Backing Fabrics Found…

March 27, 2011 9:47 pm ⋅ Pam

… and thread, stabilizer, needles, glue, more fabric and (not pictured) 10 yards of batting!

I drove down to Rocking Chair Quilts in Butler, Missouri today and quilted my Pink and Blue Carolina Christmas quilt and my Dragonfly quilts. While I was there I looked at fabric for 3 of the 7 quilts I need to get done by the end of June.

I decided the Nancy Halvorsen 108″ wide backing fabric would work for two — the purple, yellow and green Old Tobacco Road and the green, peach and magnolia Chain Event. The orange fabric? Well, I just liked it.

Then, I made a stop at Jo-Ann’s and the in-store sewing machine shop for stabilizer and thread for the new-to-me embroidery machine. I think the first thing I’ll make is a couple of quilt labels. Finally, since the batting was on sale and I had a coupon which worked on the entire purchase – both regular and sale priced items – I picked up 10 yards of batting. Other than scraps, I was out of batting.

Now I just need TIME to get the quilts quilted and bound. I setup two appointments in May to do more quilting in Butler. There’s so much going on in April, I can’t get back down there.

Off to see about binding a quilt.

Posted in: Uncategorized

Stash Report

March 26, 2011 10:53 pm ⋅ Pam

The week started off with shopping in my friend’s fabric closet. I don’t have many batiks and this was a great way to get my feet wet, so to speak. I have a project in mind, but by the time I get that far, I may change my mind once or twice. The other fabric purchase was backing for one of the quilts I have to get done this Spring.

On the usage front, I pulled a piece of vintage fabric to back my pink & blue baby Carolina Christmas. I have way more fabric than I need in the backing, since it was only 36″ wide. But I only counted what I would have used had it been 40-45″ wide. I’ll trim off the rest and put it back in the stash after I get it quilted.

I also made the backing for the Dragonfly quilt and got it pinned to the leaders. The plan is to quilt the baby quilt and get my design down before tackling the big quilt. I decided to play it safe and go with the Rosetta Stone thread (dark silver, charcoal, & light silver). I’ll use white bobbin thread. I also purchased a spool of King Tut white thread for the baby quilt so the tension should be close as I transition from one quilt to the other.

My machine went into the shop Friday morning after I sewed the seam on the Dragonfly backing. Saturday night I pulled Miss Genie out and made a sample Twisting Star block. This will go with my red, white & blue shop hop blocks I picked up a two years ago. Mustn’t rush in to anything.

Fabric Added this Week: 10.5 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 18.694 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 7.125 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 41.601 yards

Net Used for 2011: 22.907 yards

More may have come in this week than gone out, but I’m still a head of the game for the year, with less fabric on the shelf – meaning more quilts to be used and loved.

Check out how others are doing by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Dragonflies is a Top

March 21, 2011 11:15 pm ⋅ Pam

I’ve just finished putting the border on Dragonflies. The top measures approximately 60 x 72.

Tomorrow’s task to to make the backing for this quilt and Victoria’s Rose.

This afternoon I took a file box of quilting books, patterns, and magazines to Fabric Recycles. They will purchase your unwanted fabric, notions, and pattern for either cash or store credit, or you can simply make a donation. While I was waiting for the offer on my stuff, I looked for backing fabric for the other 4 quilt tops which I will be quilting over the next 14 weeks.

I found this fabric:

It will be perfect for the backing of Victoria’s Rose, and at $2 a yard, I can’t beat the price. I paid for it from the cash I got for my box of books and pattern and still came home with money in my pocket. I wasn’t able to find anything for my other quilt tops, but I’ll try to swing by there the next time I’m out and about to see if anything new has come in.

Posted in: Dragonflies

What’s on my Design Wall

March 21, 2011 12:46 am ⋅ Pam

This past weekend I worked on my Dragonfly quilt. It still needs borders, but I need sleep more. After work I’ll get the rest of the borders on and perhaps get the backing pieced.

Isn’t this fabric perfect for the backing?

I’ve got an appointment in Butler on the 27th to quilt this top, so I’ve got to practice drawing dragonflies. While I’m doing that, I’ll ponder thread color. I have a spool of King Tut #901 Nefertiti which is Green, Fuchsia, Yellow, and Orchid. This is the thread that I used to quilt No Blue Geese in My Tropical Garden. It’s missing orange and turquoise. So, I wonder about using # 978 Rosetta Stone which is a Light Silver, Charcoal and Dark Silver – but the Superior website says this is out of stock, so that may solve the problem for me. There will be an outer black border and the binding will be black as well.

