread stash, and I'm going to use it, and a decorative stitch from my machine to stitch this down. I have all those hundreds of stitches on my machine that have never been used, so these cars are the opportunity. While I was drawing the design out onto the fusible web, I did up a second one at the same time. I'm thinking, now that it's all drawn out, all I need is the information on next month's colour, and maybe I can get it done before the last minute.......... yeah right...... like that's gonna happen. I always leave things to the last minute. (sigh). If you click on the SoScrappy link a couple of sentences up, you'll find my post, and a bunch of other folks that have been playing in the yellows.

On, and almost off, my needles, March 27, 2015

I finally got around to casting Travellers End back on, after ripping it out a month or two ago. I'm almost back to where I was when I ripped it out, except the cables are now going the way they are supposed to, or at least I hope they are. There's a long way to go on this one, but it would be nice to have it finished in time for this years camping season.
And then there's the "almost off" project. The one sock is completely done. The second one needs its toe grafted.... my least favourite job, and it also needs its starting yarn end sewn in.... my second least favourite job. So, it's been sitting and waiting for me to do those two jobs, and then I can count these socks as done. I really like the way the blue colours in the yarn spiralled down the sock. This is a Manos del Uruguay
Alegria yarn, not sure of the colour name. I think it's my favourite sock yarn. The colours are always so much fun, and I never know ahead of time what they are going to do, which keeps the basic sock pattern that I use interesting. I'm linking up to Judy's On the Needles

Helen's Mystery Medallion

 This is Helen's quilt that she made while taking part in a guild sponsored mystery from three or four years ago. It's made almost entirely from batiks. I'm not sure why, but in my mind batiks and feathers were made for each other. The colour choices that Helen made in this quilt are stunning!! I love it!

I've played around with the lighting and contrast on these two pictures to give an idea of what the quilting looks like. It is an over all large feather meander. I am soooo.... looking forward to the nice weather. Pictures of quilts taken outside show the quilting so much better. Must...... be...... patient........

Carol's Tulip Baskets

This is a quilt that Carol brought me. It's a gift for her parent's 50th wedding anniversary, I believe she said that it started with the baskets, but when her Mom looked at it, her Mom decided that it needed something more. Their heritage is Dutch, so tulips were the obvious choice. They wanted a basic quilting design that would compliment the tulips and the baskets. So, I did a simple staple, with a few tulips thrown into the stippling here and there, just to add a bit of interest and variation. The tulips were outlined, as were the baskets.

I had to play around with the contrast and exposure settings on these photos in order to have the quilting show. There is a tulip and leaves quilted into the white part of the basket, and some free hand curvy cross hatching in the body of the basket. Carol blogged about this quilt here. It looks gorgeous on the bed, and she has some better pictures that what I could get.

Design Wall Monday, March 23, 2015

I still have the same old project on my wall, Texas Chain, a design by Judy Martin. It's had a little bit more added to it, but not a lot. Now that the weather's improving, I may get up into the studio more often to work on it. I really like it. The other project up on my wall are the Disappearing Four Patch blocks that Jannette and I are swapping each month. We're using Kona Snow, combined with large scale floral prints. I totally and completely love the way they look.
We are doing four prints per month, making two of each print. We keep one of each print for ourselves, and mail the other ones, so we end up with eight different blocks each month. They are easy and fun to do, and don't require a huge time commitment to make. And maybe, just maybe, the weather will co-operate at the beginning of April, so that we can meet for a coffee and swap them in person, rather than through the post. If not, I'm sure Canada Post will oblige us and deliver them for us.
I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday, and then I think I'll browse to see what everyone else is up to. And there just might be a few Disappearing four patch blocks made tonight, too.

