Huge Fabric Score!!

Just when I thought I had my fabric shopping tendencies under control, a crazy good opportunity fell in my lap.

I met a retired long arm quilter a couple years ago when she was selling fabric from her stash for $4/yard. I went and bought a lot at the time. After calling her last fall to see if I could schedule another visit to take a friend, she mentioned she was now selling by the bolt. On a lark, I asked her how much she would sell all of them for. She didn't have a price. But about month later, she offered me a price and I accepted it. 

It was 425 bolts! We took over a friend's hatchback and our compact car and it took two trips with them both filled up.

This is what I'm keeping. It's about 140 bolts. I bought the shelves too.

I'm planning to re-sell the rest. I don't have the space to keep it.

Update about a week and a half later:

I sold virtually all the extra fabric (there are about a dozen bolts left). I invited my friends to come shop and then when they were done, I posted photos to my Northwest Quilter's Facebook group and the rest went within just a couple of days! I should not have worried about finding homes for all this fabric!

Mini Retreat

At the end of July, a friend came to stay with us for a week, and we dedicated three full days to a sewing marathon. I was incredibly productive!

During that time, I managed to finish quilting the last two quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders. I didn't get great photos of the quilts as I was rushing to get through them so I could quilt a quilt for my friend.

Quilted with Abbie 3 E2E

Quilted with Zen Roses 1

I also tackled the binding on the last of my quilts. Handling large quilts in my sewing space always feels like a bit of a wrestling match, which might explain why I often procrastinate on finishing them. But now, I’m thrilled to report that I’m completely caught up!

Last Saturday, we also attended a local guild fabric sale where I picked up some small pieces of fabric. By then I had finished my binding project so these finds prompted me to whip up a quick scrap quilt. I opted for the familiar Broken Bricks pattern. I considered trying something new, but the ease of this pattern—no need for complex calculations or meticulous matching—made it the perfect choice.

I quilted this one with Modern Stars E2E (rounded edges).

I've nearly finished sewing on the binding on this one. It should be finished tomorrow.

Squirrel!

This week began with the sole intention of diving into my insulated bag project. However, life's little detours led me to a pile of scraps from my recent Rose Lane quilt. Pawing through these beautiful remnants, I spotted a stack of triangles and four long strips of patchwork-look fabric. The creative muse whispered, "Why not craft something fresh with them?"

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a pattern that seemed tailor-made for my scraps. Titled 'Chocolate Dip' by Lesley Chaisson, this design can be found in her book, "Charmed, I'm Sure: Quilts and More from 5" Squares." Most of my scraps were too small for her design, but with a little tinkering, I resized the blocks to fit. 

With my trusty Cricut by my side, I carved out the beige hexagons, while the remaining pieces were fussy cut from the pile of scraps. Admittedly, I indulged a bit too much time snipping those 2"-squares from the backing remnants. 

After assembling all the pieces, I found myself with a charming but modestly-sized quilt (30" wide). That's too small, so I decided to add another row of half-blocks around the quilt's perimeter. 

I played around with the arrangement of pieces and came up with this creative knotwork layout. I like how it makes my version unique.

I think I'll just do one more time around the perimeter with the small blocks before I add the borders. If I have enough of the grey floral outer border, this is my plan to finish this.

Finishing this flimsy seems like a good Friday Night Sew-In project.

Update: I stayed up insanely late and finished the flimsy.

Linking up with Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun
Peacock Party
Whoop Whoop
Patchwork & Quilts
Oh Scrap!

Oops, Fabric Binge

This past weekend I went shopping with a friend. We started out at a Quilter's Guild sale and I was really good: I bought rulers, books and a few patterns. My friend dug through a huge scrap bin and pulled out a bunch of purple scraps, and I did buy that for $1. And I bought a couple of larger solid fabric pieces for backings, but otherwise I stayed away from the fabric. Yay me.

Then she brought me to JoAnn Fabrics for their Doorbuster sale. I have to be honest, I don't do much shopping at JoAnn's anymore. I prefer quilt-shop quality fabrics, and I mostly buy from Hancock's Paducah, but I am not morally opposed to buying fabric from JoAnn's quilting section. Most of their fabric is a good value and fabric has gotten very expensive in recent years.

