Stash Report, week 44, 2013 and Scrappy Saturday on Sunday

I've been watching the posts at So Scrappy for a long time. She chooses a colour of the month to concentrate on for using up scraps. I've been wanting to participate for a long time, so I've decided to jump in. There's also been a quilt that I've been wanting to make for a long time, a triple four patch. So, I've decided to combine the 2. I've been doing really well with finishing things lately, and since this will be long term project, it won't take that much time from finishing other things.

So, I'll use these blocks above as the body of the quilt, eight of each month's colour.And then since I'll have little four patch units left over, I'll use these as the border. I played around in EQ7 for a while to get the sizes and the numbers of blocks that I'll need. I have 5 more browns picked out, so I can work on them off and on through the month. And every little bit helps to increase the stash used numbers.
I finally managed to get the Great Granny finished, so there was border fabric cut and used for her, and I worked on Lazy Sunday, but that fabric was already counted, so there wasn't much fabric out this week.

Used this week:                                            1.4 yards
Used this year:                                     120.25 yards
Added this week:                                            0 yards
Added this year:                                     165.55 yards
Balance:                                                   45.3 more yards in than out.
I'm linking up to Judy's Stash report and to Soscrappy Saturday

On my needles, Nov. 1, 2013

 I'm working away at the Truck Sweater for Avery for Christmas. The back is finished and blocked.

 One of the sleeves is finished and blocked.

And the second sleeve will be done by the end of the evening, and then I can cast on and start working on the front. I left the fun part til last. I've been rummaging around in all my drawers of yarn, and have found some that I think will work for the truck. Some of them are a bit of a smaller gauge, so I hope it doesn't cause a problem, but I won't know for sure until I get there. I went looking for other yarns of the same gauge as this yarn, but there weren't any small enough balls in the store, and I really didn't want to be buying a large ball, just to do the colours in the truck, so I'll make do with what I have. I'll know more by this time tomorrow. I'm linking up with Judy's On the Needles.

Design Wall Monday October 28, 2013

I am hoping that this is the last week for having great Granny up on the wall.

All of the border units are pieced together and ready to be sewn to the main body of the quilt. There will be another plain charcoal border on the outside, and then I can declare this one done. Maybe this next week will see this one done, and I can cross off another UFO finished of the list of UFO's, except that I don't have a list of my UFO's. I'm afraid to go looking and actually count them. I don't really know how many of them there are, and I'm not sure I want to know. I'm just going to keep on working at them one at a time, while I resist the temptation to start something new.
After this, I have to choose, do I work on the Thanksgiving leaves quilt, or on the Lazy Sunday Mystery. I think I have 6 or 7 of these leaves blocks finished now. I need 16 for the large quilt, or 12 for the smaller.
                                                                                     

        Lazy Sunday still needs all its borders assembled. The individual pieces are all done and ready to be assembled into the borders. I have until Wednesday, when I'm going over to Gail's to sew for the evening to decide. Any opinions on which I should choose?
I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday. Lots of lovely stuff to look at today.                                                                           

                                                                                      

Sneak Peak

I've loaded one of Charlene's quilts today    Its a really fun, very scrappy version of a Rail Fence. I'm using a simple diagonal quilting design to complement the horizontal and vertical lines of the piecing. And one of the best things about quilting for others is seeing all the different fun fabrics. Look at that spider web fabric down at the centre bottom of the picture. It's just so much fun. 

Bloggers' Quilt Festival... Scrappy Dresden Plate/

A couple of years ago, Bunny Hill Designs sponsored a Scrappy Dresden plate quilt along. I have always loved Dresden Plate quilts. It was actually the first quilt pattern I ever made, over 25 years ago, and I have made several more since. So when I saw this quilt along, I gladly joined in. As usual, it took me several years before I got it completely put together, quilted and bound. It was finally finished this year, in August, and I am thrilled with the way it turned out, and I'd like to share it with the blogging community.

 I love doing scrappy quilts. Sometimes I like them all helter skelter and anything goes, as long as no two like fabrics are touching. Sometimes, as in this quilt, I like the scrappy to be controlled with a constant background and some unifying elements. With this one, the plates went on a white background, and the aqua cornerstones and the pink border provided the unifying elements. I further unified the Dresden Plates by giving each horizontal row the same colour center, but continued with the scrappy with each row's colour being different.

 I quilted it, on my long arm machine, with an all over feather design in the white background areas. Inside each Dresden Plate, I quilted a modified continuous curve in the petals and a five petaled flower star shape into each center.

The border has feathered vines that flow continuously around the entire quilt. It is bound with a diagonally printed stripe, with a narrow faux piping fabric in the same aqua as the cornerstones.

Here's a view of the backing, which shows a more detailed view of the quilting in the plates and the borders. I hope you have enjoyed looking at this quilt as much as I enjoyed making and sharing it. I'm linking up to Amy's Creative Side: Scrappy Quilts.

Stash report, Week 43, 2013

I remember saying a while back that I kinda hoped that my balance numbers for this year would get below 50 yards added. Well, this week I hit that goal. Doing up backings and bindings sure puts a dent into those numbers. So, now I will wonder if I can get below 25 yards added before the end of the year. I'm not sure if I will hit that, though. I'm still trying to concentrate on getting some UFOs finished, and a lot of the fabrics in them have already been counted. Getting to zero is in no way even remotely realistic, I don't think. Especially since someone a couple of years ago came up with the wonderful idea of having vendors at our monthly guild meetings. No, seriously, it's a wonderful idea. However, the temptations are sometimes just too strong to resist.

Used this week:                             7.5 yards
Used this year:                            118.85 yards
Added this week:                               0 yards
Added this year:                          165.55 yards
Balance:                                         46.7 more yards in than out.

Today, I'm going to continue working on Great Granny. And I also want to see if I can get some photos done of the quilt I want to enter into the Bloggers Quilt Festival. I'm linking up to Judy's Stash Report.

Saturday ramblings.

Our guild, the London Friendship Quilters' Guild, does place mats for Meals on Wheels every year at Christmas. Usually, the individual members make whatever pattern and colours they want, and bring them to the December meeting for labeling and delivery to Meals on Wheels. This year the program committee, on which I am serving this year, has issued a challenge to make the place mats a bit more interesting and fun to make. We purchased some cards from J. Lee Cards and Photograph, (unfortunately, she doesn't have a website), and then had the guild members who wished to participate draw a card from the bag, and then challenged them to make their place mats from the colours found in their cards. This picture to the right here is the card that I drew from the bag.

 And these are the fabrics that I have pulled that I think cover pretty much all the colours in the card. I have my design for the place mat all figured out. All I need to do is start cutting for it.
All of us participating will bring our cards and finished place mats to the December meeting and display them together to have the fun of seeing how everyone interpreted the colours in their cards.

 And then the other day, Thursday I think, I got a text message from Gail asking if I had seen the block of the month being sponsored by Mad About Patchwork pictured here on the blog for the Mad About Patchwork store. I hadn't seen it, so I went to look at it. Big mistake, since I have now decided that I have to do it. And Gail wants to do it, so we'll work on it together. I loved it so much that I had to play with pulling some fabrics. This one to the right here is the starting point.

And these are all the fabrics that I found that might work with it. It will be fined tuned some more before the final choices are made. And there are a couple more projects that have to be finished before I start anything new. Definitely the Great Granny Square quilt is going to be finished before starting this. The place mat has to be finished before starting this, and maybe the Thanksgiving Leaves will get finished as well. And, in order to stay with the intent to continue with finishing things before starting anything new, I'm now going to go sew some more on Great Granny. All of her border blocks are now finished, so I can get to work on putting her all together.