Judith1005

W2G Iceblossom. Your moving like a woman on a mission through your stash. And, great thinking at the end to re-adjust the pattern so that you didn't have to go out and buy more fabric.

I don't plan on restricting my purchase of WOW. I use it a lot to calm the scrappiness. But, I will keep it down to buy when necessary. And, right now, I have plenty on hand.

Gran of 6, I will look forward to someday seeing your scrappy. I know how much you dislike using them that way. But, still, someday you'll take the plunge and have one scrappy project that you will have finished but, maybe, not be your cup of tea.

RetiredTeacher, that is a great scrappy. I can see why your friends send them over to you. You sure have a talent for pulling them all together.

PamelaOry

What is a leaders enders?

Mary Christine

Confession is good for the soul, right? I must confess I fell again today. I made the mistake of stopping by my favorite arts and crafts thrift store and bought a stack of Oriental fabrics, a couple of fat quarters, a couple of patterns, and a 28 mm rotary cutter. Woe is me!

Judith1005

I reckon confession is good for the soul Mary Christine. I'll just have to give you a hand back in the cart so we can be on our way again.

I went to my favorite run thrift store too a few days ago. I found out they are expanding. (It was like Christmas.) I too bought a small brand new Annie's Craft Store/Moda FQ pack that I found there for 3.50. I'm not keeping it though. I am re-gifting it to someone else. It too will not even hit the stash. It went into a gifting box. And, will leave my possession shortly. I though about keeping this one. But, have no immediate use for it. So, best to pass it on. I just couldn't pass up a brand new FQ pack. I think it was like 5 FQ's and came with a pattern also. Makes a great gift. This one is a dicey stumble till it leaves the building. But, I am confident, it will leave. And soon.

In addition, I also bought another FQ pack somewhere else today and a package of buttons. But, this is not going into my stash. It is a gift for someone. It will be leaving my house shortly. So, I don't count it as a stumble. (As it was not for me.)

joe'smom

Connie, you did a great job of putting those donation pieces together. Those are really nice looking blocks, and the brown and black look so good with that blue!

PamelaOry, a leader is a piece of fabric that you feed through your machine in front of the piece you are sewing, so you don't ever have to hold onto your threads or worry about a thread tangle at the beginning of a seam. An ender is the piece you feed through after sewing your last piece, so that your next leader is all set.

As far as I know, it was Bonnie Hunter who came up with the brilliant idea of leader/ender projects. That is, instead of using some scrap piece of fabric as your leader/ender, use actual project units and thus work on two quilts at a time! You can organize and prepare a specific project to use as your leaders/enders, or you can ad lib and just start working on 4-patches or whatever.

rryder

Good job working with those donation blocks, Connie!

Iceblossom- great solution to the shortage, and using up even more stash in the process.

No recent falls here, but as I’m concentrating on 1. Slowing down and 2. Finishing UFOs, my stash is not going down by much. I haven’t started anything new in my quilting studio at all this year, except for making some scrap scarves out of bits too small to sew and quilting a collaborative piece that only required a small amount of batting and some muslin for the back from me.

Rob

Irishrose2

Pamela, I have an aversion to cutting threads, so I keep a box of 2 1/2" squares next to the machine. Every time I finish a seam, I sew two of the little squares next. I can sew all day and never have to start a seam except when the bobbin runs out. Occasionally, I sew 2 patches into 4 patches, then 16 so they are ready for a quilt.

Iceblossom

I rather like the idea of those enders... but I'm not going to succumb! I have gotten myself happy with the idea of not saving anything smaller than 6.5". As part of that I have filled up an entire medium size flat rate box with nothing but 2.5" strips and squares that were in my stash for my crumb quilter including my leftover Y2K squares. (Last month I sent out the much smaller number of 2" strips I had.) That gets them out of my "strips and squares" box so the 6.5" pieces will fit in. It's amazing all the things you can do with nothing but 2.5" cuts, but I just don't want to deal with them. I can always cut new squares! And if I do, I might borrow someone's cutting machine instead of pulling out my rulers/cutting board.

I also have some fabric going to someone on Missing Fabrics this week.