Anyway, I started off pretty well. I followed my friend around and didn't see anything I had to pick up, but then she pulled out this dragon fabric with purple background. OMG, I love dragons and my favorite color is purple so, yes, I had to buy it. (Strangely, the JoAnn receipt and website says it's Dragons and Stars on Navy, but you can pretty clearly see, that is not navy.)

And then it was like the damn broke, I started picking up all the fabrics. I was obviously in the mood for rainbows.

Digi Tile Blender (l) and Bright Swirls (r)

In the end, I bought 38.5 yards. Sigh, it didn't erase all my progress for the year, but I sure did make a dent in it. Oh well.

With this purchase, I'll go ahead and update my Stash Report:

I used nearly 11 yards on the front, back and binding of the Rose Lane quilt.

I used a bit more than 4.5 yards for the backing and binding of the Flapper's Fancy quilt. (Stay tuned for the post that shows the front of it.)

And I quilted up a little panel as a Comfort Quilt gift. It was a total of 2.25 yards for the front, back and binding.

That brings the total for the year to 105 yards used! Subtract out the two purchases of 75.75 and it brings the total to 32.25 yards used for the year. A little disappointing compared to my last report, but it is much better than the past few previous years where I was up hundreds of yards. At least I'm down for the year. =)

Ready to Track My Fabric

During the pandemic, I bought a lot of fabric. Way too much. I got a couple of major scores off craigslist during the year plus all the stuff I bought new online. After spending two weeks ironing fabric and not getting through it all, I decided it is time to do something about my fabric-hoarding tendencies.

So, in January I started tracking my fabric usage. I'm hoping this will help prevent me from mindlessly buying more fabric when I don't really need it. 

I am not going to track to the exact inch; I've been rounding each project to the nearest quarter yard. And I don't know if I'll post every month, but I will try and post at least once a quarter.

Fabric In:

34 yards. I made one purchase at the beginning of January during the holiday sales: $184.63

Fabric Out:

50¼ yards (37 yards was for backings)

Net Out for Year:

16¼ yards out

Linking up with Quilt Paint Create

Cleaning FINALLY

At the beginning of last week, I printed out my patterns for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project and walked into my sewing room to start sewing them and looked around at the mess. And I'm not sure what happened, but I FINALLY started cleaning up. I didn't take any photos, alas, but it was a huge mess. I had piles in front of the design wall, I had piles in front of my fabric shelves, and I had piles on every horizontal surface which I'm not actively using on a regular basis. So many piles everywhere. 

A lot of it was my fabric binges throughout the last couple of years during the pandemic. I scored a couple of old-lady-retiring-from-sewing piles of fabric and I was still regularly visiting Hancock's of Paducah's clearance section. (You can get some amazing deals there on recent designs as they go out of production.)

This was the largest of my three fabric scores as it gives some indication of how much fabric I was dealing with.

When I sifted those big piles and started washing them, that was the start of the piles. And then, astonishingly, I kept shopping. Anyway, I have now spent the last 5 days ironing fabrics. This was most of Sunday's iron pile. 

I am trying to get my stash under control. I am sifting out fabrics that need to find a new home. And I am trying to find room to store the fabrics I am keeping so I can actually see them. 

Before my current effort, when I looked for a particular fabric, it could take me an hour as I dug through boxes and piles and I still might not find it. So, hopefully, I have come up with a workable solution. I ordered eight large Sterilite tubs and I plan to store the fabric overflow like this. Then, in theory, I can pull out the tub and look in the side and see what is in there. It will still take several minutes as I pull out each tub, but at least I'll be able to see how much and what I already have.

I also will store my current set of UFOs in my husband's old closet.

At the moment, these are mostly just fabrics I've ironed.
Once I get the tubs, I'll shift some of these fabrics into them
and organize my UFOs on these shelves.

I've gotten my fat quarters rounded up and sorted into one set of ArtBin Super Satchel project tubs. These may not be their final destination, but I had these bins handy and they all fit. And I made another bin for the half-yard pieces (not pictured).

I also bought a set of Sterilite drawers where I will start storing my scraps. (They just fit under my long-arm table!) My plan is to adopt some sort of scrap-saving system like Bonnie Hunter recommends, where you precut strips and pieces.

