Quiltathon 2009 - Sunday Update

I was able to get a little bit more sewing done tonight and got this little baby quilt put together. Its just a top for the time being, but I'll figure out some borders to add to it and then get it quilted. I have a co-worker who's wife is having a baby sometime in March, so this quilt will be going to them. I love the Pooh fabrics that I have and I'm definitely going to have to get some more since I'm just about out.

February Quiltathon

Judy, over at Patchwork Times, is having a quiltathon this weekend. While I wasn't able to participate yesterday (Rich and I spent most of the day running errands, doing some shopping at a store that's going out of business, and then watching some movies), I have been doing quilty stuff this morning.

Rich got up early and met one his friends and they both went skiing/snowboarding (we're expected to get about 6 inches of snow today - so prime weather for skiing), so I've had the entire house to myself! :-) First thing this morning, I browned some meat and put all the fixings for some chili in the slow cooker. Now I don't have to cook the rest of the day. Yay! Then I started pinning the Irish Rails quilt.

However, since I haven't marked the quilt yet, I have to baste it with thread so that I can take the big, fat pins out and not have to worry about stitching over them. So I've gotten the entire backing pressed today, everything laid out, pinned and I have about a quarter of it thread basted at this point. Since its almost 1pm, I figured its time to give an update and have something for lunch. I should also probably shower at some point. ;-)

I hope everyone else is enjoying their quilty weekend!

Stash Busting - 2/22/2009

I was able to make a little more progress on the stash busting front. I cut, washed, and pressed the backing for the Irish Rails quilt that I've been working on for a while. Lately, I've gotten stuck on the quilting part of the whole process and its been tending to slow me down a bit. Plus, I've told myself that I'm not allowed to cut into my new fabric that I bought a few weeks ago until I get the 4 quilts currently in process finished. Two of them are almost done and only need binding added, but the other two still need to be quilted. Hopefully I'll be able to make some progress now that I'm no longer sick!

Here's some pictures of the quilts that have binding on them:

And the stash report:

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 85.50 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 3.0 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 11.7 yards

Net Fabric: <73.8> yards

Yicky!

Yes, I did spell the title correctly. I am definitely still feeling yicky! I decided after more than a week of dealing with a sore throat that I should go see the doctor. Somehow I managed to pick up Strep throat somewhere which explains why I have been feeling so crummy. Now I'm on a 2 week course of antibiotics to try to clear it up. Hopefully I'll start feeling better soon so I can get some quilting done. ;-) Not to mention that the house is starting to look like a tornado went through it.

Stash Busting - 2/15/2009

I wasn't able to do much sewing this week as the cold I had last week is still kicking around. The only reason I can function right now is due to taking DayQuil. I've been taking a combination of allergy medicine and cold medicine to make sure I cover all my bases. My mom has had some troubles with allergies already despite it still being February in Upstate NY and nothing is growing yet. We've had a few days of warmer weather, so everything is wet and the mold is starting to grow. I'm hoping that my allergies haven't progressed to being allergic to mold. All I can say is that this cold better go away soon because I'm tired of it!

This week is going to be a lonely week since DH is traveling. He'll be in sunny San Francisco for a few days at a conference for work. Hopefully things will go smoothly for him and he won't get sick while he's there. In the meantime though, I'll have plenty of hours in the evenings to do sewing if this cold ever goes away.

So here's is a picture of the Garden Pleasures quilt with the binding attached. I still have to hand sew the back, but I'm not too concerned about that. I'm usually pretty good about sitting down and getting binding done. I decided to use a nice, dark purple color for the binding to anchor the white border. If you zoom in on the picture, you can probably see the quilting on the lighter fabrics. I used a burgundy-ish color that blends into the redish and purple fabrics pretty well, but when you have the quilt in front of you, you can easily see the quilting in the lighter fabrics and on the blues.

And for what we're all waiting for.... the stash report! I did get some stash used on the binding above and I also made the binding for our large quilt, I just haven't sewn it on yet. I'm still counting it as stashed used though. ;-)

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 85.42 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.50 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 8.70 yards

Net Fabric: <76.72> yards

How did everyone else do this week?

