Wow, no fabric bought by me in April. On the other hand, I've been digging in the garden. All over the front and back yard. 17 year old Grandsons have been helping me. They have been doing whatever I tell them to do. It's wonderful. I am just not in my 20's anymore. Or 30's or even the 50's. My daughter is coming to work in the yard as my Mother's Day gift. I used to work in the yard 8 hours a day. It's all gotten so old and in need of an update.

Wow OK! That's a lot of quilting- and a lot of stash used up!!!!

I used a small amount of stash making the hanging sleeve for a UFO that I finished yesterday and I will use some more making the facing and hanging sleeve for a large UFO that I finished quilting and "binding" last week. Then I'm going to have to buy a bolt of muslin to make storage bags for some recent finishes that are collaborative quilts made for a show that's going up towards the end of this month- so I won't actually have reduced my stash---but the muslin is designated for a specific purpose, so maybe it won't count too much against me LOL!

Rob

Judith, I'll be playing with several ideas. One is shading from light to dark along the diagonal. Or, diagonal rows of color which can often look like a dark/light checkerboard at first... might try horizontal rows. I am curious about the idea of the X with the triangles, haven't ever set a quilt like that before. On the other hand, I have rather recently done a diagonal row variation, and a shading light in the center to dark outsides. I'll take pictures as I try a few variations, sometimes something just seems more right even when we weren't going there in the first place.

I don't really know how many dark/light blocks I have, once the blocks are finished I'll do some sorting and counting. My feeling is I have about half "medium" some of which go towards redder/plum tones and one-third dark, and the remainder light with nothing super light. I only have one extra block usually I make more than that to play with if I don't have a layout firm in my mind.

I have sewn about half of the units together. Even pressed and pinned some of them for the last round of sewing. Another set is waiting to be pressed, with more still back at the machine but it's time for a dinner break with the hubby :)

Edit -- forgot to mention I had another concept for those rectangles using stash fabrics, I think I have a sizeable piece of a navy solid. I have lots of homespun plaids, some of which are red-white-blue for bigger bars, and I was recently given a bag of small scraps of star prints for the smaller squares. Or I like the earth toned plaids set with a medium tan. This might become one of my go-to projects.

Wow, OK, that's quite a collection! I'm sure they will be comfort and joy at a time of need. They are beautiful!

Currently have 11 quilts at ~ 4 yds each near completion. So that's 44 yds. Still have ~ 20 to quilt at 4-8 yds each. All has come from stash with minor purchases here and there.

Tomorrow's guild meeting will have a table sale (aka yard sale). Of 5 1/2 shelves of book, have 3 shelves left, pulled out all magazines, and 1/2 of the patterns. And a few templates I haven't used in 15 years.

making progress. Have passed up the LQS many times.

Happy Dance this month!

Congrats petthefabric. That's a lot of fabric used. I think I need to get busier. :)

I'd give you a pass on the muslin Rob but then I've been a naughty one lately so perhaps I shouldn't say so LOL.

Sewingitalltogether that's a wonderful mother's day present. It doesn't get any better than the gift of their time.

Iceblossom have fun with your projects.

I got the purple blocks sewn, pressed and final trimmed slightly ahead of schedule. Apparently I was a bit heavy handed on the seam allowance and they are all a bit small but consistent so no real problems.

Ah, the design issues of a small space... Following are some pictures, first one shows them by color groups, or at least there is one more row that was too big to fit my bed. The next is a light/dark. The third is my X idea which isn't going to work well with the breakdown I have between the quilt size and the amounts of colors I have. My current fav is the diagonal half dark triangle down the middle and then getting lighter to the opposite corner. As I laid it out and took the picture, all you really saw was the dark half so it didn't make much sense. Also going to work with horizontal rows going from dark to light.

While I don't really want any of the same backgrounds to touch, if I have to for color placement I think that has priority over the white on white.

Striking blocks, Iceblossom!

Ripping out FMQ is hard on the hands. I had tucks on the back on one end of my quilt simply because I was too lazy to get out another table when I sandwiched it. I use boards and a pool noodle. The quilt was too wide for my DR table, so I did it in shifts. The part I did second wasn't good enough. I ended up with one section that had too much back for the front, so I handsewed a tuck. Not ideal, but it shouldn't show much in the swirl print. Now back to the quilting. I want it finished this weekend.

It's my birthday and that gets an exemsion---right! Anyway the LQS/Machine store/classes store has a sale going on. So I got some fabric for summer cloths which is as much needed as quilting fabric. It was a real treat.

The class used cork to make cmall wallets. Decided that would be a nice christmas gift-got enough for two=1 small package. And DH has been asking for a new holder (the 40 y/o one died) for his tools and decided the cork would work for that too.

So, back on the wagon and keep at downsizing.