Right now I am focusing on sorting and organizing fabrics piled around everywhere. Next month I will likely start sifting and organizing my scrap bins. I'm hoping to alternate days of ironing/organizing with days of actually making forward progress on my sewing goals.

For this coming week, I would like to change gears and get to work on finishing my One Monthly Goal to finish those Arlington Square quilts. And I really would like to start working on my blue Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. 

And one last parting thought because it is obviously true about me:

Linking up with:
Sew & Tell
Monday This & That
Monday Musings
Tuesday ToDo

RSC 2023 Plans

2022 was the first time I participated in Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I learned some things about what I like and what I don't. I've been thinking about how I want to approach 2023. I've realized I don't like super-scrappy projects and I think I need to constrain the colors on my projects to only two or three colors or more carefully plan projects with lots of colors.

For my projects, I want to pick my border fabric and then make the quilt in colors to match, instead of making a quilt and then trying to find something to use for the border. (That is how I end up buying more fabric when I already have mountains of stash.) When a new color is announced, I'll go find a fabric in my stash that will work for the border then pick scraps to go with it.

I do have one project I've been thinking about working on but I won't be able to sew blocks as I go along. I'll be cutting out pieces and then sewing them up at the end. This is the pattern and fabric I'm hoping to use for the border.

I think I will be making blocks for this project. I likely won't be using this border fabric again, but I didn't have the actual fabric imported into Electric Quilt.

And I hope to continue working on my Stained Glass quilt. Last year I finished the red and yellow blocks before it got too hot during the summer to run the iron all day.

I probably will make some really scrappy lap quilts throughout the year, but I'll make them for Comfort Quilts for our local quilt guild and I'll finish them and pass them on throughout the year.

Yellow RSC / March Wrap-Up

I barely had any time to sew this month because I had other house-related projects that I made myself work on before I would let myself start a new project. But, I also wanted to meet my One Monthly Goal commitment for the month, so I decided to squeeze in a day to sew as much as I could. 

For the first Bloom block, I actually used a light yellow then I decided it was too light so I ripped it apart and used a darker yellow fabric.

I only had ONE yellow batik fabric scrap for the Flowers for Nana Girl block, so that's what I used.

And I made nine more blocks for the Arlington Square quilt.

I was going to call it quits at that point, but then I decided to try making some Stained Glass blocks. I managed to finish seven blocks by this afternoon. For my project, I need 16 total. Since I have quite a few more in progress I'll probably be able to finish them during Friday Night With Friends.

This wraps up my March One Monthly Goal. I'll be linking up with Elm Street Quilts. I'll also link up with Needle & Thread Thursday and Finished or Not Friday.

Bag of Free Scraps

I got an offer for a bag of free scraps from another member of the Northwest Quilters Guild. Of course, I accepted. I think it would be impossible for me to turn down an offer of free fabric, even if they're just scraps. I guess I should have taken a photo, it was a really large plastic bag. 

Last night I started poking through it and found a pile of coordinated scraps; I assume they're leftovers from a project.

They are pretty and I thought it would be fun to try and make a lap quilt from them. I was fortunate to find a label on one of the pieces of fabric, Graceful Moments. I actually found the original pattern that these pieces were leftover from.

I thought about making a smaller version, but I don't have enough fabric. At first, I spent a while looking for additional yardage, but I finally reminded myself of the mountain of fabric I am currently shifting. So, I spent a couple hours in Electric Quilt and played around with designs that would use the pieces I already have.

Anyway, this is my tentative plan.

I didn't have an exact measurement for the finished blocks, so I estimated it. I may end up adding a border or two.

Since our basement still isn't finished, I'm not allowing myself to start a new project. (If anyone is actually interested in my progress on that project, I've been posting about it over at my house blog. I think it will be another couple of weeks before we can move in.) 

I'm not sure why, but I'm actually looking forward to playing with this one. I think it will be really quick.

Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt

I decided to participate in my first mystery quilt along. I've never done one before but I have watched a number of them and thought it would be fun to try one. I love the colors for Quiltville's Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt so I decided to give it a try.