Kitty Approved!

A few weeks ago, I was able to pick up our large quilt from the longarm quilter. I haven't put binding on it yet, but we decided to put it on the bed anyway. Its very warm and comfy underneath the quilt and it looks good on the bed. Most importantly....

Its kitty approved!

Every morning this week, we've woken up to find our cat, Ellie, curled up on the blanket. The picture I took above was actually when I came home from work one night. I was looking around for Ellie in her usual spots and when I couldn't find her, I called her name and up popped her head from the quilt. She was very content and didn't want to move. :-)

That's my only picture to share at this point, but I have been doing some quilting... honest! I finished up quilting Garden Pleasures (I'll post a picture later this week) and I've started making binding for it and the big quilt. Right now, I have about 700 linear inches of binding to sew! Yikes! However, binding counts as using stash! :-)

Stash Busting - 2/8/2009

Man, this was a bad week for stash busting. Work and a cold kicked my butt this week and I haven't gotten much done on the quilting front. The good part is that since I was sick... I didn't ADD to the stash. ;-) Hopefully next week will be better.

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 85.42 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 9.40 yards

Net Fabric: <76.02> yards

**** UPDATE ****

Somehow I had something mis-calculated on my original post. I've actually only used 7.2 yards so far this year vs 9.4. :-( I think I somehow was counting some of the backing material twice! oops! Here's the updated numbers:

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 85.42 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 7.20 yards

Net Fabric: <78.2> yards

Exactly 1 Year Ago....

Exactly one year ago (almost to the hour right now - its 11:39 EST) I was getting home from having surgery on my foot to remove a piece of bone that wasn't healing and to re-attach a tendon. Its very hard to believe it was a year ago already. The first few months after surgery were awful, which I guess can be expected. The only good part was that I got lots of binding sewn onto quilts! ;-)

So its been a year and I'm pretty much pain free. The foot bothers me once in a while when we have really drastic weather changes, but its pretty much OK. I still haven't been able to wear "normal" shoes yet. Granted... I haven't tried in a while, but a few months ago when I tried to wear some low heels (about 1") I was limping after just wearing them for 5 minutes in the house. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to wear shoes again versus sneakers all the time. I know the sneakers are probably better for me, but I like my shoes. :-)

Now I just need to figure out how to get more quilting time in!

Stash Busting - 2/1/2009

This was not a good week for using fabric, but it was a good week for buying fabric. ;-)

A local quilt shop had a Super Bowl Sale going on from Friday until today and there was up to 60% off all their fabric. The least amount off was 20%, which is still pretty good. Anytime you can get fabric on sale is a good time. My purchase was even "husband sanctioned" this time so he knew what I was going to come home with. Its a good thing I only came out of the store with the fabric I intended to buy though. The store had the new Bernina 830 on display and let me tell you... even though its ungodly expensive at about $12,000, it definitely is pretty amazing. However, for $12k I think the machine should be able to cut all my fabric by me just giving it the pattern that I want to make.

I have a few pictures that I want to share before I get to the stash report. Here's an updated photo of the bear my mother-in-law made with his quilted blanket. The picture I had posted earlier this week was a little dark since I took it at night. This one is better though.



And here's some pictures of the fabric that I bought. Doesn't it look yummy?? This is for the Rainbow quilt that I posted about on Friday. It took a while to pick out all the fabrics, but I think its going to look awesome when its finished.



Here's a picture of the fabrics I intend to use in Judy's Shine on Bayou Cane quilt. It didn't take too long to pick out these ones, but I think that's only because I had 5 colors instead of 15.

Finally, here are the fabrics for Judy's Heat Wave quilt from her book Nine-Patch Extravaganza. I wanted to use very similar colors to what she choose since I really liked the look fo the quilt.

And now.... the stash report:

Fabric Added this Week: 30.75 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 85.42 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 9.40 yards

Net Fabric: <76.02> yards

I really need to start cracking and using that stash!

Happy Quilting!