A Boy, His Dog, and Their Quilt

DD#2 asked me to make her corgi a quilt a while back. That corgi is crazy for quilts, and if there is one in a room, she's on it. I had some extra HST's from making the quilts in the grandkid room, so I pieced this top from those several months ago. Now that DD#2 is spending the week with me, it was a great time to finish this quilt. I'm not sure Mr. LJ hasn't put his own claim on the quilt, but I've got a new quilt for him in the works too!

Navi the Corgi did finally get her quilt all to herself! 

Not much else going on quilting wise, family comes first!

Basting Spree

I've been busy all over the house doing quilty things. I finished another wedding quilt top this, so three of the five wedding quilts I am late on are now quilt tops, and as of yesterday, those are all also basted ready for quilting! 

This is my stack of basted quilts hanging out behind my longarm for right now. I've got company coming tonight and they are staying a week, so not much quilty time in the next week, but I do hope to get the top quilt done while they are here because it's a small one for their dog! If you count them, you'll notice there are actually five quilts in the basted stack. I had pins leftover after basting the three wedding quilts, so I basted the quilt top that DH's grandmother started, and I finished. We don't have a quilt made by her, so we'll be keeping that quilt. 

I have a whole new basting setup. I have basted on the kitchen table for years, but DH wants to get a smaller oval table for our dining area, and that's not the best option for basting. I decided to buy two 30" by 8ft folding tables, which if I move the living room furniture I can set up in the living room side by side. Here's how that worked out.

I found it so much easier to baste the big quilts when I don't have to move them around as much! I've never wanted to try basting on the floor, that sounds like a nightmare to me. I make so many quilts over 100" square that the board method never really appealed to me either. Moving around ten foot boards doesn't seem easy to me. These 8' tables fold in half and have carrying handles, so they really aren't so hard to move. 

I tend to baste several quilts at a time, which is why I have so many basting pins. The five quilts I currently have basted will take a while to quilt, so I've already taken the tables down until next time. 

My next basting spree I hope to have all the other wedding quilts ready to baste, including the one for the recent engagement. I had a plan for their wedding quilt, but after talking to them decided it wasn't to their taste. I ordered fabric for their quilt today, and I hope to make it as leaders/enders while working on the other quilts I need to make. They only wanted a couch quilt, so I'm going twin sized on that. The wedding quilts I just basted are two kings and a twin. The next batch will be one king, one full, one twin.

The above quilt is for DS the Elder. His second anniversary is next week, so this quilt is REALLY late. The quilt is 108" square. The pattern is Faceted Jewels. I made a few changes to the pattern to get it to be the size I wanted, but I had so much fun making this quilt, I could see making another one. 

My other must do quilts right now are one for the grandkids, one full, two twin, and one baby quilt! The full quilt I need I chose a UFO for, and it's partially assembled now. One twin I need to cut, the other twin will be a string quilt so it's low stress and little cutting. The baby quilt I'm waiting on gender and color choices. I'm am so excited my baby is going to be a father! 

I have a lot going on, but I finally feel like I have a handle on it. I'm even getting things done in between the lines.

I finished this quilt top this week. I'm not adding borders, it's 48" x 72" now. These HST's were cutoffs from a bunch of flying geese units that are making two other quilts which also ready for assembly. My plan is to donate all three pink quilts, but we'll see. I often end up giving them away before they get donated. 

This is my current leader/ender project. I'm making a twin sized quilt that will have four of these columns. The blue HST's were cutoffs from another quilt. I have a blue Weed Whacker quilt in blocks, but not assembled, and these HST's were cutoffs from that quilt. I plan on putting thin white strips on both sides of each column, but I'm debating between using a single fabric for borders and separation strips, or bust more blue scraps by making piano key borders and separation strips. 

Sounds like I've got company! 

Critical Mass

Have you ever worked on a project for what seems like forever, and it seems like you are getting no where on it, then all of a sudden, it shapes up and really starts to look like something? I like to refer to that as a project hitting critical mass. 

For the past several weeks my main project has been this wedding quilt, the pattern name is Faceted Jewels. I'm altering the pattern a little, both by adding more blocks and making the pieced border one row larger all the way around. The original quilt is quite scrappy, which I love, but I was asked for a green and cream quilt. Multi fabric quilts are the only way I am comfortable doing a two color quilt. Only two fabrics and I think I'd go nuts. 

This quilt has so many sub-units, that although it has been my main project for the past several weeks, it felt like I was getting nowhere. Three of my leader/ender projects from that same period of time are ready for assembly. It wasn't until this week, when I finished all of the blocks for this quilt, that I finally hit critical mass, and it's starting to look like something. 

This isn't the whole quilt, nor even the entire center, but I was so anxious to get a peak of how it's going to look, I put up a few rows on the design wall. I may move a few blocks around, and I'm questioning if I pushed the green family a little too far, but overall, I'm pretty happy with the way this quilt is looking. I've made a lot of green quilts, and my variety was really lacking, so I really pushed the color family to simply have enough fabric. I even raided fabric I had set aside to make a quilt for my bed. I'll have to acquire more greens before I can make the quilt I had planned for my bed. 

Isn't it funny, that a color like blue, that I despise, has taken over my stash even though I make lots of blue quilts for people. But other colors that I love, like green, red, and purple, I can't keep in stash very long at all. Part of the reason my stash has so much blue is that a lot of my stash was given to me, and a lot of the remaining stash came from thrift stores or remnant bins, so I was just buying what was available at a seriously discounted price. Since I give most of the quilts I make away, it's not a big deal if I don't like the color. My current leader/ender project is another blue quilt, so I am whittling down my blue stash a little at a time. 

