Pouch swap

The triad modern quilt guild did a pouch swap and I was paired up with Tami as my partner, she loves Amy Buttler fabrics but not the color yellow so that makes things a little trickier. The new line bright heart was the way to go for this one with a little Violette and a few other fabrics from some of my favorite designers thrown in. 

I went for a simple pouch and really like the outcome -- it's a large pouch about 8.5 by 12 but I really like the versatility that this will offer the recipient. 

So did Tami love it? -- Not sure she didn't make it to the meeting 

in return I got a pouch made by Roseanna

it's the Bionic bag and so cute. I'm probably going to be taking this one to the Stash Bash retreat because it's bigger than my sew together bag. 

Tula Pink 100 Block along

If you missed it Michelle and I are supporting each other and a few other brave souls that have taken up the 100 modern block project from Tula Pink. The link up is on the 15th of each month. 

My (lofty) goal was to make 25 blocks per month and have the quilt completed within the year. Well upon further review of the TPCS book I only actually need to make 70 blocks for the layout that I want to make -- WHAHOOO!! 

So I started first by taking my book to Office Depot and having it spiral bound -- this makes a huge difference in the accessibility of the book and honestly if I had done it before I might have started the project before now. It was a $5 fix and now the book lies flat and I can easily see things without fighting with the book. 

On to the progress that I made with the actual blocks -- since i'm not making them all I was selective about the ones that I made and am not going to be doing them in any sort of order. I am making friends with little post it notes so that I will know which blocks I have made and not repeat myself, this will also help me know how many blocks I have completed along the way. 

#1: block 4

#2: block 5

 #3: Block 7

So this half month's progress is 3 blocks of 70, next post will be a whole month so I hope to have many more blocks completed then. Maybe I can complete them all before stash bash and have a fun project to assemble while I am there -- that's some lofty goals as stash Bash is less than 2 months away and i know i have a few other things that will need to be completed before that time. 

Are you working on the Tula Sampler too? Then head on over and link up with Michelle. 

I said I wouldn't ...

but alas I have, I've taken on another commission t shirt project. This one is for a coworker and her son is graduating college in a few months.

I love making quilts and things but the y shirt quilt is one of my non favorites because of the pressure that goes into them and the weight of them once they are assembled. It's a hard thing to cut into someone's memories and hope that they are happy with the results and usually things work out great and the person is happy to have the task completed (because you know they have been putting it off themselves). 

So this weekend I started on the new project and got everything interfaced and rough cut, just to test sizing and I was pleasantly surprised when my random initial layout had things fitting excellently together. I did a bit of rearranging so that the colors would balance out better and came out with this layout 

So I pulled a filler fabric and started sewing things together. I now need to add a boarder or 2 and this quilt will be well on it's way. I know the outer boarder will be the green gears fabric that I have been holding onto for some time and I think that the inner boarder will be something in the golden yellow color scheme. 

Stay tuned for the final result. 

July sewing or stashing

My initial splurge this month was on the 18th with these 5 yards of fabric -- but most of them already have a project that they are going toward so I'm only putting less than 2 yards in the actual stash. 

I worked on getting my dad's birthday quilt finished and successfully used another 6 yards of stash for backing and binding. 

I made up my bee blocks this month -- 2 yards of stash 

The second bee blocks were for a lady making for quilts of valor so I sent her a few extra fabrics for this awesome cause. 

I pulled fabrics from the stash to make the 100 modern Tula blocks quilt --- 40 yards worth. I know this quilt will take at least half of this fabric for the front and back but I wanted a huge variety and really couldn't limit my self. (In pulling for this project I discovered that I was short one color way of Acacia and it happened to be the one that I was looking for so I did make a few small purchases to fill in this gap but they are all accounted for in the pull.)

I did a pay it forward this month and decided to get rid of some of my scrappy squares that I have been holding onto for a while. This started with the new leader/ender project that Bonnie Hunter is doing this year with tumblers, I'm going to use all scrap squares for this project and discovered that it will take 4 inch squares to be able to use my accuquilt die -- so I offered up the 3 inch squares that I was stashing on Instagram. This is going to make cutting my scraps go much quicker since now I will only be keeping charm squares and strings rather than cutting 4 different sizes. These lovelies went to a lady that makes charity quilts and it lightened my load by another 3 yards (by weight). 

 I finished up the month with having bought 2 yards and with having pulled / used 52 yards. So put that with last month's totals and I am in the positive 124.5 yards for the year. (Maybe I should be a little more realistic and only count half the Tula Quilt pull but that still puts things at 104.5 yards lighter for the stash so far this year -- WHAHOO!)

I can't wait to start prepping for the Mini stash bash that is in a few months and I will be working on some projects for that as well and I hope that this will make another sizable dent in the stash.