oksewglad

Keep it up grann of 6! Lots of shops in Lancaster...it's been years since I was there. My DSis lives in southern Chester Co. No she's not a quilter, but she took me there anyway! Yes progress is progress. i think that every time I use fabric up too.

Iceblossom

Was able to meet Leon yesterday. Such a marvelous thing a new life. I think he favors his mother, he certainly has her coloring which we expected so he has a nice head of dark hair. He also has his mother's feet! LOL, when my son was born and I saw my squiggly toes on him I knew he was mine, Leon has pretty feet Love those little unused baby feet.

So no sewing today. Going back for some more visiting and baby time.

elly66

Congrats on the new grandbabies! Makes me want one!
Grann of 6 have fun playing with your friends! You've done really well using your stash.
I bought a quilt kit off of Bluprint but using it right away so not counted (thank goodness). Long story but was making a quilt for MIL and auditioning colors when she told me she didn't like the colors. She was really liking the color teal. I don't have that many teal fabrics - hence the kit. The good news is my son saw the colors of MIL's and really liked it so after changing some of the fabric out I will make the bargello quilt for him. Already have the backing for that one so not all is lost . Hopefully will figure out backing for MIL one from stash as well.
Note to self I will not show her again until the quilt is done and wrapped as she seems to want to "manage" the projects.

juliasb

Well I did well until yesterday. I had to buy a piece of fabric to make a baby quilt. Specifically with bunnies on it. Of all my fabrics I did not have any with bunnies. I am not sure if I am totally happy with my choices but the availability of bunnies is not so good right now. If I wanted owls or kitties I would have been able to wander the aisles and have found a treasure trove. I know I can work around what I have and make it work. I only wish I did not have to buy any. I have been working off my stash for months now with only very little fabric purchases. This has really helped to keep me from spending. No more now. No more...

Conchalea

Julia, good job resisting all the temptations you saw at the store! I know its hard-ehen I chose the fabric for the memory quilt, I saw LOTS of fabrics I loved & wanted. I resisted them, however tough it was.

Irishrose2

What fun, Iceblossom and SusieQ. Enjoy your grandchildren.

Iceblossom

Mom and baby and daddy went home last night. We had another great loud thunder and lightening storm, not as big as the one on Saturday.

Time to select a new project and time to put off those paper pieced blocks again!

I recently accepted a box of precut squares and have been thinking of ideas to use them with. I also have quite a collection of metallic fabrics. I'm going to go through the box of squares and pull out the metallic ones, slice them in half and make them into kites/squares (the diagonal cuts would be the outside edges).

There was a picture here somewhere posted recently of a quilt done like that with consistent sashing between the scrappy squares. I'm thinking all metallic fabrics with some basic black would work even though I had a hard time working with the black with the postcard quilt.

The quilting shows on PBS will be starting soon, will be a good sorting project to do while I watch them

Edit: Here's my inspiration -- Thanks Mim!
my quilting this summer

Edit 2: Darn it! I'm a day off... I guess that's what Friday the 13th does when you think it is Saturday. But in good news there is a quilt show starting at 9:00 so off to sort fabric I go.

Iceblossom

Well a couple of the ladies from my Tuesday group and I tried to go to a quilt show today. Only that guild hadn't had a show in a couple of years nor had they updated their website so when we went to the location nothing was there... we were two years too late apparently.

So, when life throws you a curve ball we went ahead and went to a quilt store instead. First time in an actual quilt shop (as opposed to Joann) in months, first time in this shop ever. So many lovely fabrics... I really like some of the current lines and colors and the way the colors grade/move through the fabrics. Could have bought yards and yards but admitted up-front that I wasn't supposed to be buying fabric. The counter ladies laughed and said there were (direct quote!) "No fabric moratoriums here!".

Despite that reassurance, I did buy a yard and a half of a white with colored confetti sort of tossed print that I will use with some of those non-metallic squares that were gifted to me. For that project, I'm using the quilt here as my inspiration. So I bought it for a particular use and am going to congratulate myself on my restraint rather than criticize for the purchase

How to Do ... ?

The squares will be juvenile fabrics surrounded by the confetti with the sashing made of more of the squares.

In the window of the shop was a quilt very similar to what I'm doing with the first round of metallics. That one only used 4 fabrics and rotated them so squares were formed across the lattice, it looked nice, it was tagged as a 5 yard quilt -- good to know if I wanted to do something more controlled.

oksewglad

Just added my current used totals, when GD gets her FMQ done on 4 little quilts I will be at a -9 yards. The 4 yard Goodwill purchase hurt just a little. My next quilt to go onto the LA will have over 18 yards in it with backing and binding so that will really up the total. I got pictures, but need to resize them on my phone to send them. Ugh..

Iceblossom

Had to buy some more of the confetti fabric as my estimation of yardage was off. I was debating between 1.5 and 2 yards and went with the 1.5... so I ended up about half a yard short. Trotted down to the next town to the south (where the shop is) after Tuesday group and had that moment where your heart stops because the bolt isn't quite where you found it the first time! But there was still about 3 yards on the bolt (bought a full yard, needed 20 inches so half wouldn't do and since I'm already back once I don't plan to come back again), so I'm good and will be cutting that today.

The squares turned out to be a variety of sizes -- the focus fabrics I chose are 6.5" squares, 6" finished. The confetti will be the frame and will finish at 2" for a 10" block. Since the sashing doesn't need to line up I'm using blocks that 6-6.5" and cutting them at 3" wide rectangles for consistency even if the length varies a bit here and there.

The original project used 5" charms so this will come out quite a bit larger and perhaps rather awkwardly sized, but it's part of my go forth and sew and fix the problems later concept.

I have already contacted someone who would like to have the remaining novelty fabrics

I also put together the first set of the metallic squares and found the finished blocks will be 7" which is sort of an odd size but I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm using pretty much anything that sparkles, has gold or silver or foil or whatever, I'm calling the project "Scrap Metal" which is a pretty good name coming from me, who is usually more of the Purple quilt variety. From the box and my own precuts I ended up with 32 blocks and still have plenty of small pieces and yardage to go. Still working on the sashing and layout so don't know my final count and how many more to make, but I'm planning on playing with EQ a bit now that I know the block size.

One of the future projects I'm doing with the metallics will be a very modern quilt using a couple of those Benartex Catitude blocks and gold embellished Asian themed fabrics, so at group I sorted those out of my 10" swapping square collection. The remainder got sorted into the current Scrap Metal project.

When I mention my swapping squares, keep in mind that most of them have been in my stash since right around Y2K! And I have been using them in projects all along, have consolidated my two boxes into one box. The two biggest collections were what I'm planning to work on in the coming year, Civil War and Metallic but there are still other themes waiting for inspiration.