Stash report - week 18, 1 May 2011

It's been a busy week this week.  Dance lessons three nights takes up a lot of the available evening time.  But I took Friday as a vacation day and went to two quilting workshops at the local quilt shop.  Debbie Brown is a fun teacher.  The first workshop was on feathers - how to design them into your quilting.  We learned ideas for making feather borders, feathers in squares and triangles, in sashings, and in those really large setting squares you get with lone star-type quilts.  Debbie had lots of sample quilts to pass around - all really pretty.  The second workshop was a "how should I quilt this" lesson.  We each brought quilt tops that we hung up and talked about what designs to use for quilting.  Debbie used quilters preview paper to draw out ideas for spaces on the quilt.  I took two tops - my Mexican Cross, and my SVQG inspiration round robin.  I came home with plans for quilting both of those.  Watching and talking about what to put on each quilt that was hung helped with how to look at a quilt to decide what to put on it.  If I have a chance, I'll take more workshops from Debbie. 

Yesterday, I put the Mexican Cross on the frame and got started quilting.  I'm using So Fine thread, because I didn't want the heavy thread look of the King Tut.  I put in a new needle, and checked the tension on both the bobbin and the top, and started quilting.  It was going OK, but I was breaking thread more than I wanted to.  I decided I needed to check the timing, since I had gone down in needle size.  So I retimed, then I saw the next page of the manual, and thought I might need to replace my tension spring, so I did that.  Got everything going again, and had awful tension problems - lots of birds nests underneath unless I hand the top tension cranked as high as it would go, then I'd still occasionally get an eyelash underneath.  So I retimed again, and took out and redid the check spring a couple of times.  I've finally got the machine stitching nicely with good tension again, so I'm making better progress now.  It's taking a long time - first because I'm using 3 different threads - I'll stitch a few passes with one color, then roll back up and stitch that area with the second color, then go on to the third.  I also spent a lot of time taking out bad stitching.  I still have a few sets of feathers in setting triangles to tear back out, but I'll get to them after I finish with the rest of the quilting. 

While I was at the LQS yesterday buying thread and batting, I picked up yardage for the backing to the round robin, so that's my fabric in this week.  Out was a little more pink and brown for the borders for the Mexican Cross, plus the wide backing for Mexican Cross.

In this week:             4      yds
In YTD:                  24.53 yds

Out this week:          3.76 yds
Out YTD:               30.95 yds

Net for 2011:           6.42 yds OUT

Check with Judy to see how everyone else is doing this week.

Stash report - week 17, 24 April 2011

I've done some sewing since last week.  On Sunday afternoon, I quilted my Judy Martin swap quilt - all queen size of it.  I always have to hem and haw about how to quilt a top.  I decided on an overall leaf meander.  I used King Tut thread top and bottom - I love the way it turned out.  Then I went out of town for most of the week, and didn't do any more sewing until Saturday.  I made binding and put it on the Judy Martin swap quilt (UFO #1).

While I was out of town, I stopped at a new-to-me quilt shop and bought a brown with pink flowers, and a brown/pink print to use for borders for my #4 UFO - a Mexican Cross quilt.  I pulled that out on Saturday after getting the binding onto UFO #1, and the pinks just didn't work.  I was able to find a pink in the stash that would work, and looked fine with the brown-with-pink-flowers, so I've got the borders all as one long set of brown-pink-brown.  I still need to press the top and then get the borders cut and attached.  I'm going to put 9-patches in the corners.  I think it will mirror the middle of the Mexican Cross blocks.

No quilting today - we're going to DMIL's for Easter services and lunch.  

So, some in, some out this week.

Added this week:             4      yds
Added YTD:                  20.53 yds

Used this week:               4.46 yds
Used YTD:                    27.67 yds

Net for 2011:                   7.14 yds USED

Check in with Judy at Patchwork Times to see how everyone else is doing this week.

stash report - week 16, 17 April 2011

Very little sewing was done this week.  I finished a set of swap blocks and got those in the mail yesterday.  Yesterday also included a trip to the LQS so that I could get some thread for quilting my #1 UFO.  While I was there, I picked up 1/2 yard of a brown tone-on-tone that I need for a swap that is due in August. 

Numbers:
In this week:         0.5 yds
In YTD:            16.53 yds

Out this week:          0 yds
Out YTD:          22.96 yds

Net for 2011:       6.43 yds reduced stash  so I'm still ahead, even though I've added more than I've used over the last month.

UFO challenge - in March, I put together my #1 UFO so that it is now a flimsy ready for quilting.  That MAY get loaded on the longarm today - I've got backing and batting that will work for it in the stash.  I also pulled out April's UFO #4 yesterday - it's a hand-pieced Mexican star in pink and brown.  This one was a swap when I was in high school - a few people included the date in their signatures - 1974!!  It has no borders, and is about 67 x  84 as it is.  I may just quilt it without borders, but have it draped out to look at and decide on.

Pop on over to Judy's to see how everyone else is coming with their stash this week.