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times to see what others are working on.

Posted in: designwall, Dragonflies

Nora – Quality Control Cat

March 20, 2011 10:10 pm ⋅ Pam

Nora was one of the two cats at the Sew-In I was at over the weekend. She handled Quality Control.

Posted in: QCC

Stash Report

March 20, 2011 7:50 pm ⋅ Pam

I’m late with this week’s stash report because I’ve been at a Sew-In with my quilting buddies. Good food, good conversation, people who understand quilting and a friend who opens her stash for you to shop in. What more can you ask for?

I’m not reporting my stash shopping that I did earlier today. It will go on next week’s report. So, for this past week, no new fabric came into the house…. Wait, I just remembered a bag of scraps I was given. I haven’t even gone through them, so I’ll have to count them later when I see what I have.

Toward the used count, I have the borders for both the Dresden Plate and Dragonfly quilts and the backing for the Bunny Wallhanging. I just looked and I haven’t figured out how much fabric I cut for the red, white & blue quilt, so when I start working on it I’ll report it.

So, here are the numbers.

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 8.194 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 4.878 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 34.476 yards

Net Used for 2011: 26.282 yards

Check out how others are doing by following the links over at Patchwork Times. I’m off to empty the car now that I’ve taken a nap.

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Must Have Lost My Mind

March 16, 2011 11:44 pm ⋅ Pam

I started off the year with a bang, but here we are a bit over 10 weeks into the new year and I have 3 quilts completely cut out — 2 with the borders! This is cannot be good for the UFO count. To further illustrate that I’ve lost my mind, I’m planning on taking all 3 of them with me this weekend to a sew-in.

The bag on the left is Bonnie Hunter’s Fun With Bricks. This started innocently enough as a leader/ender project in January. The bag on the right is the Dragonfly quilt. The middle is a red, white & blue scrappy twin size version of the Mystery Quilt I wrote for the April retreat.

Add to this that my husband has just convinced me that I need to quilt and bind six quilts before the end of June and now I know I have lost my mind. This does not include anything which is on my UFO list or any other project I want to finish sooner than later. At least four of the quilts are completed tops.

Here they are:

Pattern - BQ2

Quilt #1 – 54 x 70. I have enough fabric to make a second identical quilt and bind them both in the purple. I may use the fabric to make the backing. No idea on the thread color or quilting motif.

Pattern Old Tobacco Road

Quilt # 2 – 70 x 100 When I started the quilt in Purple, Green & Yellow, I was thinking “Mardi Gras” and purchased either 1/2 yard or yard of Mardi Gras frogs. I may look for some more Mardi Gras fabric for the back. The purple binding is made and tucked in with the quilt and frogs.

Pattern Victoria's Rose

Quilt # 3 – 68 x 86. I have a piece of the border fabric left in the stash. The floral, pink and green fabrics, along with a stripe and a small floral print were part of a bundle. I found more of the floral on-line, but don’t think I there is enough for the backing. My spreadsheet says I have ‘binding fabric’.

Oh, my. I just thought of something. I really want pillow cases to go with each of these quilts. Have I mentioned I’ve lost my mind?

Pattern - The Chain Event

Quilt #4 – 74 x 88. I thought I had backing fabric for this quilt top, but when I inventoried my quilts tops and UFOs last year, I discovered I only had binding fabric.

Pattern - Disappearing 9-patch Variation

Quilt # 5 – 60 x 76. It’s a variation because I’m not making 9-patches and I’ve changed the size of the pieces. It just worked better for the size quilt I wanted to make. Fortunately I have the backing fabric – a great dragonfly print I found on-line and the binding has been cut, just not made. So, if I finish piecing the top this weekend, this will be the first quilt I get done.

Pattern - Crossword Puzzle

Quilt # 6 – size unknown. The size is unknown because this is still a work in progress. I have about 1/2 of the letters made. This one is going to the April quilt retreat.

I think my husband wanted to suggest a 7th quilt, but quickly left the room before I could throw something at him. Good thing I put the following qualifier in my UFO Challenge rules:

There will be occasions when a quilt will need to get moved to the top of the line regardless of the # pulled for the month. In those instances, I’ll either swap the #s if they are on this list, or if the quilt doesn’t have an assigned #, but is on either tab as of January 1, 2011, I’ll substitute it for the current # drawn. After all the goal is to get quilts off the UFO list.

