Binding, No Blogging, Travel

I know I didn't post a stash busting report on Sunday, but that's mainly because I was trying to do all the normal chores and pack for traveling this week. For work, I'm spending 4 days in Bangor, Maine. There was a small group of us that drove up on Monday (left Albany, NY around 7am) and arrived in Bangor around 3pm. We're spending a few days up here visiting our manufacturing shop to visit with the engineers up here and also to run some workouts with the manufacturing team. Hopefully it will be a good trip overall.

So back to quilting.....

I was able to finish the binding on the baby quilt on Saturday. Yay! I also found out that the baby was actually born on Saturday afternoon, so I finished it up JUST in time. :-) I also got a bunch more of the binding sewn on the Irish Rails quilt. At this point I have less than one side left to do, so I'm pretty close to being done. I thought about bringing the quilt with me and sewing binding in the vehicle and here in the hotel, but decided that I didn't want to pack the quilt and I didn't think I would actually have time to sew. At least progress was being made and I'm hoping that I might actually finish it up this weekend.

So here's the list of things to do over the next few weeks:

• Finish sewing binding on Irish Rails
• Finish sewing binding on Garden Pleasures
• Thread baste and quilt the Rainbow Patch quilt
• Start sewing binding on 54-40 or Fight

Its a little ambitious considering that the weather is getting nicer and I will be doing gardening soon and work is busy, but we'll see how far I get.

Stash Busting - 3/22/2009

Over the next few weeks, there won't be much stash bustin' happening as I'll be sewing binding, binding, and you guess it.... more binding. Here's the main stack of quilts that are quilted with the binding machine sewn, with the exception of the quilt with the brown border sticking out. That one is a top that needs to be quilted, but it was in the middle of the pile and I didn't feel like pulling it out. ;-) The quilt on the bottom I haven't even started the hand sewing yet, but the other two are both about 50% done.

So here's the little baby quilt that I've worked on the past week or so. I got the whole thing quilted in about 2 hours with a new pattern that I was trying out.

Here it is with the binding machine sewn and one edge of it hand-sewn. This is for a baby due at the end of March, so its now on the top of the pile of things to get hand-sewn.

Here's the Irish Rails quilt with the quilting done and the binding halfway sewn. This one is moving right along, too, but its going to have to sit for a little while until I finish the baby quilt.

And the stash report...

I saw the picture on Jill's blog for the Memories of Monet quilt. It was so gorgeous that I just "had" to have it. ;-) I've never actually made a quilt from a pre-made kit, so we'll see how it goes. The fabrics are absolutely gorgeous though. The only problem... 10 more yards bought this year. I'm definitely in the hole stash-wise, but I will eventually get out of it!

Fabric Added this Week: 10.25 yards
Fabric Added YTD: 100.50 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0.25 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 13.2 yards

Net Fabric: <87.3> yards

So WHAT have I been doing???

Over the past few weeks, my quilting progress has been limited by having to help Rich with projects around the house. Earlier this winter, we ordered a media bookcase from an online store in order to store some of Rich's books from when he was a kid. He's been collecting books from the Landmark series for quite a while now. The books are actually pretty good at teaching kids about history without being just a boring textbook that you would read in school.

We've also been working on the foyer that we painted more than a year ago. A while ago we bought crown molding to put up, but we picked out a pretty intricate pattern which took FOREVER to paint. We only have it tacked in place right now, but it looks pretty good!

I've also been growing a few plants in the kitchen to get some of the ready for putting outside. Soon the kitchen will be its own minor jungle!

Progress...

I've been poor at blogging lately, but I think its mainly because I spend all day at the computer so I don't really want to spend time at night on the computer, too. I have been making progress on the quilts that I'm working on though.

• #7 - "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight" - hand sewing of binding not started yet
• #9 - "Garden Pleasures" - hand sewing of binding ~50% complete
• #10 - "Irish Rails" - hand sewing of binding ~45% complete
• #11 - "Rainbow 9-Patch" - top pieced, needs to be basted
• #12 - "Charmed Baby" - quilting complete, needs to have binding added
• #13 - Rainbow Quilt - fabric washed
• #14 - "Heat Wave" - fabric washed
• #15 - "Shine on Bayou Cane" - fabric washed
• #16 - "Memories of Monet" - fabric arrived from quilt shop (shipped)

Phew... that's a lot of quilts in progress! I've been having to re-prioritize things based on my progress and the due dates. The receivers of quilts 9 and 10 don't know that thye are coming, so there really isn't any date except what's in my head. I had tried to get #10 done by St. Patrick's day...but you can see how well that worked out. ;-) I do need to get Quilt #12 done close to the end of the month since the baby is due on the 29th. However, this is the couple's first baby so I'm hoping it will come a little bit late.

Once I get the binding sewn onto the baby quilt, my machine is definitely headed into the quilt shop to get serviced. The shop I bought it from offers free servicing for 5 years, so I definitely need to take advantage of that! Plus, since I've made about 6 or 7 quilts in the past year, it makes sense to get it cleaned up and make sure everything is working well. I'm sure it probably needs a good cleaning in the areas where I can't get to.

Happy Quilting!

Stash Busting - 3/15/2009

Its been fairly quiet here on the quilting front. Work has been busy and I haven't had much time for getting quilting things accomplished. I did however finish quilting the Irish Rails quilt. I have about 40% of the binding hand sewn now and I'm hoping to get the majority of it finished this week. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. :-(

The good news is that I've used a little bit of stash this past week to get the binding done on the Irish Rails quilt. The bad news is that I saw a post on Jill's blog about a beautiful quilt kit that her LQS put together. I loved it so much (and the fact that I got a promotion at work ;-) ) that I ordered it yesterday. I won't be counting it as stash until its actually here, but it will make my numbers look worse. I definitely need to get some more sewing done!

Here are the numbers for this year:

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

Fabric Used this Week: 0.53 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 12.95 yards

Net Fabric: <72.55> yards

My goal is to get to 0 Net Fabric by the end of the year. Since the majority of the fabric I bought is actually for planned quilts, I should be able to do it.

Happy Quilting!

Honest... I haven't disappeared!

The past few weeks have been incredibly hectic and nothing really blog-worthy. Work has been extremely busy the past week or so with a lot of things happening and projects having deadlines. Whenever I have a really busy day at work, sometimes the last thing I want to do is come home and do more stuff.... even if it is quilting.

However, I have managed to get some quilting done although no pictures right now. I finished up the quilting on Irish Rails (I showed a picture of the top pinned here). I also got the binding sewn on to Irish Rails and I've started the hand sewing. The hand sewing on the Garden Pleasures top is about half done at this point. Hopefully I'll get more done this week!

Stash Busting - 3/1/2009

I haven't gotten a whole lot of sewing done lately...at least nothing picture worthy. I spent most nights this week hand sewing binding, so there's not a lot of progress there. I did get a few rows quilted on the Irish Rails quilt, but I haven't been able to take any pictures of it yet. Today I got about 6 rows of quilting done in between doing loads of laundry and other general chores. I also got the backing material cut and basted for the baby quilt that I posted about here.

Here's the stash report for this week...nothing in and a little bit used.

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

Fabric Used this Week: 0.75 yards
Fabric Used YTD: 12.42 yards

Net Fabric: <73.07> yards