This morning I looked for a picture of one of my quilts (not this one) and discovered it’s not on my blog.  Under the Finishes on the right hand side are the subpages which show quilts that I’ve finished since I started blogging in 2009.  This quilt and the quilt I was looking for were finished prior to that.  So, periodically, I think I’ll pull pictures and write about the quilts, and create a subpage for my older quilts.

The quilt pictured above I finished on Mother’s Day (May 8th) 2005.  The pattern is Grandpa’s Best from Perkins Dry Goods.  I started it at my first quilt retreat on April 29, 2005.  The quilt was offered as a mystery so I picked blue, green, red and neutral FQs to go with my mom’s newly recovered sofa.  Turns out most of them were Civil War reproductions.

It measures 54″ x 69″.  I quilted this on my sewing machine and used Quilter’s Dream Cotton for the batting.  I started to go back and do a bit of hand quilting, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.  If you click on the picture you can just barely see the hand quilting in the center blue square.

I was stitching down the label about 1:30 that day just in time to swing by my LQS where I bought the fabric and then go out to my mom’s to give it to her.

Tonight I quilted with Bonnie — at least virtually via her QuiltCam.  Tonight’s project was sewing squares to rectangles for Block 2 of my Irish Chain.  I’m using Happily Scrappily Irish from Adventures With Leaders & Enders by Bonnie Hunter.

I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to press these and cut the rectangles I need for the block.

I have finished half of the blocks for my scrappy Irish chain quilt.  I think  I’ll do a bit of reading to finish out my long weekend.  It’s back to work in the morning.

As overflowing as my string box is, I’m finding it difficult to get a variety of strings in my blocks.  Perhaps it’s because there are no purple and orange strings in the box since they are sequestered with my Orca Bay.  Additionally, I don’t know how many more blocks I want to make.

Two more and the quilt will measure 30 x 37 1/2.  Six more and the size is 30 x 45.  This could go on and on.

So, I think it’s time to switch out the pressure foot and do some piecing.

There’s nothing on the design wall proper today. But on the ironing board I have these string blocks that I’m making quilt-as-you-go.   This project is not on my list of things to complete this year, so I don’t know how many more I’ll make before I put it away again.

Yesterday I put my walking foot on the sewing machine in preparation for my young friend to do a bit of quilting on her first quilt. But time got away from us and we didn’t get that far.

I could have changed out the foot and resumed working on my Scrappy Irish Chain, but my box of 1 1/2″ strips to cut spools for leaders/enders is very low.

I really need to cut some more 1 1/2″ strips to increase the variety, but I  haven’t done it yet.  Although I did cut some strips from my floral FQs (can I call them FQs if they’ve been cut into?)  I have 4 spools kitted and probably 5 or 6 more floral strips which I have not kitted.

But anyway, between the lack of spool kits and the walking foot already on the machine, I pulled out the string project which I started a couple of years ago.  I have a stack of 8″ batting squares and light floral backgrounds (which is probably why I thought of it) and my string box is overflowing.

(the string box and the 1 1/2″ strip box are the same size.)  I promise I can get the lid on the box — just barely.

I have a couple of errands to run this morning (I’ve got the day off) and then I think I’ll work on a few more of these blocks before switching the foot out and resuming work on the Scrappy Irish Chain.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to check out other design walls.

Quilt-a-thon progress has been minimal on my part since Thursday.  Believe it or not this is all I’ve personally accomplished.  Finished 9 chain blocks to my Scrappy Irish Chain and 6 partial blocks.

But, we’ve had a guest this weekend.  And I’m happy to report that she finished her first quilt top yesterday afternoon.

This is the top she’s been working for since the beginning of August.  The center just needed the borders.  Now to get it quilted.  She started a stash the last time she was here, so the backing is coming from her stash.

This week I get to count my young friend’s quilt top in my total.  Last night she put the border on the quilt top and it’s now ready to quilt.  The top came from my stash, but the backing is coming from her stash — the one she started the last time she visited.

Additionally I swapped some Halloween fabric with a friend — I sent her more than she sent me so it’s not a complete wash on my numbers.

Finally, I made 3 of the Just Takes 2 blocks.

Here are my numbers:

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 1 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  91.802 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 3.879  yards
Fabric Used to Date: 74277 yards

Net Used for the year -19.525 yards

Judy pointed out that there’s 15 more weeks left in the year and asked if we will make headway in our stash busting efforts.    If I get everything accomplished which is on my list by the end of the year I might just break even – so that’s my goal.  We’ll see what really happens by the end of the year.

I suppose technically, it’s not day 2 since I started the 4-patches back in July 2008 and repurposed them this past March. However, it is the 2nd day I’ve focused on this quilt.

Each stack contains 10 units, so I have enough for 50 blocks.  Tonight I listened to 3 CDs of my book, so about 3 hours of sewing.  I guess that means I am participating in the Quiltathon that Judy is hosting. I wonder if I can carve out another 3 hours tomorrow evening?

Earlier this year I pulled out my scrappy 4-patches and a length of neutral fabric to make Scrappy Irish Chain from Adventures with Leaders & Enders by Bonnie Hunter.  Sewing the connector units was my leader/ender project this past spring and summer.  The project got put away when I realized I had sewn about 20 4-patches turned wrong and I needed more focus.

Why did I pull it out tonight?  Well, the past couple of weeks I’ve focused on sampler blocks needing a lot of focus.  The past couple of days I’ve avoided my sewing machine and I figured out why (other than I’ve been reading 9 of Mary Balogh‘s books since the first of the month – I was off work for 5 days).  I needed something mindless to work on and something which might just become a top sooner than later (JT2, SBS and the Christmas BOM are those later projects).

So, I loaded the first CD of Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and started sewing.  Two CDs later I have half of the 4-patches sewn to connector units – admittedly I started with the connector units already sewn to one of the 4-patches.

I’m looking forward to working on this quilt and listening to the book.  Who know how much I’ll get done by the end of the book or how many 3″ spools blocks I’ll make as leader/enders.

This Halloween fabric came in the mail today from a friend.  She does not like spiders – so much so that she reported that she threw the whole bundle in the trash.  When I heard that I asked her to send it to me.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this yet.  I don’t have a whole lot of Halloween fabric.  I think I’m going to send her some of this Disney Halloween fabric in exchange.

I purchased it to make a Stack-n-Wack quilt, but I think the motifs are too far apart.