February One Monthly Goal

I start thinking of my next one monthly goal long before the current one is finished. This particular UFO wasn't the one I was thinking of doing.  I started going through the bins and boxes of UFOs to find one that I wanted to get finished soon.  This one using 16 patches caught my eye. All the blocks are done although I may replace one of the brighter blue ones.  These blocks came from my friends in the FCQ Equilters group in late 2010/January 2011.  I think they have aged enough.  Time to get on with finishing them.  And, I can always donate it to TAPS. 

So my goal this month is to get the top finished.  It will have dark red sashing (cut 1.25 if I remember correctly.)  Then it will be getting a piano key border.  So, doable but I'll have to keep focused on it as February is a short month.  Hum, this is definitely not laid out correctly.  I need to check all the blocks to make sure they all have a dark fabric in the top left corner.  And, yes, I am tired of working in red, white and blue but I have a great use for them once finished.  Hopefully, I'll be having the quilting and the binding as my March goal.  Unless I go all super efficient and get it all done this month.  That could happen. Or not. 

And, here's what we saw Monday morning when we went to work out.  Trees with a dusting of snow.  

I'm linking up with Elm Creek Quilts February Goal Setting and Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication.  I hope you'll join me on a tea break to see all the great things happening around the internet.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 30 - 2017

OMG √√√


Yes, I finished my One Monthly Goal last week.  I was enjoying my time with Sharon so I didn't get my finish posted to the blog right away. The quilting went very smoothly and I finished it in a day or two.  I used Ginger Star as the edge to edge design with So Fine thread in white on the top and in the bobbin.  I've been calling it Gems so that will be its name henceforth. 


This quilt was a variation of Go! Diamonds Jubilee quilt pattern from Accuquilt.  I made it larger and used only red, white and blue fabrics.  I had planned to give it to TAPS for the May event they sponsor in Washington, DC. I am now rethinking that as Country Piecemakers are making quilts for veterans in transition housing.  They are looking for twin size quilts while TAPS is looking for smaller quilts.  I have two smaller quilts in the works so this one may be diverted. You can read more about the program here: TAPS.  I donate my quilts through Faithful Circle Quilters and Project Linus. 

I've been thinking about what my next OMG project should be but I haven't made any decisions yet.  

Here's a couple more photos of Gems in progress. First, my print out of the EQ drawing I did. I had a hard time figuring out how many of each piece I needed.  As I got closer to the end of piecing I was cutting more of several units. And then, I ended up with too many. Sigh.

Do you chain iron?  I do when it works -- basically after chain piecing. I line up the pieced units and iron.  After ironing I often clip the connected threads. As long as the chain of pieces isn't too long this works well. This photo was taken at our beach house.  I frequently bring quilting projects with me to work on there. 

I had a great time up with Sharon. We spent a lot of time sewing so I will have some tops to show you soon.  But now, it's time to see how the goals went this week. Not too bad.  I'm down to just one sleeve to knit on the sweater and then it is on to putting it together and knitting the front band. 

January 22, 2017

Quilt RWB Gems Quilt√

Bind black and bright colored quilt√

Prep for the bargello class and attend it√

Finish bargello top except borders oops, I’m expanding mine so didn't work on it

Gather all red, white and blue orphan blocks √

Knit on sweater√

January 30, 2017

Knit on sweater

Put more crafting/quilting items away in the closet

Finish the R,W,B Orphan Block quilt top

Finish the pinwheel quilt top

Finish Stacy's small 9 patch quilt

This isn't a very long list as I'm trying to decide what to focus on next. 

That's it for today.  I'm connecting with Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and   Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal link up. I'm looking forward to cruising the Internet for some great ideas. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

A Finish!

Here it is -- a finished quilt. The blocks were lotto blocks from a retreat several years ago.  Sharon and I combined ours.  She put the quilt together and added borders.  I quilted it and did the binding. It is being donated through our Maryland guild. Because it is a twin size I don't know if it will go to Project Linus or some other organization.  Sorry I don't have a full on picture -- we just don't have a lot of places that I can get far enough away.  And, it's rained so much recently the backyard is soggy. 

I'm heading up to Sharon's house for a weekend of sewing.  Saturday we're taking a bargello class.  I have my strata from the 199?s that has now been ironed.  I may be taking some of the strips apart and redoing them as the strips are slightly gathered.  Ugh.  Look for future pictures and info on this.  

We decided we were going to make a quilt together using red, white and blue orphan blocks.  For years I've been making all sorts of blocks in red, white, and blue so I could make a quilt out of them.  It's time to actually do that.  Sharon was all in favor of doing it together.  I texted her this picture of my blocks which, by the way, is only a partial collection. Turns out she doesn't have a lot of orphan blocks and thus she has only 1 block to give.  Oh well. I have enough for at least one quilt and maybe two.  I'd love to get these out of the UFO container and into a finished quilt. I also grabbed a bunch of units -- half square triangles mostly.  These should all play nicely together. (I don't think the triangle log cabin block is going to make it into this quilt. It is leftover from one of the first quilted items I made.  I made a jacket with the triangle log cabins in about 1982 or 83!  Yikes! I've been quilting a long time.) 