Historically it's been hard on me to use up/give away those last bits of fabric, but over the last 5 years or so I've decided that the "right" project to use them is whatever project I'm working on. I have a little memory ceremony about the quilt/project they were for or the person, use it and move on. There were a couple of strips that I had a twinge about letting go, but again, I just don't want to store them so into the box they went.

Forgot to mention, my brother has retired but will be staying with my mom for awhile as he decides what to do/where to go next. Last time I went out to my mom's they had put a quilt on the guest bed I use that I had made him around 1980-81... I know I was in Alaska but I don't think I had bought my mobile home yet. He was in Maine then and cold so I made him an Alaskan warm large twin out of baby wale corduroy. Originally it was three print and three solids in browns, green and gold in a large squares (6" roughly) trip around the world. Now it looks more like 5 solids and one mottled, but it is in great shape over all. All the stitching has held up, the brown satin sheet I used for the back looks like new too.

I was called to come sign the label to the comfort quilt yesterday and was able to see the finished quilted but unbound quilt. The quilter decided on a large interlocking circle pattern as being appropriate and fast enough for our time line, I think it was an excellent choice! The atomic print sort of got lost in the small sashing but the colors (black, brown, and orangish on white) really helped tie together the quilt. We've all been a bit concerned about it looking Halloweenie with the amount of orange we used, but I think while there is definitely Orange in there, it's more earth toned than Halloween. I think when the brown binding is put on it will be lovely, even if not in my color sense -- it's not for me!

I'll try and get a picture, it will be done in time for small group on Tuesday and her lumpectomy is Thursday so I might not get a chance but I put the camera in my sewing kit. Maybe I should put in some extra batteries too because that would be my usual luck, to have the chance for the picture but no battery power.

retiredteacher09

Thanks for the compliments on my quilt top. My church quilting group is comprised of 8 ladies(last count) including me. 2 don’t sew but they sandwich, tie, and cut blocks. The others sew only the same sized blocks into quilt tops and they help sandwich, tie, and cut the blocks. Our fearless 87 year young leader goes through the donations, sews blocks together, uses the industrial machine for sewing the ‘back-to-front’ binding down plus showers us with love. So that leaves me: The only one that enjoys putting different sized blocks/shapes together so thats why the ‘give to Connie’ happens. Lol!

Pamela: I did the following top as a leader/ender and it is the current Bonnie Hunter yearly leader/ender project.

Unlike the previous quilt I posted, this one is easy to give away as I am not fond of it. I should have used all dark halves of the HST’s instead of the bright ones but it is what it is. The border fabric is a very dark blue tiny plaid. It measures 68.5” by 78.5” and will go the the church quilters.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]611264[/ATTACH]

Iceblossom

Connie, I love that top --it's very me -- but I understand. We each have our design sensibilities and what we like, and what we prefer. I'm just not one much for samplers although I've seen many that I like, it's just not how I'm wired.

I've been a sloth the last couple of days. Still have to do those same 7 seams to finish the Not Quite Y2K, but I have been continuing to prewash and iron. Some times I just wonder about some of these scraps I get, one is about 3/4 yard of Michael Miller, lovely blue wavy stuff. Right in the middle of the edge (and the design is about a 2" repeat so no particular need) there is a roughly 4" chunk missing. Oh well, at least this time it's on the edge and not right in the middle of the piece. I ripped off about a 6" chunk to give me a straight of grain on the bulk of the piece and chunk piece goes into the crumb box.

Yesterday I was ready to start sewing but I had some hand wash stuff soaking in the bathroom sink and when I let the drain out, it backed up into the bathtub and didn't go down, first time anything like that has happened in 25 years. So I spent some time with a plumbers snake, plunger, and ultimately drain cleaner (we have a septic system so that is the last choice).

Hubby is home all weekend, it's not that he springs it on me but I had understood that he would be working today. To be fair, on Monday he did think he'd be working today. I told him last night I still had sewing to do in the morning but maybe we could go out for a walk in the afternoon. I have really bad insomnia (aka quilting time!) and would be in the sewing room now instead of the computer except it is the other side of the bedroom wall and he is still sleeping.