Week 6 Stash Report;

Used this Week: 11.5 metres
Used year to Date: 75.00 metres
Added this Week: .25 metres
Added Year to Date: 15.25 metres
Net Used for 2010: 74.75 metres

I'm doing well at not adding to the stash, at recording my usage, and actually using some fabric. It's starting to look hopeful that I'll hit the 100 metre mark sometime in February, which will please me greatly. I know I use lots of fabric, and make lots of quilts, but I never kept track of any of it before. It's nice to be able to see what's happening with my stash.

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I've been working on my Lady of the Lake blocks, slowly building up the numbers. They are a good leader-ender project; I sew all the triangles for each block, then pack them into individual sandwich bags ready to iron when I have time. I like to sew the blocks all at once, as the pressing is a bit complicated, and I need to concentrate. It's nice to build up a collection of pieced units just waiting to be put together, it feels like all the hard work has already been done.

On the quilting front, I'm helping Mereth do a custom quilt, lots of feathers and more feathers. The top is beautifully put together, with lovely fabrics, and that makes working on it much more fun. I can't wait to see this when it comes off the frame, it should look absolutely gorgeous.

I finished my small quilt top, now to finalise the quilting designs to put on it. Mereth and I are giving a little talk at a quilting day, about how quilting changes the look of a quilt. So we are making several quilts of the same pattern, and each one will have a different style of quilting. It's fun working out what we're going to do; I have to piece another one like this, but it may be in different colours. I get too bored if I have to do the same thing all over again.

My garden is flourishing in the milder summer weather, and I'm getting overwhelmed by the few plants I have. One zucchini and one squash plant have taken over the whole garden bed, and they've produced an avalanche of fruit. I've bottled some relish, and frozen the puree, and eaten zucchini every day for a fortnight, and there's still loads left. The eggplant is ready to go mad as well, so I'm going to spend some time in the kitchen, trying to deal with it all. It's a good problem to have.

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It's been such nice weather lately, it's been a pleasure to take Dolly walking each evening. These photos are of the golf course, which is set out along the creek that wanders through the edge of the town. It's a nice safe walk, no cars to worry about, and lots of wildlife to admire.

Our 'greens' are not green at all; the black stuff is slag from the local lead smelters, and I think there's sump oil in there too, just to deter the weeds and keep the whole lot from blowing away. It's rough and ready, but dedicated golfers don't seem to mind.

This gum tree looks like an Ent, about to stride across the creek. It's amazing that it's still growing, with such a slim hold on the earth.A lovely sunset, birds settling in the branches overhead, and bunnies to chase; evening walks are the best.

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We're in the middle of a summer storm, so I shouldn't be on the computer I suppose, but it's unplugged and working wirelessly, so I should be OK till the battery runs out.
If Blogger ate my last post, then something else ate my week! The days have just vanished in a whirl of driving here and there and running errands. That's one of the disadantages of living in a small town; when you need a vet or an optometrist you have to go to the nearest bigger town. We're only half an hour away, but the whole day goes by as you try to get in a few extra chores; 'While we're here, we may as well.....'

I have a quilt on Millhouse, and if the storm gets any closer I'll have to go unplug him and wait it out. I'm not going to wish the rain and lightning away, I love storms and we hardly ever have them. I'll just rearrange my day as needed.

I'm two rows away from finishing the piecing for the Tumbler quilt. It may need borders, I haven't decided yet. I had the hardest time with this simple quilt. I made it to use up a pile of blue and green fabrics that have crept into my stash over the years, and I wanted to use all or most of them. I don't want a stash of these colours. But I've been fighting with myself every step of the way; I want to go and buy MORE of them, so that the colours in the quilt are varied and interesting, with some modern ones in there.

Which is not what this quilt was about. It was to use them up entirely, not add to them. It's been such a struggle, and if I'd gone anywhere near a patchwork shop for the last three weeks I would have caved and given in. But I managed to only buy 2 FQs, and I raided Mereth's stash, and I dredged up some material from my dressmaking scraps. I am so close to finishing it without a buying spree, I just have to do those last two rows, and then the borders. Wish me luck; I'm nearly there.

