Who could resist?

While the girls were clogging, I felt the need for a little fabric therapy. There is a quilt shop about 10 minutes from the dance studio. I received an email from that quilt shop (Quilt n' Gifts) requesting donations of fabric for a local senior group that needed supplies. Considering I had a Gateway computer box full of fabric I was donating, I think I returned home FAR less than I donated. I didn't want to leave empty handed, so I purchased 2 charm packs(on sale), 2 fat quarters (on clearance), and 1/2 yard of City Girl to go with the other prints that I have. I am pleased to move that box of fabric on to a home where it will be used instead of stored.

Sunday Stash Report

Each Sunday I will post if I have been naughty or nice. I am keeping a running total of the fabric I have purchased and used this year. I have a goal to have a 50 yard deficit at the end of the year. That number seems like a lot to me, but I think it is achievable.

Since this is my first post, I will make it retro to Jan 1.

• Outgoing Yardage 6.245
• Incoming Yardage 2.125
• Total Stash Busted (YTD) 4.12

The majority of the stash busted was for a backing and the binding on the Christmas quilt I posted earlier. Roughly 4 yards downs and 46 to go. How long do you think I can stay on the wagon? Whenever I fall, I fall REALLY hard.

Flu has left the building!

I wasn't sure if I was going to make it thru. It took over a week before all of us caught the virus and recovered. The weather has been extremely snowy and cold here.


Here is a picture of my first finish of the year. These were the remnants of a large quilt a made a few years ago. I sewed the bining on completely by machine and I am pleased with how it looks. I haven't tried this in several years and I can tell I have really improved. I think the key was to pin the binding all the way around the edge before I started.

I also managed to get the binding sewn on the front of a Christmas quilt that used up some of my "uglies". These fabrics had been hanging around for way too long. I love how the red binding brings it all together. Hopefully I can get the handstitching done before Christmas. I won't move it to finished until the binding is stitched down. I will post a better picture when it is completed. I love how the sun shining thru the window shows off the quilting (even with the shadows).

During the sickness, I did manage to quilt one customer quilt. It is a cute panel quilt, and I am pleased with how it came to life with the quilting. Oh yes, and behind the customer quilt is the infamous bow tie quilt. It is on my list of quilts to finish this year as well. Perhaps someone will chime in with a great quilting plan for me. I have the FINAL border on the design wall so I can stitch the squares together.

Finishing the Year

This year certainly ended with excitement. The virus on the computer certainly consumed me and added to the Christmas chaos. I think the computer sucked out all my creative energy, because I haven't done any sewing during my vacation.

All in all I must have been very good this year because I received some really nice gifts for Christmas. I think everyone in my family was pleased with the gift selections. When we were doing our returns on Monday, we came across a whole rack of Wii Fit games. It was a late Christmas gift, but my family is very excited to have it. I don't think my body will ever be the same after hula-hooping. It was good for a laugh if nothing else. Sorry no video footage was produced!!!!

When I look back on my goal for 2008 (a year of finishing or getting projects closer to completion), I think I did well. I still have well over 30 UFO's which is alarming! I am going to continue to work on my "loose threads" in 2009. I would like to finish 10 projects this year. This will be a big task for me, but I do have several baby quilts started. This leads me to my next dilemma......

It is killing me not to work on Bonnie's NYE mystery (www.quiltville.com). I have been doing scrap patterns now for several years. I don't know if I can go back to a planned color scheme. As I sip my coffee, I am anxious to get to my studio and start cutting for the mystery. I am still strong (at the moment), and I am sticking with my plan to finish more projects than I start. I may have to weaken when I see step 2.

My second goal for 2009 is to reduce my stash. My plan is to eliminate fabrics that I no long like by either cutting them up or donating them. I got an early start with this yesterday when I put about 20 pounds of fabric in a box to donate to a senior center. My sewing studio is currently a disaster! Even my children asked, "Mom what happened in here". I think I should be banned from fat quarter sales this year. Notice I put the word "should" in that sentenance. I don't think I have that much will power!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy NYE.

Not how I planned it...

When do my plans ever work? I like how this turned out, but it would have been much cuter with plan "A". The original plan was to knit fuchsia fun fur trim and attach it. Because of my last minute nature, I couldn't find it. Plan "C" and "D" weren't very successful either, but the end result is good. I used strings and scraps of fabric and sewed them together without foundation. I cut the segments with the 10 degree wedge ruler. I love this ruler, but I wish the center hole was smaller. I am going to play with the fat cat ruler ( http://tinyurl.com/6228wt) and see what I can do with that. This skirt is for my mini tree for quilt group (which is tonight). It is amazing what the word "contest" encourages you create. The faux binding is a flange, and I attached yo-yo's to the collar (which was added to make the hole smaller). I backed it with fusible fleece. My number one daughter thought the tree was gaudy, however, she wanted to wear the tree skirt as a collar. The branches were rather sparse, so I thought it needed a lot of decorations (at least that was my reasoning)

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Love the Creativity and cause of this project.

While reading some blogs this morning, I came across this link (http://www.quiltersofsc.org/artfullbras/artfullbras.htm) for an exhibit "supporting" breast and ovarian cancer. The creativity is amazing. Don't forget to read the names as they add to the art.

I did manage to finish 2 more bags and get the ornaments on the tree. I am taking the minimalist approach to decorating this year. After fighting with the lights last year, I bought the LED lights this year. I hope they last a long time as I never want to take all the miniature ornaments off again.


I already added my goal of 10 quilts for 2009 to the top of my blog. Hopefully this will help diminish the unfinished list.

A Cute little Finish

I may be done with the first step of recovery from my fear of things not flat. I made this cute little bag from a tutorial at http://ayumills.blogspot.com/. Perhaps it was her great illustrations, but I did actually start and finish it in one day (which is a record for me). It is going to be a gift for Sydney's secret pal. I cut the squares at 2 1/2", so mine is a little bigger than the one in the tutorial. I think it would be really cute with other sizes of handles also. I used fleece for the interfacing.