Back in July 2012, Bonnie Hunter issued a 3″ spool leader/ender challenge. I started the challenge in August and one year later I had 334 spools. Earlier this week I quilted it. It is now bound, labeled and washed.

Stats:  a smige over 9 yards used in the top. Batting Unbleached Hobbs 80/20.  Honey Gold thread in the needles by cairo-quit and Bottom Line in the bobbin. I used the pantograph “A Little Bit of Fluff”. After washing the quilt measures 64″ x 78″.

While I was at it, I made a couple of matching pillowcases.  The body of the case is the same fabric I used as the backing of the quilt.

With the exception of the backing, all of the fabric came from my stash.  The border fabric I purchased – well I’m not sure now, but it was a couple of years ago.  It’s no longer on the Andover or Makower UK websites. The backing fabric was purchased Thanksgiving weekend.  It is from the Autumn on Whidbey collection by M’Liss.

The binding is complete on the spool quilt.

I have one more pillowcase to make then I’ll wash all three pieces and get a good picture of the quilt.

Tuesday I quilted my spool top, but it was late last night before I started the binding. I’ll finish it tonight.

I’m posting my design wall late today, but I wanted to post the finished top.   Too bad I don’t have a good name for it yet. “August C” is what I’m still calling it.

The borders got changed up a bit from my “Cheat Sheet“.  I cut the first and last borders at 2 1/2″ — used 7 strips WOF.  The inner border is cut at 1 1/2”.  These were cut the length of the fabric since it was left over backing. I’d have to do the math to see if 7 or 8 strips WOF would be needed.

Up next is the backing for the quilt I’m quilting tomorrow.

There are lots of links of projects over at Patchwork Times. Be sure to check them out.

Nothing in this week – well, backing for Syd’s quilt which goes in HER stash – and nothing out this week.  I have 4 more seams to complete my quilt and then I’ll have some outbound numbers.

Fabric added since the last report: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 177.962 yards
Fabric used since the last report: 0 yards
Fabric used to date: 122.016 yards
Net stash: -55.946

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

The first project was fixing this lamp.  Originally, a touch lamp, the touch dimmer burned out so the only way to turn off the lamp was to unplug it.  Of course the outlet is behind the bookshelf. So, I added an inline switch.

The second project was finishing the center of the red, white & blue quilt.

Now it’s on to the borders.  I’ve decided to change-up the borders a bit. Instead of a narrow light border and a wide red border, I’m going to do 3 borders – two red and an inner border of red and blue stars on white.

We’ll see if I can get the border on the quilt Thursday evening.  I may be distracted by The Sound of Music or assisting with another lamp project.

Over the weekend I finished up the blocks for “August Quilt C” and I’ve started assembling the rows. The pattern “cheat sheet” can be found HERE. I hope to finish the top during the week. Then it will be time to make prep the backing for the spool quilt.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to see what others are up to.  I expect there will be a lot of Celtic Solstice. So far I’m resisting — Orca Bay is still in a million pieces!

The numbers are jumping on my stash report today.  Both in and out.

First, I finished the top for Deadline Project 2 and made the matching pillowcase and binding so that’s a chunk for the fabric used category.  But then I hit – 4 fabric shops – 2 of them twice over the Black Friday and Shop Small weekend. In my defense, they are purchases to finish three quilts — backing and borders — although I will admit that perhaps I didn’t need to buy quite and much of each fabric….

There was the black and red for Syd’s quilt. Good quality fabric on sale for $3.39 a yard and there was only 3 yards on the bolt.  It will either become the backing and we’ll use most of it, or it will be the border and there will be a good bit of it left.  But this goes into Syd’s stash and I’m not counting in mine unless she gives it back to me.

At the same stop I bought the much maligned orange paisley for the back of the Spool quilt.  I was almost positive 5 1/2 yards would be enough, but decided to get 6, but there was 6 1/2 on the bolt, so I took the rest.  Again this was the $3.49 a yard fabric.  I ended up paying only $3.14 a yard since I had a 10% off the entire purchase coupon.  It’s a good thing I don’t run into sales like this often.

Finally there is the backing for Deadline Project 2. Since it’s a wide backing I should have been able to get away with just 2 1/4 yards (converted to 6 yards for tracking purposes), but I sometimes have issues with the fabric rolled on the bolt off grain and need nearly 1/3 of a yard to straighten it. So, I bought 2 3/4 yards to make sure I don’t have any issues (converts to 7 yards, 15 inches).

At least one of these quilts will be quilted before the end of the year, but I don’t know if I’ll get both done. I’m pretty sure I’m done with my fabric purchases for the year. And I’ll have at least one more quilt top finished, so my numbers will go down.

So, here are the numbers:

Fabric added since the last report: 13.925 yards
Fabric added year to date: 177.962 yards
Fabric used since the last report: 8.125 yards
Fabric used to date: 122.016 yards
Net stash: -55.946

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Oh, my. Tomorrow’s stash report.  But at least most of it is backing and not fabric for new quilts.

First there was the backing and border I bought yesterday. Then today I bought backing for another quilt and while I was at it bought the thread. The panto is for the spool quilt.

I wonder if I can get the red, white & blue quilt top finished before I go to bed tonight. It might just let me break even this week.

I’m not one for Black Friday Shopping – I’m not into getting up at some early hour and waiting in the cold just to get a good price. However, my husband told me as we headed to bed last night he wanted to get up early to hit a sale. Fortunately by “early” he meant 7 AM.

Sure enough we were pulling in the parking lot at 7:30 AM and we got our $20 gadget for $5. He’s happy. Then he said he would go out with me. Naturally that meant the box fabric stores.  I needed border fabric and backing fabric for the red and black quilt and backing fabric for my Deadline Quilt. I can’t decide if I picked a good border fabric for the red and black quilt pictured above or not and there’s only 3 yards of fabric, so not really enough for a backing unless we get creative. (No, I didn’t take any of the quilts with me, I’m not sure what I was thinking.) We’ll see what happens.

The second fabric I fell in love with and thought it would be a good backing for my 3″ spools quilt.

My husband just looked at it and said yuk. So did one of my quilting buddies when she saw it. To me it’s perfect.  And at $3.49/yard I took the rest of the bolt. I couldn’t remember if 5 1/2 yards would be enough and there was only 6 1/4 or 6 1/2 yards left.

Then it was hubby’s turn again. We bought a snowblower off of Craigslist. One of the local weather forecasters is predicting several 8-inch snow falls, snow not melting between snow falls and a total of 30 inches of snow for the season.

After we dropped it off for a tune up, it was on to dinner at Outback (my pick) for our 28th Wedding Anniversary.

All in all, a great day in the company of the man I love.