There is one solitary block on my design wall; I have to go look up the name for this. I already made a red and blue quilt with this block, and now I'm making another two quilts for a presentation Mereth and I are giving later this year. These little quilts will go together easily, and I'm hoping they don't give me any grief about colours or fabrics. I have enough of these pinks and greens and creams to make many quilts.

And I finally, through sheer luck and perseverence, took a decent photo of Dolly, on one of our walks. She loves to get out and have a run; walking on a leash is OK, but putting up rabbits on the golf course is much better. She was a tired little doggie that night.

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Stash Report Week 4

fabric used; 8.5m
fabric bought; 5.5m
weekly total; 3m
Year to date; 71.1m

I bought some neutrals and cheddar; I can no longer say 'You can never have too many neutrals...' Yes you can, and I have!

The fabric used was for two backings; I've cut up some yardage for projects as well, but I'll calculate that when I finish piecing them, as it's too hard to keep track as I go.

I wrote a big interesting post to go with this, and Blogger ate it without a trace. And refused to give me the link to log back on, so I couldn't even rewrite it. Bad Blogger! And now it's too late for me to bother with it today. Hmmph!

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Stash report week 3

Fabric In; 2.0m
Fabric Used; 13.5m
Total this week; 11.5
Total Year-to-date; 68.1

Judy is leaving me in the dust, but it's not a bad total so far. If I can just stop from buying fabric online I may see a dent in the stash this year.

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I finished the binding on my table topper, so that's ready to use. I like the fabric I put on the back, it's very soft and pretty.
I also finished the binding on my vintage hexagons, it will go on my bed for the rest of the summer. I used vintage yardage on the back, and even made the binding from vintage fabric. It's my new favourite quilt.
I have 5 Lady of the Lake blocks finished, and they are really enjoyable to make. Not sure how they'll look put together, I may have to have some more colourful blocks in there as the scraps were mostly browns and dull neutrals. I'm happy with them so far, and looking forward to many more.
The blue and green tumblers are more than half finished, another day of sewing should see them in one piece. All in all I'm happy with the Quiltathon progress, it kept me stitching for longer than I normally would. When's the next one?

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Quiltathon Progress Report no.1 .
One scrap drawer is empty, and all the scraps have been cut into Lady of the Lake pieces, or into strips to go into the strip drawers. And the rest has hit the bin.It feels mighty good to have whittled down the scraps to this level, and early on in the piece too. There's lots of time left this weekend to achieve other things.

First and foremost I want to get my blue and green tumblers in one piece, which isn't far off. I've been sewing them into pairs and arranging them on the design wall; now to sew them into rows. I only need 14 rows, so it shouldn't take much time. While I'm sewing I'll think about the next project to work on. I'm thinking I need to put the binding on one or two quilts, and then I can truly call them finished.

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It's Friday night DownUnder, and Mereth and I have started our Quiltathon with Judy already. Millhouse is stitching on one of Mereth's tops, while she pieces a scrap quilt on Queenie. I'm cutting up a mountain of scraps from one of my Cut-it-up drawers. I aim to end up with only one drawer, instead of 3, and have a few quilt kits to show for it.

I'm cutting for a Lady of the Lake block, like this one.
I'm just rough cutting to start with. The big triangle is cut from a 5"strip, so I'm going through the scraps and cutting a 5" strip from anything that's big enough. Any leftovers I cut into 2"strips, as the small triangles are cut from those.

I have to add triangles around the other two sides to finish the block, I just sewed this together quickly to see that my measurements were right. Hmmm, it's going to need an awful lot of Half Square triangles....I layer a light and a dark strip use the Easy Angle ruler to cut two 5" HST, then cut the rest of the 5" strip into 2" strips and cut the small triangles from those. None of these strips are the full width of fabric, so most of the time I won't be able to make the whole block from the same fabrics. I'll make as many as I can using just two fabrics, then I'll use up all the spare parts making scrap blocks. It will keep me busy for a while.

Dolly likes keeping busy too. I heard a ripping sound from under the table, and this is what I saw when I investigated. This old roll of masking tape was pretty useless, not sticky enough anymore, so it went in the bin. Dolly fetched it out and decided it was just the thing to play with. I love how carefully she's holding the roll with her paws.Don't you just hate it when you can't find the end of the tape?

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