Wildlife Wednesday -- on Thursday

What's wrong with this picture?

It's the end of October and the azaleas are blooming!

Actually, there's nothing wrong (well, almost nothing).  They are Encore Azaleas and they are supposed to bloom twice.  It's just that in previous years they re-bloomed in August.  I'm figuring the recent rains brought them back after a very dry summer.

It makes me smile - like we've fooled Mother Nature.  Or has she fooled me?

Another Monday ...

... and another guild retreat!

Three days away from home, dedicated sewing time, eat when I want to, fun with friends!!!

Here's my plan:

1. Bind Fire and Ice (a/k/a French Braid) -- don't you just love that name?
2. Easy Street - Borders and back.
3. Elegant Garden - Fix mitered border corner and make binding
4. Churn Dash - Cut side setting and corner triangles, assemble, apply borders
5. Twisted Sister - Audition sashing and borders, assemble if able
6. Remembering Marie - Make star points, set in corners and triangles
7. Kids' comfort quilts - If there's time, throw together from some of my donated fabrics.

Yes, that is Easy Street on the stack.  I spent so much time yesterday mulling over potential projects for retreat that I never got around to putting on the borders.  That will be my second order of business after the binding.

And, if I get bored, I'll work on the Little Bits Haunted House.  My Gosh, the pieces are REALLY little bits!

Is that enough to keep me busy for three days?

We do have WiFi at the retreat center so I may be able to report as I progress.  Somehow I never get around to that, though


To see what the rest of the quilting world is working on, hop over to Patchwork Times.

BALANCE

By the end of today, my stash will be back in balance!

By that, I mean I will have managed to offset the purchases from the last two weekends.  Here's how:

7.0 - Pulled juvenile panels and coordinating fabric for guild comfort quilts.
3.5 - Cut "topical" fabrics into 5" squares for guild projects.
5.0 - Finished Easy Street
4.0 - Pieced Easy Street Back

By my calculation that total of 19.5 exactly equals what I purchased the last two weeks!

OK, so I'm still in the hole.  But I'll be at the guild retreat next week -- 3 days to finish off some big projects.

Hmmm ...... wonder what I should take to work on ......

Stay tuned!


Stash Report - Oct. 26

     In this Weeks:                0.0 yards
     Out this Week:              19.5 yards
     In year to Date:            239.0 yards
     Out Year-to-Date:        193.75 yards
     Net Used 2014            -45.25 yards

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

Hope y'all have a great week!

Sunday Stash Report - October 19

I was doing so well ... narrowing the gap.  What can I say?

It all started with the guild quilt show two weeks ago.  Of course I wanted to support the vendors so I purchased a pretty Christmas panel ...

Christmas Panel - What now?

... and ten FQs because there was a price break if I bought 10.  Who could resist?  I had a plan in mind at the time.  Now I can't find the pattern I was planning to use.  Oh, well, it will eventually float to the surface.

Fat Quarter Deal

I made a quick stop at Whittle's the next day where I found a Henry Glass collection of what I'm calling "soft country" -- I think it's officially "Vintage Farmhouse" -- and just fell in love with the look.  It's time to make a new quilt for Son-1 and I think the colors will go well with their decor.

Then, needing to kill time last Friday on my trip back from Quilt Camp to pick up my Main Man in East Tennessee, I stopped at my favorite shop in Princeton, WV, The Sewing Gallery.  I was in search of more of the fabric I wanted to use in Son-1's quilt, but they didn't have it.  Still, I did pick up 8 FQs to make 9-patches for his quilt.

Country Prints for 9-patches

And, finally, I stopped at Little Blessings in Crossville, TN because I had earned a $20 gift card.  They didn't have the Glass background, either, so I settled on 3 quarter-yard cuts and some miscellaneous stuff to use up the card.

I'm a little late posting this, but since I missed a week in between I thought it best to get this on the record.  Hopefully this week will be more productive and I'll be able to bring the negative net used more in line with 0.

Stash Report as of Oct 19:

     In Last Two Weeks:       19.5 yards
     Out this Week:                0.0 yards
     In year to Date:            239.0 yards
     Out Year-to-Date:       174.25 yards
     Net Used 2014            -64.75 yards

Bonnie Hunter UFO Challenge

Sometimes I need to be challenged.

Jo Kramer at Jo's Country Junction issued a challenge to finish a Bonnie Hunter UFO before the first clue of the new mystery is revealed on Black Friday.  I accepted.

