New Blog

Check out my new blog over at Upstate NY Creations.

I'm trying out a few things differently on that blog and it may become my primary blog going forward, so please update your links and follower status!  :-)

Sarah

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 11-15

I've been pretty busy the past few weeks with work, but I have been able to get some sewing done.  First though....we got a tractor! ;-)

We knew with getting the larger piece of property, we would need a larger piece of equipment to take care of it.  So we ended up getting a medium-sized Kubota tractor.  Right now it just has the front-loader on it, but eventually we will get a snow thrower for the back to clear the driveway and a back-hoe to dig some trenches on the property.  Here she is:

Already getting dirty and having rocks thrown in her. :-)

On the quilting front, I'm making progress on Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt Orca Bay.  Its not really a mystery at this point since she long ago finished hers, but it is still somewhat a mystery as to how all my colors will mix together in the quilt.  Here are some pictures of all the little bits and pieces...

 352 HSTs

 704 wing triangles to go onto the HSTs

All the parts from the previous steps

 I just liked how the stack of string triangles looked. ;-)

I also finished quilting Purple Squared a while ago, but have been bad at taking pictures of it.  Here it is all finished.  Its currently hanging on the railing in our foyer.

So in the past few weeks I've used up a bit of fabric, but I also had to buy 3 more FQs of purple to finish all the wing pieces.

Here are the numbers:
Added This Week:       0.75 yards
Added Year to Date:    12.77 yards
Used This Week:          2.62 yards
Used Year to Date:       9.96 yards
Net Year to Date:         2.80 yards

I'm in the red still by almost 3 yards....I'm hoping that will be fixed soon when I start working on the Lone Star wall hanging for our foyer.

Starry Night

I'm not much of a person who likes to just sit and watch TV.  I'm definitely the type of person who has to do something while I'm watching TV.  When I don't have a quilt binding to sew down, I'm usually doing some needlepoint.

In 2008, I posted here about my progress on needlepoint.  I've copied two of the pictures below showing what I had been working on.  In mid-2008 I finished the trees....

 

And started on the next needlepoint.  This is the very first picture I shared of the design.

Its pretty amazing that that tiny little square ended up as the following (I'm not sure why it uploaded the picture sideways):

We were able to get the picture framed at a local place in Saratoga, which was really awesome.  It turned out better than we had hoped and looks amazingly like the painting.  It only took me 3 years to finish it. ;-)

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 6-10

I've been bad about blogging lately and I was surprised to find its been a whole month since I last posted.  The last 4 weeks have flown by and I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished other than working an insane amount of hours at work.  The new software our company has rolled out is still causing lots of problems and myself along with 3 other people have been staffing a "war room" of sorts to help people with this program.  All of us have been working 11-12 hour days for four weeks straight now.  Needless to say, when you work that many hours 5 days a week, it doesn't leave much time for anything else.

I have made some progress on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay along with making some mug rugs and children's bibs.  I don't have any pictures downloaded right now, but these items did add up to a fair amount of fabric being used in the last 4 weeks.  However, I did purchase fabric for a large lone-star wall hanging that I will be making for our foyer.

Here are the numbers:
Added This Week:       12.02 yards
Added Year to Date:    12.02 yards
Used This Week:          2.74 yards
Used Year to Date:       7.25 yards
Net Year to Date:         4.76 yards

I'm no longer in the black. :-(  I think I'll get back there soon though.  I have two quilts that are ready to be quilted and I haven't counted the backing yet...hehehe - that will help with the numbers. 

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 5

Not a whole lot of sewing got done this week.  Work is very busy and most nights I didn't get home until about 6pm (I get to work around 7:15am).  Friday night I didn't get home until 6:30pm...yuck!

However, I did get some sewing done this week.  I'm still working on the yellow/pink string block's for Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay quilt.  I've completely worked through this pile of strings and had to cut more.

This is the picture from last week, but I wanted to include it again for the type of blocks being made.  These strings end up at 5.5" square, then you cut them on the diagonal, perpendicular to the lines of strings.

Since I did sew and had to cut more strings, I ended up using a little bit of stash.  I'm purposely making this entire quilt from stash to see how it goes.  Most of the fabrics are from a FQ pack that I received for Christmas last year, but I've had to throw in some other fabrics to supplement the amount of fabric.  I think it will look really neat in the end...or at least I hope so!

Here's the numbers:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         0.84 yards
Used Year to Date:      4.52 yards
Net Year to Date:        -4.52 yards

I'm still in the black...although that won't last much longer.  I am planning a quilt right now to fit as a wall hanging in our foyer.  Since its a specific quilt (a lone star) and it needs specific colors, I'll be buying fabric in the next week or two.  It will probably be around 8-9 yards of fabric just for the top.  But at least I can say that I go all the way through January in the black. :-)

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 3 & 4

I forgot to post my stash report for last week, so I get a somewhat "boosted" stash count for this week since its really two weeks.  I have been doing some sewing, but not a ton.  Work has been crazy busy.  The amount of work we have should be done by 3 times the number of people we have, so its been hectic to say the least.

Among a few other projects, I've been slowing making progress on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery.  Here's my pile of yellow and pink strings for step 4.

And a few string blocks made and cut...

I also put binding onto a small quilt that I had started last year.  I'm not going to show pictures of it until I've washed all the marks out of it though.

So here are the numbers:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         1.89 yards
Used Year to Date:      3.68 yards
Net Year to Date:        -3.68 yards

*  minus means I've used more than I've bought

First Real Snowfall

Here we are in the middle of January and we're JUST starting to get snow.  This year has been a very mild winter in upstate NY, which I have to say, I'm glad its been easy and mild.  I'd rather have snow just starting now than already being under several feet of snow.  My husband (a snowboard enthusiast) is not quite as happy.

We had our first real snowfall of the year yesterday and here's some pictures of the house.  It was very pretty with the clean white snow everywhere.  The guys hadn't come to plow the driveway yet, so the only thing to "mar" the snow was the tire tracks from my husband's car.

I like the red siding of the house even more with the snow surrounding the house.  The only thing we have to figure out is a better way to keep our wood pile dry.  On the left side of the porch, you can see our wood pile covered with snow.  This is just a "temporary" wood pile for keeping it a little dryer and easier to get to when we're burning wood.  To the right of the house (not in the picture) is our real wood pile that has LOTS of wood and is covered by a tarp.

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 2

This is going to be a quick post since I'm in the middle of making dinner (roast pork, cinnamon apples, rice, and roasted broccoli), but I did get some sewing done this week.  I finished up part 2 of Orca Bay from Bonnie Hunter.  I'm very far behind most people, but I'm enjoying making the quilt and doing some things that I don't normally do.  I also started on part 3 of Orca Bay, so I used fabric for both of those things.. 

Here are my numbers:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         0.39 yards
Used Year to Date:      1.86 yards
Net Year to Date:        -1.86 yards

Doing well...haven't bought anything yet and I may not have to this year.  Most of the projects I have lined up are ones that I bought fabric for in years past.

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 1

A new year...a new stash busting attempt.  This year, I'm actually starting out on the good side.  I used about 1.5 yards of fabric in the last week for Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt and since I haven't bought anything... :-)  I'm in the black for once, which I'm sure will probably change.


Here's the stash numbers for 2012:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         1.47 yards
Used Year to Date:      1.47 yards
Net Year to Date:        -1.47 yards

*  minus means I've used more than I've bought


Hopefully I can continue this trend for a little while.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 52

I think this is the last stash-busting report of the year, but I'm writing this early since Sunday is Christmas day.

I have been able to do some sewing the past few weeks and completed a project and almost completed step 1 of Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt.

Here's a table runner I recently completed:

And here's the progress on Orca Bay:

I have all 224 QSTs made at this point, although the picture above only shows 122 of them.

Here's the stash numbers for 2011:
Added This Week:       9.72 yards
Added Year to Date:    53.61 yards
Used This Week:         4.87 yards
Used Year to Date:      40.92 yards
Net Year to Date:        12.69 yards

I would almost be in the black for the year, but I bought fabric for the table runner and because it was on sale and the end of bolts...I bought more than I probably should have. ;-)  Oh well...it all works well for stash next year.