Once I have this quilt assembled, I need to spend a few days basting. I basted one of the wedding quilts last week, and I have another ready for basting. One just needs borders, and one still has quite a bit to do on it. I am pretty excited to try my new basting setup. I bought two 8 ft folding tables that are 30" wide. If I move my living room furniture to the edges of the room, I'll be able to set up the two tables side by side, and baste on that surface, which will require a lot less moving around of the quilt top, compared to basting on my kitchen table. The 8 foot tables fold in half, so they aren't too difficult to store, and I tend to baste several quilts all right in row, then have a quilting spree. If I set up the tables when DH is working three days in a row, I could baste quilts until I run out of pins, and take the tables down before he has a day off. Since he works 12 hour shifts, I don't think it would bother him much as long as I'm taking over the living room on work days. With the tables being specifically purchased for basting, I'm not even worried about getting pin marks on the table tops, and should we need the tables for a party, that's what tablecloths are for ;-)

State of the Stash 2018

In one of the yahoo quilting groups I belong to, it is customary to do a State of the Stash report around your birthday. Since I recently had a birthday, I figured I'd do a similar post here.

With the intention of full disclosure, I did get birthday additions to my stash.

These are some goodies bought by DH, along with a year of Craftsy Unlimited, which scored me a free quilt kit too. 

I got other quilty gifts from my kids, a Moda scrap bag, a couple quilt books, a specialty ruler, lots of fun stuff. 

When most quilters say stash, they are primarily talking fabric. Since my last birthday, my stash has somewhat increased, but since January 1st, it's likely stayed the same. Why the difference? Well, last fall I hit the motherload at a thrift store, and got over 100 yards of fabric for $30. I also bought quilt backings for the wedding quilts I'm currently working on. That's a lot of increase. Since January first, my fabric purchases have mostly been fat quarters, and as you see above, some charm squares (5" squares) and jelly rolls (2.5" strips). I've still never purchased a layer cake of 10" squares, but I saw a layer cake pattern I want to try, so maybe later.

So far this year I've used just over 100 yards of fabric, but I bought fabric for four specific quilts, along with the fat quarters and pre-cuts I've purchased. Have I bought over 100 yards? I don't think so, but it's probably close. Of the four quilts I bought fabric for, one will be Asian-inspired fabrics, of which I might have had a couple fat quarters in stash, but definitely not enough for the king sized quilt I have planned. One quilt will be made from Civil War reproduction fabrics, of which I likely had a dozen or so fat quarters of before the purchase. The third quilt purchase was some half yards of red to add to the stash fabrics I'll be using. I was getting low on variety of red blenders and tone on tones. The last quilt I bought for is a quilt made for my youngest grandson. He needs a big boy bed quilt, and they want it to be transportation themed. The thing is I've made so many transportation quilts for little boys, I was pretty wiped out and didn't have enough fabrics to make a quilt without buying. 

I'm on target to finish the five wedding quilts I've been working on this year (we won't talk about the nephew newly engaged ;-) ) And really, that's probably almost another 100 yards used. I think I will likely finish 2018 a bit lower on fabric than I started it. If I finish a few more UFO's besides the wedding quilts, I'll definitely use over 100 yards in the second half of 2018. 

Overall, I'd say my fabric stash is fairly steady, which is OK with me, because I'm comfortable with the size of my stash. The amount of fabric I have would overwhelm some people, but now that I have a sewing room again, I can easily see 300 yard usage years happening, just like I used to do. 

I have completely changed my buying habits with fabric. I found I use fat quarters most quickly, because I'm always wanting more variety. I really only use yardage for borders, backgrounds, and backings. I've been piecing a lot of borders or not using them at all, and I do a lot of multi-fabric backgrounds, so really, yardage is for backings. I'll still buy yardage if I find a really amazing deal (Hello 100 yards for $30!) or if I'm buying for a specific project, but overall, I've stopped buying yardage. 

I have a stash of batting too, and I just finished off a roll of cotton batting. I think I have enough batting on hand to finish all the quilts I'm likely to finish this year, and I don't plan on purchasing any batting this year unless I have an immediate need. So, batting stash is decreasing. 

My thread stash is also decreasing. I discovered Sharon Schambers tip of dipping a spool or cone of thread in mineral oil, and it's been a life saver. Threads that had been breaking or causing tension problems are now behaving and leaving a lot less lint. My Tin Lizzie still seems to prefer polyester thread over cotton thread, but I want to make a dent in what I have before purchasing any more thread. 

I am a bit of ruler junkie, I have so many rulers! I still have some on my wishlist, and just got another one for my birthday, but my purchasing of rulers has dropped dramatically. I like specialty rulers, and if I'm making a quilt all from stash, I figure it's a good time to try a specialty ruler that peaks my interest. I rarely buy new fabrics to use with a new ruler. I find watching a YouTube video about the new ruler is a great help in helping me understand the new method. 

One of the reasons I'm buying fewer rulers has to do with my repetitive stress injury. My arm is doing MUCH better, but it's easy to overdo it. Cutting seems to be one of the hardest things on my arm. DH wants me to buy the Go! Big electric cutter from Accuquilt. I already have a Go! cutter, so all my current dies will work with the electric cutter. Right now my focus is on UFO's, and all the cutting is done for those, so until I've caught up a bit, I'm in no hurry to buy the electric cutter. I do think there will be an electric cutter in my future though, Maybe in 2019. 

To put it all in a nutshell, I'm using my stash, so grateful I have it. I'm buying for specific needs, or to add variety to make what I have more usable, but overall trying to shrink the stash a bit. I have a couple totes I haven't unpacked yet, and my goal is to have all my stash in existing storage, no totes. I'm so close to that, and I think I can get there by 2019.