That's it for me today.  I need to get breakfast, get dressed, packed and on the road. I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday. I hope to have some time later today to look some blogs to see what folks are working on.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 23 - 2017

Does this happen to you? OOPS!  This is suppose to be 2 pinwheel blocks.  Unfortunately I didn't notice it until I'd sewn the row together.  

And, yes, I did get the center of this top together.  It is another baby quilt that will go to a NICU.  I used the 9" Qube half square triangle die to make this.  When I make baby quilts I generally like them to be no wider than 1 width of fabric.  So 9 x 4 = 36.  I've got about 4 to 5" of border I can add.  Below I'm auditioning some of the fabric.  I do have a big piece of the print available.  But it is directional.  I probably have enough of the yellow, green, or red to use as a border.  

Any suggestions on it?  Unfortunately, I took these photos in the late afternoon.  And, today it is poring rain so there's no chance for better photographs.   I'm beginning to think I might put the extra print fabric on the back. Send me your ideas.  The border will probably be about 2" on each side.  It won't be finished this week because I'm heading up to take a class at Faithful Circle Quilters in Maryland so Sharon and I are having a sewing weekend at her house.

                               

Here's my prep work for the Bargello class we are taking from one of the members.  

No, I did not sew all of these strips together this past week.  This is a UFO.  The best I can remember is it was started in a class in the mid to late 1990's but I can't pinpoint it any better than that until I talk with Sharon. She didn't take the class because she moved away for several years.  I've got four width of fabric strata sewn and some cuts already made.  Why I didn't finish this is beyond me.  Although I was working full time so that may have been part of the reason.  

It's going to be really challenging to re-iron all of the strips that have been cut.  The plan with bargellos is to have two identical strata and press the seams opposite -- one set of seams go up and the other goes down.  Then when you sew them together all the seams nest really well.  I'll be ironing these in between other things this week. 

I did really well on my goals this past week.  I was really energized and spent a lot of time in my studio.  

January 16, 2017

Load and quilt customer quilt√

Knit on UFO sweater√

Start emptying boxes & put things in new closet shelves √

Put together pinwheel quilt√

Load RWB Gems quilt√ quilting is started

And here is what I'm going to be working on this week.

January 22, 2017

Finish quilting RWB Gems Quilt

Bind black and bright colored quilt

Prep for the bargello class and attend it

Finish bargello top except borders

Gather all red, white and blue orphan blocks

Knit on sweater

This is a pretty daunting list, especially finish the bargello top since I won't have all that much time after the class to do that.  But I really hope to get to all of these projects.  

I'm linking up with the regular blogs: Monday Making and Main Crush Monday.  I'm going to spend a bit of time visiting various blogs this morning and then head down to the long arm. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

2016 Year-End Stashbusting Statistics

For many years I've recorded fabric that comes in and goes out of my stash.  This year my tracking was hit or miss.  Ok, so I tried but can't guarantee I've recorded every thing coming in or going out.  It is what it is. The last time I reported was in mid November for July.  Now I realize how bad a year it was for using stash.   So first up are the stats since July. (Hey, I was really behind!) 

2016	Fabric In Month	Fabric in Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Aug	4.125	67.00	0.5	33.00	-34.00
Sept	12.625	79.875	0.75	34.375	-45.50
Oct	0.0	79.875	5.75	40.125	-39.75
Nov	3.50	83.375	4.00	44.125	-39.25
Dec	0.0	83.375	11.25	55.375	-28.00

Pretty pitiful fabric usage. I was working on things during these months but not very much was finished and what was finished were small pieces.  One way I motivate myself to actually finish an item is it has to be done completely before I count the fabric as being used.  I'm not doing so well with labeling my quilts recently but at least the bindings are done. That said, here's what last year looked like overall and how it compares to previous years. 

Year	Fabric In	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
2010	65.00	70.250		13.000
2011	186.5	72.00		114.500
2012	113.545	108.970		4.575
2013	100.71	103.015		2.305
2014	108.25	79.75		28.500
2015	66.205	77.150		10.945
2016	83.375	55.375		28.00

This is the lowest I've ever been on fabric going out.  Coming in could have been a lot worse so overall I'm not too upset.  Finishing Christmas Favorites was really helpful to my overall stats.  I'm going to try to keep up better this year.  I blame my neglect on the move...too much needed to be done. Watch out folks -- I have a large number of quilt tops ready to be quilted so I may have a mega "out" year.  Don't I wish! 

Here's a shot of one of my projects given at Christmas.  My daughter-in-law had asked if I could get or make an apron for her that she could use in the lab.  (Um, did I happen to mention she works in the ballistics lab for the FBI? Yea, she does.  When there are big shootings she and/or some of her colleagues might be called on to process the crime scene.) 

I got the design from Urban Threads. You can see the design better there.  It's called Baroque Punk Revolvers.  I tend to call it guns and roses.  Aimee LOVED it! She likes the design, the pockets and the dark color which will hide the dirt and grease that get on her clothes when she is working.  I also gave her a bottle of Grandma's Secret Spot Remover to help with the dirt. I have always had really good luck with this product. I'll let you know if Aimee has good results getting gun grease out of clothing. 

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday. Hope you can spend some time checking out all the wonderful blogs quilters are posting. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie