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Sunday Night Stash: The One Where I Fall Off the Wagon Into a Ditch With No Phone

Yeah. Fell right off the bandwagon. Bought a fat quarter bundle of 40 FQs of Mama Said Sew, from Sweetwater for Moda.  But I did finish the pillow shams from the Faceted Jewels buffalo bits! Here’s a shot of one of the pillows and the FQ bundle:

  • Used this Week:  4 yards
    • 4 yards - Faceted Jewels coordinating pillow shams
  • Used year to Date: 246.25 yards
  • Added this Week: 10.5 yards
    • 10 yards of Mama Said Sew FQ bundle (40 FQ’s)
    • 0.5 yard green gingham for Grandma’s Garden
  • Net Used for 2012: 66.5 yards
      • YTD Used for Charity: 70.25 yards (29% of total used)

See more stash reports at Patchwork Times!

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Q3 Finish Along Goals

Well… progress wasn’t what I had planned it to be for Q2, but I’m okay with that. I finished my big quilt (Faceted Jewels) and one of my other projects (the Wellspring House Woven Quilt). On the other two, well… things adjusted.  The other king-sized Lilac Hill quilt took a back seat as I switched from a trapunto plan to an applique plan. And now it’s sort of a muddle. I haven’t picked what I really want it to be, so it’s back-burnering for the time being.

For the Farmer’s Wife Quilt Along, I just wasn’t inspired to finish these blocks. I think because my original purpose was to make it in honor of my grandparents’ farm, but I’ve also been working on Grandma’s Garden to fulfill that purpose (and I bought another pattern at the MidAtlantic Quilt Festival that will do so better).  As I was talking out things in a failed podcast recording last week, I had the idea to use the blocks I’ve made so far, which are blue and white, in the baby quilt for our niece that is pregnant. She wants to do white and blue colors for her nursery, and using the blocks I’ve already made along with the leftover HSTs from Blue Swoon in the same colorway will work out nicely.

So, with all that preamble, here’s my Q3 “finish” goals:

  • Niece’s baby quilt, made of Blue Swoon buffalo HSTs and Farmer’s Wife blocks
  • Scrappy Trip Around the world quilt, a donation to Project Linus or other charity (depends on need)
  • Grandma’s Garden quilt, from the Saturday Sampler blocks
  • Faceted Jewels pillow shams, made of leftover buffalo HSTs from the Faceted Jewels quilt

  • Periwinkle Posie, a donation to Project Linus or other charity, using my sample applique block from my class with Jan Cunningham (shown here with some scraps and yardage I pulled in the same colors)
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    Pinwheels & Patches Baby Quilt- Finished!

    I found out a friend of mine is pregnant (while she’s still pregnant, so apparently my timing is getting better!), so I whipped this up for her.  She’s having a baby girl in October.

    The pattern is Bonnie Hunter’s - Patches & Pinwheels, reduced in size to a 7×7 block layout for the center. I consider this my first official scrappy quilt since I pulled my leaders and enders in the right colors for the 16-patch blocks. I also culled all the pinwheel parts from the scrap boxes, although they weren’t all the right size to begin with.
    I did an all over meander for the center and outer border, and I’m pleased the only fabric I needed to purchase was for the outer border (the backing came from my stash too!).
    Of course it’s not a quilt unless you’ve had some helpering to make it:
    I won’t be shipping this out right away since there’s a chance I’ll get to see my friend in person (she lives a couple hours away).
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    Big Sis Quilt: Finished!

    Here it is, the Big Sis to the little Secret Garden quilts:

    I basically took the scraps from Secret Gardenses and pieced those with a focus center panel, and then added the larger strips of the two fabrics I had the most leftover fabric from. I had a very pale yellow grunge that worked great with the fabrics, and then finished it off with some Kona Cocoa.
    I did an overall large-ish meander, which was challenge enough with this heavy minky backed quilt!
    As a refresher, here’s what the twin Secret Garden quilts look like:
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    A Pantload of Finishes!

    If you’re looking for the giveaway post, it’s here!

    As I mentioned, I was able to get a lot done at the retreat this Saturday, but not a lot finished.  Well, I powered through last night (in the absence of new episodes of my TV shows) and knocked out 3 finishes!  First up is the Terrain Tessellations Tablerunner:

    I made this using the Little Twister tool on a charm park of Kate Spain Terrain fabric and Kona White. The HST border is made of the buffalo bits from the Leaf Me Alone quilt finished earlier this year.  It’s straight-line quilted since the fabric does all the work here. This tablerunner is for me! Even if I don’t know where to put it yet, but looking at it makes me happy.

    Next up is Lindy, a baby quilt:

    Lindy may look familiar because she is made from the buffalo bits of the Lavender Kiss quilt. She’s 36×40″, and currently for sale in my etsy shop. She’s straight-line quilted in the center, and machine bound:
     And finally, here is Betsy:
    Betsy is so named because I kept thinking of “Birdie” when I was making this quilt, and that is what Don Draper sometimes calls Betty on Mad Men, and I am tremendously excited for that show to be back on the air.

    Betsy was made from a panel of Chirp! fabric by Robert Kaufman and lots of little scrappy bits from my stash (I got to use layer cake squares and 3 1/2″ squares and strings!). Very exciting.  Betsy is also for sale in my etsy shop.

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    Waves Pillow: A Buffalo Quilting Finish!

    Meet the Waves Pillow:

    “Waves” (or “Mr. Pillow” if you’re nasty - Janet Jackson holla!) should look familiar if you remember the Blue Swoon quilt.  Waves is made of the bits trimmed off the flying geese units from the blocks.
    Waves likes lounging on the back deck, snuggles, and sunbathing. He’s got a little surprise on the back side (always a good statement in a personal ad, no?):
    Lime green Kona! Buttons!
    Waves will be listed in my etsy shop once I get his friend finished.  I had enough HSTs from the Blue Swoon quilt to make two pillows with some HSTs leftover, too.
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    Blue Swoon Blocks 5 & 6 and A Buffalo Quilting Tip

    Here’s the next two blocks (there’s a third I didn’t finish until after the sun went down so no photo yet):

    Love this stripey one, although I was unconvinced of the fabric at the time I bought it. It was the one blue FQ that I bought for this quilt. I’m glad my guild mates talked me into it.

    This one is a little more sedate, but that’s needed to offset the craziness of some of the blocks like the one above.
    And a small buffalo quilting tip that relates to flying geese:
    Instead of “throwing away” the triangles trimmed off the flying geese unit (one of the reasons I don’t like making flying geese like this), take a few minutes and stitch another line 1/2″ away from the original diagonal. Trim in between the two stitch lines.
    Once you press, you’ve got an extra HST! If you do this for every flying fees unit in the 9-patch Swoon quilt, you’ve got an extra 144 HSTs that finish around 2″. You can make a 12×12 layout for a nice medallion that measures 24″ square.
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    Meet Ted (Giant Hexie Quilt: FINISHED!)

    Meet Ted:

    Ted is made up of two layer cakes of Circa 1934, some Kona Sand fabric, and 2 yards of some weird gold color for the backing.
    Why is he named Ted, you ask? Because of this Buffalo Border:
    I call this sort of thing “buffalo quilting” because you use up every last fabric scrap, like the Native Americans did with their buffalo kills. Buffaloes make me think of Ted Turner because he single-handedly brought the bison out of endangerment through his ranching and breeding efforts (thank you, Stuff You Should Know podcast!).
    Now, since this is a gift for my husband, do I mind him snuggling with Ted? Nope. I’m pretty secure in our marriage.
     Here’s Ted’s backside (that won’t get old!):
    It’s primarily “B-roll” layer cake squares (filler prints), a buffalo strip, and a 2 yard piece of that gold-ish fabric that I seem to have in plentiful supply. Seriously, I have at least 4 more pieces of yardage in that gold tone.
    That’s another 8.75 yards in the “Used” column of Sunday Night Stash Report!