Sunday, August 8, 2010

New Quilter

It's Sunday again! I've been busy this week helping my Grand-daughter Leah (16) make a quilt. She is doing great and I'm so proud of her! Because of her quilt, I haven't had much opportunity to work on any of my projects but that's ok. I'll have lots of time after she goes home next weekend to do any sewing I want. I'm sure going to miss having her around. I'm planning to do a post with pictures and daily progress of her first quilt.
This week, the purchases I made were for her quilt. Most everything came from my stash until she decided she wanted purple setting blocks and I just didn't have enough of any one on hand. She also found a neat black & white print to use in her quilt. I'm hoping that we can find something in my stash to use to piece the back yet too.

STASH REPORT for Week #32

Used this week: 5.6 M
Used Year to Date: 34.51 M
Added this week: 3.0 M
Added Year to Date: 26.47 M
Net used for 2010: 8.04 M

Check Judy's blog for all the stash reports this week.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Quilt Two-step

This past week I decided to use up a charm pack that I have had around here for a long time. I had been admiring all the "Between Charming Friends" quilts that were done and decided that one of those would be great for using up the charm pack of 'Midas Touch' by Ro Gregg for Northcott that I had. When I looked at the instructions, I realized I needed two charm packs... I figured I would never be able to find another charm pack the same as it is a few years old already.  Scrap plan #1 for now and move on to plan #2.

Plan #2 was to join in on the "Charm Quilt-along" on Freckled Whimsey. I have 3 charm packs of L'Amour by Sandy Gervais for Moda that I'd "won" on ebay and had no idea what I was going to make with them. This quilt-along is perfect! All I needed was some background fabric so, off I went to the quilt store.
When I walked in and started looking around, I spyed some charm packs and... GUESS WHAT? There was a single charm pack sitting there of Midas Touch! Of course I bought it and decided to go back to plan #1, the Between Charming Friends quilt. I couldn't remember how much background I needed exactly but picked up 2.5 meters. I rushed home and began cutting.

I cut a whole bunch of 5" squares for the first step, or so I thought. When I checked the instructions on Charming Chatter to find out how many I needed, I discovered that I was cutting for the plan #2 quilt on Freckled Whimsey and NOT for the plan #1 Between Charming Friends quilt. OK then... rather than waste all of that cut background, it looks like I'm going to be doing both. Thankfully, the antique white background I bought works well with both sets of charm squares. I ran back to the store and picked up some more of the same fabric so I'd have enough to do both quilts.
I cut up all the Midas Touch squares and realized I was 2 squares short. I found some black with a gold metallic swirl pattern and cut 2 charms from that. Phew! Thank goodness for stash!  I've sewed the 12 four-patch blocks required and got the strips joined for the 16 patch blocks.
Thats when I decided I needed the design wall to lay these blocks out so I can get good balance. Problem is... my double four-patch is still not all put together and is still on the wall.
 
OK, so I stop everything in order to sew the double four-patch quilt top together to free up the design wall. I had sewn all the vertical rows together when I had to stop for the night.

Does anyone else work like this?? or is it just me? Always seems to be three steps forward and two back.


STASH REPORT for Week #31
Somehow I've confused things and missed week #30 altogether but, there were no changes to report anyways.

Used this week: 9.05 M
Used Year to Date: 28.91 M
Added this week: 6.4 M
Added Year to Date: 23.47 M
Net used for 2010: 5.44 M

Check Judy's blog for all the stash reports this week.