Stash Report Sunday - Week 20, 2014

Did I really forget that today is Stash Report Sunday - you betcha', I surely did forget, until I noticed another blogger having posted hers!  And it seems I may have missed last Sunday too, but that's no surprise since it was Mother's Day; I had nothing in or out to report anyway.  Today's excuse is that I'm getting ready to bug out of here first thing in the morning, and I think I'll be ready as soon as I post this and shut down my computer.  I've already loaded the car with all but the last minute items.

This week's small change is the addition of one yard to my stash.  It had an intended purpose, and may still work, even though it didn't turn out to be the same color I'd hoped it would be.  That would be the yard of Bed of Roses, a Moda fabric by Robyn Pandolph from ca. 2005.

Used This Week: 0 yards 
Used Year to Date: 0 yards  
Added This Week: 1 yards  
Added Year to Date: 0 yards  
Net Used for 2014: -.85 yards

That puts me back in the red, meaning I've added more than I've used.

Linking up at Patchwork Times. 

Slightly Disappointed, or Not?

Today I received my eBay purchase of the yard of fabric I mentioned yesterday.  It only took two days, or was it three? to get here from a state in the east.  

One of the difficulties of buying online is with color.  Though I had read the description, in which she did refer to it as 'golden' in color, I was truly hoping her description was off, and the image was accurate.  You see, the extra yardage I was looking for is more 'tan' than 'golden, but in the picture at eBay, it looked JUST LIKE my tan and the colors in the selvedge color circles all looked the same as well.

Unfortunately (well, maybe, maybe not) the new yardage truly is 'golden' and my yardage truly is 'tan', so they are not the same.  However, it is the same pattern, and the same Moda Bed of Roses by Robyn Pandolph.  Here is the picture of them side-by-side:

What's really funny, is even here on my computer, with having taken this photo myself, the 'golden' one looks more 'tan' and the 'tan' one looks more 'taupe', but even so, they are not the same color.  Now, my decision will be, when I finish the top, of which I had enough fabric for all but the outer border without this new piece, to either go ahead and incorporate it as the outer border or find something else hopefully close in color to the 'tan'.  I will have to wait and see when I have the top ready by putting it on my design wall and auditioning this new yardage next to it.  It may ultimately be just what it needs to perk up an otherwise mostly drab set of fabrics...we shall see.

Empty Design Wall

I'm down to the last two days to get myself ready to head back north.  Since I don't know for sure if I'll be back before quilt camp to get my quilt supplies, I need to be ready with all my supplies and projects along with anything else I may find time to work on at my dad's.  Better to have everything with me than to be without necessary items.  At the rate I'm going, I may have to rent a storage locker in my dad's town!

Above are four bins with individual projects.  
     There's Stairstepper, which has been assigned, and for which fabric had been set aside, but that's as far is it had been worked.  
     Another is Gathered Over Time, written about here and here.  I had the 9-Patches done but had not cut the solid squares, so that is done and I need only sew block to block and row to row.
     Yet another is Sister's Choice, also written about here.  I had kept a row up on my design wall but took it down today to keep all the parts together.  I have less than half the blocks completed so there's plenty of work to do there.
     And, lastly, a completely new project: Subtle Charm.  I found this pattern, in one of my intact The Quilter Magazine from I think 2000.  And the fabric I chose has been sitting in my stash since I believe 2005.  I had wanted to use it for a quilt for our master bed.  It seemed I pretty much had the quantities of fabrics needed, though my color-way is completely different than the pattern.  Most of the fabrics are Moda's Robyn Pandolph 'Bed of Roses' design. One of the pieces of fabric is shown below.  That was the only one of the four fabrics required that I was a bit short on.  What do you do when short?  Why you run to the internet - knowing the fabric is nearly 10 years old!!  And in only minutes, I find someone selling an entire yard on eBay with a starting bid of $4.50 plus s/h and no bids.  Guess who bid $4.50?  And there was less than two hours remaining :)  I had to set up an eBay account, then figure out with Marty's help how to pay it through Paypal, and the seller was VERY prompt and it is on it's way to me.  The only problem, and it's not really a problem for me, is that it won't arrive here until Tuesday, maybe Monday, but I'll be on the road Monday.  Still okay, as the additional fabric needed accommodates the outer border and binding, so I can still do everything up to the outer border.  I am happy.

 I pre-cut as much as I could on all of these projects because with limited space at quilt camp, I didn't want to hog the table set up as a cutting station; better to have it all done ahead of time.

 Now, here you're probably wondering why I'm showing you the package from my printer's ink.  See that little triangular paper drawing (i.e. template).  Well, the pattern calls for that and I don't have one of that size in a purchased template, and I couldn't find my template plastic, so, remember the old phrase "necessity is the mother of invention"?  Uh, huh, I 'invented' my own template plastic from the plastic case of the ink.

You can barely make out the plastic case after being trimmed of the back molded portion and the cardboard insert. 

I've trimmed it down to a useable piece, saving the rest.  You never know when you might need more! 

 I couldn't find the skinny permanent marker but had one of these Micron Pigma pens and a little ruler and traced the pattern.  I'd taped the plastic to the paper because I didn't want any slips.

 Seeing double?

