March Stash Report

At the end of February I had purged 50 yards of stash and I was feeling pretty good about my self and the progress that I was going to make this year --- then March 1 hit and one of my lovely friends announced that she would be closing her store at the end of the month. Of course that means great sales and deals and I have plenty of projects in the works so I wasn't really needing anything except backing for my Wanna Fanta Quilt that the bee blocks were coming in for and of course I can't resist Tula Pink on sale so I went on over there to see what I could score. (+15 yards, -2 being gifted to a friend) 

Now that that's out of my system I needed to get to quilting this month. I was able to finish my bee blocks the last day of February as they got posted early and I was hive queen in my other hive. Jenna requested Quarterfoil blocks in teal, pink and yellow -- remember the only fabric i bought last month, yeah it was intended for these beauties. My teal was a little light that I got but I did have some in the stash that was dark enough. (-1 yd) 

I also decided to hive jump again this month -- who knows it might be a monthly thing for me going forward because I love making blocks to send to others and know that I am a part of their quilt. I made these wonky blocks for Christen (-.5 yd)

I also found out about a very special project on Instagram called a quilt for Henry -- his mother was a special quilter that passed away unexpectedly and blocks were being collected so I whipped up a few friendship stars to send to this cause. (-.5 yards) 

I then jumped into hive 1 and whipped up this block for Robin Sue (-.5 yards) 

I'm loving bee blocks so much. A lady from Stash bee back in January posted up her collection of blocks so far and she is lacking in the yellow and oranges and I whipped up these fun union jacks to help balance things out. (-1 yard) 

 I also gifted a WIP to one of my friends and the strings that I had pulled for it so that she would be able to complete it (-2 yards)

On to my sewing -- as I was waiting for bee blocks to come in I decided it was time to tackle making some of the 20 extras that I will need in order to make this a bed size quilt for my husband. Pulled a bunch of the scraps that the lovely ladies had sent me and some of my own purple squares and whipped up these extra blocks. 

my real goal for this month was to finally get around to quilting at least one of the quilts that I had in the waiting pile -- you know with the quarter coming to an end it would be nice to have a couple of finishes to show off -- My first finish this month was my scout quilt for the back seat of my Honda. (fabric already accounted for)

and my second was the very colorful Kaleidascope quilt from my bee mates last year (fabric already accounted for)

So another great thing coming up for me is the Kitten Mini Quilt swap due mid April and I got this beauty ready to go (-3 yards with gifted fabrics) -- now I have to make the companion gift to go along with it before shipping. 

Another surprising finish this month was my Rush Hour quilt that I had nearly given up on -- really it was headed for the orphan adoption posting until I found some more love for it and finished it off in just 2 evenings. (-8 yards)

I'm also working on my Stash Bash Revamp project and hope to get it forwarded to a friend in time to be shown off at Stash Bash next month, since I sadly will not be able to attend. 

The Tula Project is really growing and starting to take shape -- I have all the blocks put together (and an extra) and I started working on layout options. I hope to have some rows in tact by the mid April check in. 

Closer to the end of the month (as the shop was about to close) I went back to find background for my awesome Kate Spain Christmas quilt I am planning and I may have bought a little more for stashing. (+10 yards) 

I participated in the Quilty Orphan Adoption and re-homed 2 projects and a huge bundle of scraps (-15 yards) 

A few days before the shops closing I stopped by again and picked up a few colors my stash is lacking that I need for some upcoming bee blocks and a few great deals (+10 yards) 

So this month had me starting at -50 yards, I added in 35 yards and used 33.5 yards so that brings the new yearly total to -48.5 yards -- Looks like I'm going to have to get back on the fabric purge plan starting next month. My shelves are looking so full and it's to the point of buying another shelf or go back on the diet and i have plenty of projects to work on to decrease the stash that should keep my buys and out of the shops. 

How did I fare in the first Quarter

Time to link up with the 2016 FAL 

I started out 2016 with way more goals that I could have possibly been able to finish. I had 11 started projects and many other things that I thought I might like to start -- see to many goals, but this link up is about finishes and I have a few of those too. 

my first finish for the year was my pixelated cotton and steel heart mini quilt -- turned out to be an angel mini for my best friend but it was totally worth it. 

My next finish was the Honda Scout quilt -- I set this as my January OMG project and finally got it quilted and bound in late February

 

My Skinny Mini Swap was sent out in Late February

I also had the Kaleidoscope quilt ready for quilting in early February -- finished early March

Rush Hour Quilt was completed -- this was the oldest standing UFO in my room and this finish felt really good.

Kitten Mini Swap (due 4/20) -- complete (not blogged yet)

So it looks like first quarter this year ended up with 6 finishes and that's pretty good to me.