To be honest, except for the yellow, these are not colors I tend to just buy for my stash so I pulled what I had, but I'm sure I have enough for this project. I have TONS of yellow but I just pulled out the smallest pieces from my stacks; hopefully I'll use some of them up. And I didn't have an aqua that was more than two yards, but I had three pieces that were all close to the same color with a little different texture so I'm going to do the aqua portion a little scrappy.

As we get going, I'm sure I'll raid my scrap bins and come up with more fabrics, but this was just the first pass on my fabric wall.

Exciting Fabric Find

Yesterday when I was sitting around waiting for my fabric to arrive, I idly went to the Facebook marketplace and typed in "cotton fabric." I don't do it often, but I just did it yesterday on a whim. An ad came up for some woman who was moving into her retirement quarters and was getting rid of her fabric. This was the photo she posted. It looked like there was a fair amount of fabric, but to be honest some of the fabrics shown were sort of ugly. But it looked to be batik, so I made an appt and went out to her house.

When I got out there, she also brought out a tub of books and offered to sell those to me as well. I poked at a few pieces of fabric on top and there were enough pieces that I liked to make it worth the $35 she was asking so I just gave her the money and took the tubs, as requested. She wanted it all gone. And she offered me the books for $5!! Yup, took those too.

Anyway, I got home and pulled out all the fabric and started laying it out and I was shocked at how much there actually was. I did a quick tally (I didn't carefully measure everything, but quite a lot of it still has the store tags attached) and I got almost 70 yards!!! OMG! I paid 50¢ a yard for batiks! Hehe, I've never been this lucky with a fabric purchase before.

Quite a lot of the books are knitting and crochet, which I have no interest in, but there were quite a few quilt books and magazines so they were definitely worth the extra $5. Yeah, I had a good day today.

Also, I got my white fabric and I spent the morning cutting out the triangles for my Morris Garden quilt. Hopefully, I'll get it assembled by the end of the weekend, but right now I can't help pawing through my new stuff.

Mug Rug Distraction

I've been trying to get myself to clean up sewing projects that have been kicking around my sewing room for a while. A couple of days ago I ran across a small package filled with these little HSTs leftover from the Xmas quilt I made in July 2020.

I sewed little squares onto the Xmas quilt sashing to make the stars,
so when I trimmed off the extra fabric, I was left with quite a large pile of little triangles.

At the time, I couldn't bring myself to just throw them away,
so I sewed them together to make half-square triangles.

I didn't really have a good plan, I just started sewing them together in a pattern. I decided to just make a few mug rugs rather than try to make something larger. Some of the seams are not matched so great, but I decided done was better and I was not going to take the time to make sure all the points lined up perfectly.

I had more green than red HSTs so I ended up doing a couple in just green to use up the last of the pieces.

It probably wasn't worth a whole day of work, but it is satisfying to make something useful from such tiny leftover scraps.

Courtyard Cabin

When I'm not working on cleaning out our basement, I have been playing around with another quilt design. Inspired by Design Wall Monday, I figured I would post what I have figured out at this point.

The original medallion quilt pattern was kindly provided by Robert Kaufman and is called Courtyard Cabin (it is available here). Their earth-tone version is quite lovely, but I was inspired to play with their new batik line, called Evening Glow. I really love the colors.

I added a couple extra borders to their design because I want it to be big enough for our beds. We have thick pillow-top mattresses that regular queen-size bedding doesn't fit very well.

Now that I have entered the pattern in Electric Quilt, I know how much of the fabrics I need and can pick them up the next time I see a sale. I don't know when I'll get around to this one. It's certainly not at the top of the queue.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Aug Friday Night Sew In

I didn't get very much done for this week's Friday Night Sew-In because when I went upstairs to sew, my room was a mess and I spent the first couple of hours ironing and putting fabric away. 

I did do a bit of work on the purse clutch I am hoping to make, but I thought I could be all clever and build it with leftover soft & stable interfacing instead of the plastic they used but it's not working very well; it's difficult to tuck in the end of the zipper. I probably should have just followed the original directions, or at least assembled it in the same way.

I did get to play with some new fabric when I was ironing. Not sure which quilt design I'll make with it, but I'm sure I'll come up with something eventually.

The top fabric is a Hummingbird Lane batik. I managed to get it on clearance.