 Clear tape! Yes, because I didn't want to take any chances in smearing those new lines and/or having the lines rub off.  Not that I'll be really using the lines.  In fact, all I'm really needing this for it seems, is to lop off the points at all three triangle corners.  I'm sure I'll be happy I do that when I get to that point, but it's probably something I could work with even without the template.  Had I read that far into the pattern, I probably would have dismissed it completely as soon as I read 'template'.  That's how I am.

 The finished template, bubbles in the tape and all.

Oh, and who do we have here?  No, she is not traveling with me, and I'll miss her.  I'd opened my bin of Bow Tie Sets to get that re-organized to also include with my packing, and Raven decided since she's a Tuxie, she needed a Bow Tie.  Funny how the label hits right about where a tie should be, lol.  She was quite content to be there, in my way, and has done this repeatedly with other fabric and papers when I have them on the table.  As you can see, she's quite the chunk and fills up that bin.

Planning

Well now, the last you heard from me about anything to do about quilting was with my giving up on Twisted Sisters, at least for now, and until I can really put some mental energy into figuring out MY problem with it.

In the mean time, I'll be heading north again on the 19th.  That's just a week away, and my sewing time while I've been home - three weeks so far, has only amounted to about three hours.  I don't expect to be doing any more during the next week. 

With planning, I'm trying to include Quilt Camp again, which will be the perfect get-away from both the northern and the southern responsibilities.

What I can do this next week is decide what I want to work on while at Quilt Camp.  Do I want to work on one or more of my unfinished projects?  I have many.

 There are these two stacks in the closet.

 There's this stack in the closet.  Most of these are flimsies or close to it, so maybe they wouldn't be the best projects for Quilt Camp.  After all, I'm allowed only a certain amount of table space.

 Or I could find yet another brand new project from these books above,

 or from these binders filled with projects from magazines that I culled through some time ago,

or from any one of these magazines I choose to keep intact.

But then, there's a few of these ongoing projects that still have a fair amount of piecing to be done.  These are only three bins of probably at a half dozen or more I have scattered here in the Sanctuary.  The clear bin on the right also has purchased patterns in it, so I could make a selection there.

The possibilities are endless, and as much fabric as I have, I look at the fabric shelves and think they're looking a bit on the skimpy side.  But maybe that's just because I really would like to have a stash enhancing experience.  With Marty starting back to a real career-related job on 5/19, I may allow myself to do just that and buy some fabric while I'm in the northern wet land.  I'd better get crackin' if I'm going to make any progress.

Giving Up

I wrote about this one back in January, here.  I pulled it out again the other night and refreshed myself as to what was going on when I put it away.

 The project is a pattern called Twisted Sisters by Ami Simms.  

I still cannot get the block to come out accurately.  I have remeasured everything.  I have taken seams apart, in some instances more than once, and resewn.  I've tried narrowing my 1/4" seams.  I've tried increasing my 1/4" seams.  I don't know what else I can do.  I've checked her site for errata, thinking maybe one of the measurements is off, but I find nothing.

 These are two of my original photos.  See how the seams don't line up correctly on both the above and below photos?  On the upper photo, I completed the block just to see if all four sides would be off, and yes, they are.

My stack of 'chunks' ready to be trimmed to the template.  I need to recheck each seam so that it lines up with the template, shown in the photo below. 

But even with all four "wedges" matched precisely, when added to the center square, they are still off.  I thought about trimming the finished blocks to just square them up, but if I do, that will cause each block to be offset from each other block where the seams are supposed to meet. 
 
So at this point, it is ALL going to go into a box and get stuffed into the closet to think about at such time as I can spend hours to re-structure, re-sew, re-think.  That effort is not going to happen right now, and I'm going to move on to something that will bring me joy.

If you've had any experience with this pattern, I'd love to hear from you.

Stash Report - No.18 2014

While I did some piecing this week, I have nothing out and nothing in, so my report is status quo.

Used This Week: 0 yards 
Used Year to Date: 0 yards  
Added This Week: 0 yards  
Added Year to Date: 0 yards  
Net Used for 2014: .15 yards

Hope those of you linking up a Patchwork Times have good reports.

It's Starting To Come Back To Me

I don't know about you, but when my life gets disrupted, as it has over the last few months with my Mom's illness and passing and being away from home so much, I can forget what was in motion prior to the disruption.  That was evident with my Design Wall Monday post where I couldn't remember the what and why about the tiny 9-Patch units that were pinned to my wall.

Scrolling back through my blog to the end of January I discovered that the project was actually my Let's Book-It  project for January (check here) and was not part of a leader/ender project.

Last night after I re-discovered this, I pulled the book and the container of parts-in-works and sewed for about two hours.  Aside from hemming a pair of my dad's pants in March, this is the first machine stitching I've done since about 1/31.  It was good, but I have to admit, it's taking some time to really feel like I'm totally back.  That may be because I know I'll be leaving again towards the end of the month.

An array of 9-Ps without the 2 3/4" 'solid' alternating squares

For this project, I had determined I need to make 312 9-P units in addition to the solid squares to make the size of quilt I wanted.  I have 82 blocks done, a good start, but that leaves a lot left to do.  

For the summer up north, I will have to decide if I want to, and can afford to, take part in Quilt Camp like I did last July.  Part of that decision involves figuring out how much time to spend there and here between trips.  And if I do go, I need to start planning projects and getting myself organized with my supplies.