Stash and Stitching report, week 12, 2015

 There is only good one thing to be said for being too sick to get off the couch, and that's it gave me lots of time for stitching. However, there was also time in the past week when I was feeling too awful for even that. It was probably the flu..... cough, stuffy head, fever, aches........ and generalized yuckyness. But, I'm better now. This rosette was done up to the grey stars. I added in everything past that this week.
It now fits in where it should, and needs its stars added. Since it's another of the big ones, I think I'll do medium grey stars. I'd rather keep the bursts of colour on the smaller ones.
I received some more fabrics in the mail this week for this project, that I'm looking forward to using. And I also added in some large scale florals, as well, for a disappearing four patch swap I'm doing. However, no fabric went out this week, so I'm back into positive added numbers again. But it's such wonderfully fun fabric added, that I'm quite content to be there. There's lots more fun fussy cutting stuff coming up in my near future.

Used this week:                                  0 yards
Used this year:                             25.95 yards
Added this week:                          5.25 yards
Added this year:                               30 yards
Net added:                                     4.05 yards

I'm linking up to Judy's Fabric Report, Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Angie's WIPs be Gone. Then I just might star cutting and basting some stars.

Sunday Stash and Stitching Report, week 11, 2015

I have a confession to make....... while I love the extra hour of daylight in the evenings...... I hate the change to daylight savings time. It does such nasty things to my body clock, and everything else that goes along with that. I've been mostly out of commission this past week, which isn't great for any quilting or very much sewing. That, in turn, makes for not very much that is interesting to blog about. However, it is great for getting hand stitching done!

In the past week, I've gotten these three rosettes done. They all fit down at the bottom of the section of La Passacaglia I've been working on, which finishes off the bottom left corner of this quilt, although the bottom four rosettes still need to be stitched into place.
 So, now all I have to do is decide whether I will do the relatively boring part of stitching them in place, or whether I will do the exciting part of choosing fabrics for the next section. I picked up some new fabrics for this project this past week, but I do have some out numbers to balance it. I made up a backing for my Plus Sign quilt, which I'm hoping to get quilted in the next week or so. I've been having some timing issues with my long arm, so it would be better to try out the fixes on one of my own quilts.

Used this week:                                   4.1 yards
Used this year:                                25.95 yards
Added this week:                                   5 yards
Added this year:                              24.75 yards
Net stash busted:                                  1.1 yards

I'm linking up to Judy's Fabric report, Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Angie's WIPs Be Gone.

Sunday Stash and Stitching Report, week 10

I've made a lot of progress on La Passacaglia, although by looking at the picture, the progress doesn't show. All of the top rosettes are now all stitched into place. The one at the bottom left with the orange star points is new. I'm trying to introduce more of the greens and oranges to try and balance the predominance of blues. I might need to add in some more pinks, too, into this area.
This little combination below is the next one, going with adding in more orange and green, and will sit to the right of the one with the orange star points. The picture is a bit more yellow than in real life. I'm not sure, yet, what colour the star points will be on this one. Maybe that's where some more pink will show up. I am still having tons and tons of fun with this. It makes my day when the fussy cutting turns out like I have pictured in my brain. In the case of this one down here, the centre part looks even better than I thought it would.
I managed a little bit of stash reduction this week. Enough to keep my numbers going in the right direction.

Used this week:                               1.7 yards
Used this year:                              21.85 yards
Added this week:                                 0 yards
Added this year:                             19.75 yards
Net stash busted:                              2.1 yards

I have fabrics coming in the next few weeks, picked especially to go with La Passacaglia, which are going to mess with the net used numbers. But, I'm having way too much fun with this project to really care all that  much. I'm linking this up to Judy's Fabric Report, Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Angie's WIP's Be Gone. Then, I'm going to go and see how much of this next rosette I can get done before we have to go out later this evening.

Mibsie's' Musical Instruments Quilt

This is the second of what Mibsie is calling her "conversation quilts" The first was a football themed quilt, seen here. I didn't realize until she pointed it out, that she's laid these quilts out as if the fabrics were an audience sitting around an arena or a stage. Such a cool idea.

This quilt insisted that the only design it wanted was the music notes pantograph, a very simple and obvious choice.