While Celtic Solstice and Smith Mountain Morning await completion, I have opted to finish Easy Street for the challenge since it is the one most nearly finished.

Easy Street - Blocks ready to sew together

Bonnie's mystery from two years ago, Easy Street has to be my LEAST favorite BH ever!  In fact, I disliked it so much that it languished in my project box for two years and almost ended up in the dumpster.  But when I realized that I had enough pieces and parts assembled for a small version, and the rest cut, I decided it was worth finishing for a comfort quilt.  Somebody out there will like it.

All that remains are the inner and outer borders.

Easy Street - auditioning borders

So far I have pieced together the inner borders.  Just need to measure before attaching.  The outer borders need to be pieced and applied.  I'm sure I have something I can throw together for a back and then it probably will go to the comfort quilt collection at our guild.

Anybody out there need leftover units?  First one to contact me can have them.  I never want to see lime green and turquoise together again!

I'm linking up with Jo and the others who have accepted the challenge.

Uh-Oh!

I had an appointment to meet up with a friend at Whittle's yesterday.  Yes, the Whittle's y'all know and love on-line.  But I went to the Mother Ship.  Danger, Will Robinson .....

My only reason for going was to pick up a quilt and Whittle's was a convenient meeting point along my route to Quilt Camp in West Virginia. Yeah, right ... Couldn't have caught the quilt on the fly at McDonald's .... huh?

So I steeled myself to temptation and determined that the only thing I might need to purchase was a yard of dark flannel for a design board since my demo pieces have a white background.

I was just a few miles out of town when I realized that I had left the demo pieces for one of the classes I will be teaching at home.  Rather than retrace my steps, I decided a couple of fat quarters could be whipped into a set of demo steps and I knew exactly where I could find said FQs!   Oh, I bet you already know where this is going....

I left Whittle's with enough fabric for a whole 'nother quilt!  Since it's packed away in the car I don't know exactly how much I got.  So for the purpose of reporting my stash situation, I'll just say nothing in, nothing out.  I'll update next week.

Actually, I did almost finish a class sample -- just lacks the borders.

Wink and a Smile

I will be teaching Wink and a Smile on Monday and Tuesday.  Then my pattern Irish Grandmother on Wednesday and Thursday.  Since WIFI at Cedar Lake is iffy, at best, I'll post about my classes when I get home.

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

Momma Said .....

... there'd be days like this.....

What's wrong with this picture? (aside from the snippits of thread where I started to rip...)

What's wrong with this picture?

First, I sewed right side to wrong side.  So I ripped it out and sewed wrong side to right side!!

And it didn't get any better from there on, either.

Sashing Gone Wrong

Another case of wrong side to right side. And the worst was yet to come.

It gets worse!

The most aggravating part of this is after I sewed it wrong, I pressed it, I squared it up, I added a sashing strip, and I pressed it again.  It wasn't until I put it back on the wall that I saw the mistake.

It just doesn't pay to hurry!  Actually, this project was star-crossed from the get-go.  I had purchased the background at Mountain QuiltFest in March, along with a selection of solids to match the dots, and a jelly roll of strips in bright pastel checks and stripes for the 9-patch centers.  Oh, I had visions of modern loveliness!

But when I did a test run with the jelly roll strips I wasn't very happy with the result.  It was March, I didn't need this until October, so I set it aside.

Now, with only two weeks to deadline, I finally got back to the task at hand,  I tried making random 9-patches with bright squares from my stash. (I should note here that I don't do random very well, but I'm working on it!)  I either had too much or too little contrast.  And the solids were dull, dull, dull.

Contrast issues

I selected other fabrics from my stash for the star points and forged on with getting things underway.  After deciding that the the 9-patches were not to my liking, I looked for other options, including the original jelly roll that was nowhere to be found!  Since I had suggested to my students -- oh, I forgot to mention that this is a sample for a class I'm teaching at Quilt Camp in West Virginia ...

Anyway, since I had suggested that they could substitute a square of focus fabric for the 9-patch units, I decided to take that route.  But I went a step further and made quarter-square kaleidoscope blocks.

Stills needs borders, but this will have to do for now:

The pattern is Wink and a Smile by Lisa Christensen -- out of print, sadly, but I did receive her permission to teach it.

Hope your week goes better than mine!

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

.