Posted in: 2011 Mystery Quilt, BQ2, crossword, Dragonflies, Fun with Bricks, OTR, The Chain Event, UFO Challenge 2011, Victoria's Rose

What’s on my Design Wall

March 14, 2011 12:50 am ⋅ Pam

There’s all sorts of things hanging about today on my ‘design wall’. First, I’ve finished the center of the Dresden Plate. It’s UFO #10 which was February’s UFO in Judy’s UFO Challenge.

Then there’s a single block from Fun with Bricks. This the leader/ender project I started in January. Last week I got impatient and started working on the quilt so I could mindlessly piece. I’m currently sewing the light squares to the pairs of bricks.

Not pictured is the border and binding which I cut for both the Dresden Plate quilt and the Dragonfly quilt. I’ll work on the Dragonfly quilt and Fun with Bricks at this weekend’s sew-in. With luck I’ll finish the Dragonfly quilt so I can get it quilted in the next week or two.

The big news is that I finished a UFO!

A friend gave me the quilt top (sans border) at a retreat two years ago. I didn’t know how I was going to finish it, so it sat on my Quilts In Progress list. I finally decided I wanted Easter Egg fabric for the border, but couldn’t find any that I liked. I bet I had a dozen bolts of fabric pulled out trying to find the ‘perfect’ fabric before settling on this light green with tiny white butterflies. I got my Easter Eggs though — it’s on the back. You can see a scan of both fabrics here.

I used the Faux Piped Binding technique from TCL Stitches tutorial. Who knew I would be able to use it so quickly. I think the tiny bit of purple sets it off nicely. I’ll get back to you toward the end of the month to see if I substitute this one for this month’s quilt. I think I tweaked my rules to allow for this….

In the meantime, check out the links at Patchwork Times to see what other quilters are working on this week.

Posted in: Bunny Wallhanging, Colorworks Dresden Plate, designwall, Fun with Bricks, UFO Challenge 2011

Stash Report

March 13, 2011 11:11 am ⋅ Pam

Last night I ran out of gold thread for the Dresden Plate quilt sashings with only a bit over 100″ of stitching left. So, a trip to the store was in order. I pulled out of the driveway and then remembered the little bunny wall hanging that needed a border, so turned around and came back after it. — That explains the purple (backing) and the light green (border). The blue floral American Jane print is a FQ I got by simply walking into my LQS wearing purple on Tuesday.

So, did I get anything done? Well, I finished quilting the rest of the Dresden Plates. They are all attached and I just need to finish sewing down the sashing. Then it will be on to the borders. I know what I want, it’s the how that I’ve been pondering for the last couple of weeks. I think I have it figured out.

One night last week I decided I needed to piece. So, I bumped my leader/ender project up and finished sewing the bricks together. I then cut the squares to go with then and now my leader/ender project is sewing the squares to the bricks. I haven’t reported any of this quilt, so it will all hit the report once the top is completed.

Oh, yes. After getting back from the store I put the borders on the bunny quilt and cut the binding. I’m going to attempt to do a Faux Piped Binding. I found this tutorial at TLC Stitches. As soon as I finish making the binding I’ll be back to the finish up the center of the Dresden Plate.

So, here’s the report:

Fabric Added this Week: 2.694 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 8.194 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.362 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 29.598 yards

Net Used for 2011: 21.404 yards

Check out how others are doing by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Bunny Wallhanging, Colorworks Dresden Plate, Fun with Bricks, Stash Busting Report

What’s on my Design Wall

March 7, 2011 6:00 am ⋅ Pam

There are 4 more blocks to appliqué, quilt and then attach to the quilt center (two blocks are already quilted). Then I’ve got to figure out my inner border. I could go buy more gold Dimples so there’s no thinking involved, but what fun would that be?

The quilt is a bit stiff at the moment — at least I hope it’s just at the moment. I don’t know if it’s the batting – Soft & Black, a needled polyester batting by Warn & Natural (no longer made); the basting spray; the amount of quilting or a combination of all three.

I’m quilting a 2″ diagonal grid up to the edge of the plate. I’ve stitched in the ditch around the outer edge of the plate and center and between each blade. The sashing is edge stitched on both edges. If you click on the picture and enlarge it the quilting is visible. I’m using black thread, so any white in the grid is the result of the marking, which will wash out.