I've tried to increase the sharpness of the photos to show the stitching. It worked in the photo of the centre, but not so much in the picture to the right. Hopefully it's enough to get an idea of what it looked like.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't done a Work in Progress Wednesday post for a while now, mostly because my projects were stalled. But I've finally managed some sewing time upstairs, because the temperature warmed up enough for my feet to stay warm. I'm back to working on Texas Chain. I'm almost to the point where I can start laying out the rest of the rows. Another day of sewing up there should get me to the new rows...... maybe tomorrow...

And I'm continuing to make up blocks for my Sister's Choice Variation project. I need 32 of these blocks. I have 11 done, so I'm 30% of the way there. The colours in real life are a bit brighter.
                                                              
                                                                                       
                                                                               I''m going to link this up to the Canadian Needle and Thread Network and also to WIP Wednesday. And then, I think I'll make up a few more Sister's Choice blocks and also do a little more on La Passacaglia.

Susie's Eye Fooler Quilt

This is Susie's Eye Fooler quilt. I love the high contrast black, white and reds she used. It takes full advantage of the optical illusion in this design, fooling the eyes into seeing curves from straight lines. This quilt is on my want-to-do list. And I think it may have moved even closer to the top of that list, now that I've actually found the pattern for it.

This quilt is a gift for Susie's son and daughter-in-law. Her son is a music lover, and there are music themed fabrics in this quilt. So, it seemed appropriate to use the music notes pantograph quilting design.

Design Wall Monday, March 2, 2015

There is still nothing much new on my wall. The same old Texas Chain is still there. The temperature forecast for this coming week is for warmer temperatures, comparatively speaking, so I should be able to spend more time up there and maybe get it further towards done. In the meantime, I've been playing with some scraps, a bit. I started  Sister's Choice variation last year, and have slowly been working on making the blocks......... very slowly. I have six done. After finishing last year's Triple Four Patch quilt for the rainbow scrap challenge, I had all kinds of little 2 inch finished four patches left over. This is what they look like, so far. They are a bit brighter in real life. These will use up those 2 inch four patches, as well as a lot of 2 1/2 inch strips for making the triangle squares and the  2 1/2 inch orange squares. I went on an orange fabric kick a while back when I was making Meteor Shower, and now I have all kinds of it left over. So each block is going to have the orange squares in it. I played around in Electric Quilt, and have come up with a setting that I really like.
It has the added bonus that it will use up 1 1/2 inch strips for the setting squares. It will be a while before I get that far, though. I haven't figured out borders for it, if any, as of yet. But, there's lots of time before I get that far. I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday, and then I have some Disappearing Four Patches to make for swapping. I'm several days late. Although, If February wasn't a short month, I'd still be on time....... just. Good thing they go together fast. I'm hoping to get them done tonight, and in the mail tomorrow.

Sunday Stash and Stitching Report, week 9, 2015

My hand stitching on La Passacaglia continues.

This is the one I'm currently working on. It's a partial rosette that fits at the top left corner of the bigger one, shown below. This project is continuing to hold all of my attention, as far as hand work goes. No knitting has been happening at all. The only thing I'm working on is this. It's insane!! I'm totally obsessed by this thing. Thinking about the fabrics, watching to see if the pattern that I picture in my head for the fussy cutting actually happens. I'm looking at all of my fabrics in a totally new way. I have one more star and a couple of pentagons to add to this one, and then I can start digging through my fabrics to start the next one. This current one kinda reminds me of a tea cup china pattern, with the ring of roses.


I've done a little bit of non-rosette sewing, enough to keep my used numbers going in the right direction.

Used this week:                                        1 yard
Used this year:                                  20.15 yards
Added this week:                                     0 yards
Added this year:                               19.75 yards
Net stash busted:                                   1.6 yards

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Judy's Fabric Report and Angie's WIPs Be Gone. Then, I'm going back to more star stitching.