I made some progress on a few things, added few new projects and purged out 2 UFO's that I really had lost interest in. Let's see if I can do better next quarter. 

Oldest UFO -- Busted

So back about 2 years ago I made a scrappy improv quilt called rush hour for a blog hop project. 

I even got the quilt top basted with the intentions of quilting each block a different motif and really taking time to practice my FMQ skills. This quilt was going to eventually live in my husband's car for me to use while on trips. I folded it up and put it in my pile of work on it later projects and kinda forgot about it. 

Fast forward 2 years and the quilt still sits on the shelf and I had decided that i would offer this project up for the orphan adoption. Well I unfolded it to take a photo for the listing and it hit me --- I still love this project. 

I knew however that quilting all the little bits was not something that I would be willing to do -- this quilt is for a guy, traveling around in his car why not keep things simple and just put some quilty lines on it. I'm not super big on using my walking foot but the organic straight lines would work for this project for sure, so I set out one evening to at least start the process and see where this took me. 

I'm happy to report that by evenings end I not only had some organic lines with random spacing I also had enough scrap binding to keep moving froward. 

Hurley approves 

The next day I stitched it down and having this finish really feels good, especially since it was so long coming. 

It look lovely hanging out with Duchess too. 

Happy Quilting everyone -- here's to busting those old UFO's. 

Kaleidascope Finish

I've always loved Kaleidoscope quilts but not had the patience to make all the blocks in the small scale that I wanted, so this year when I joined several hives I decided that this is what I wanted everyone to make and of course I would have some filling in to do. I assigned these blocks to my Wee Bee Learning and We Bee With it hives in the first half of the year. Everyone made 8 pieces of the Kaleidoscope puzzle (or a total of 2 blocks each) but I asked them to leave them in the smaller units so that I could mix them up. 

Everyone did a great job, I added about 24 units to the mix to ensure there was color balance -- Moon cat really approves of the blocks.

When I went off to Stash Bash in the Fall I put the top together and really marveled at how all these colors really came together. 

 

Hubs and I took several quilts out to Reynolda Village to get some photos and i decided that, even thought it was just a top I wanted some photos of this one too. 

Because I made so many blocks and ended up changing the layout, I had extra blocks that I used on the back. 

Once I got her all quilted the end results are even better than I could have imagined when I set out in early 2015 to have a group of strangers make me one of the happiest quilts that I will love for a long time. 

I think this would be an excellent quilt to have in my sewing room for dreaming up new projects -- once I get a chair in there but that's what my dream sewing room board is for on Pinterest. 

The boys really love it already. 

Orphans for adoption

Each year there is a quilty orphan adoption hosted by Cynthia of Quilting is more fun than Housework 

I took part in this last year and decided that I would give it a go again this year. It's a great way to re-home projects that you no longer love and send them on to someone else that will breath new life into them. 

Up first is a BOM project that used marble fabrics -- I knew at the time that this was not a quilt I would want to make but mostly took the class to be with friends and maybe kick up a new skill.

next is a quilt top that is 50 x 70

and a padded flat rate filled with all sizes of scraps 

If you are interested in adopting any of my projects please leave a comment below and which item you would like to finish and I'll do selections at the end of the week (items with multiple interest will be selected through a drawing). I am only opening this to US addresses due to shipping costs. 

March City Sampler check in

For the February linky I kinda cheated a little and whipped up 13 blocks in one evening -- after the link up went live but before the end of the week. I had the blocks precut and ready but other things were taking away my focus. My goal heading into the next month was to complete the 9 remaining blocks and start to assemble the rows. I was thinking that a completed quilt top might be aiming a little high with the other goals and things in the works. So, how did it all work out? 

block 62 -- # 84

block 63 -- # 89

block 64 -- # 92

block 65 -- # 8

block 66 -- # 15

block 67 -- # 45

block 68 -- # 51

block 69 -- # 64

block 70 -- # 54

So my goal of all 70 was obtained as a part of #quiltnon16 a super fun online group of people not going to quilt con. That left me with another 3.5 weeks to see what I could manage as far as rows.

I finally pulled all the blocks out of my book and all the sticky tabs so that I could renumber the block layout and discovered that I actually made 71 blocks some how so I guess that's better than being short. 

I decided to try laying them out in book order and think I generally like the color balance and flow but I haven't yet decided if I will be moving any of them around or really what I am going to do about the extra block. 

(sorry for this poor photo I laid them out on the floor of my office one afternoon at lunch time). 

I have my background fabric ready and want to start making rows very soon. 

Can't wait to see what all you other creative ladies have accomplished this month, who knows maybe next month I will have rows or a quilt top but I think that this one may be heading out to the longarmer.