Design Wall Wishful Thinking

I'm not home, so there is nothing on my design wall....unless my guys have a surprise for me when I get home, lol.  Come to think of it, I think I did leave a whole lotta pins stuck in my design wall.

I wanted to show you the complete set of fat quarters for the coastal Quilt Run101 Challenge quilt.  I'm not sure I'd have ever picked half of those fabrics for anything, but I would love to see the projects from those who will actually get a Challenge quilt made.  I'm not so sure I will (hmm, just how many quilts have I finished in the last five years? At least one.).  The challenge quilt has to be turned in by 4/18/15 and I believe the rules stated it has to be turned in to any one of the participating shops in person, and since I'll be home, that will be out of the question.  I may even be 1200 miles to the east around that time, as that's in the time frame for the birth of my granddaughter.

Do you think you could come up with something creatively using all of these fabrics together?  They have to be clearly identifiable on the front of the quilt, and the quilt can be no more than 144" in circumference (for a visual, that could equal a 36" square wall-hanging).  Two additional fabrics could be added.  I suppose that's why they call it a Challenge!  

All the details of the Quilt Run 101 2015 can be found here.  I believe the 'winners' shown are still those from 2014.

Linking up with Judy @ Patchwork Times and headed over to check out what's on your design wall.

Stash Report and Quilt Run 101, Part II

Well here we have it, the finale of the quilt run.  It was a great time, and on Saturday we five began our trip driving through some heavy fog, heading straight to a restaurant called "Camp 18 Restaurant".  The log-cabin style restaurant at an old logging camp has a pretty impressive 85' long ridge pole that weighs 25 tons - massive!  The food wasn't bad either, and we fueled up sufficiently to sustain us through late afternoon. 

This sweet friendly kitty was the mascot at the restaurant.

I love the look Bigfoot's giving.  He's saying, "You're doing what?"  or maybe it's "Can I join you?" 

Our first shop stop, Center Diamond in Cannon Beach.

 This was one of the nicer more appealing to me Challenge FQ fabrics

Homespun Quilts was our second shop stop.  This shop is in Astoria. Cute inset entry area.

The front of the store.

The blue floral is the Challenge FQ. 

Our third stop,Custom Threads was the second store in Astoria.  Lots of fabric here, but a little bit of a musty smell.  They also had yarn and it appeared they also did tailoring on a regular basis. 

The giraffe print is the Challenge FQ.

Our fourth, and next to the last shop, Creative Fabric, is in Wheeler.  Good fabric choices here, and for display they have a bed with a quilt on it - nice touch!

Check out those bright umbrellas on black - yep, that's the Challenge FQ! 

We had to stop at the Tillamook Cheese factory.  I'd never been there before.  We didn't stay long as we had to get to our final destination, so a tour and cheese tasting would have to wait for another time.  We all did enjoy an ice cream though, and sat out in the sun.  There hadn't been much of the latter, though thankfully, it wasn't storming like last weekend.

This bright pink house CANNOT be missed.  And if you like pink flamingos, you have them.  I've been here twice before.

It is one of my personal favorites quilt shop.  Our final shop on the Quilt Run 101 was Jane's Fabric Patch in Tillamook.. 

My fully completed shop hop passport!  Hooray! 

Tis I in the yellow shirt, my cousin-in-law, my aunt, c-i-l's friend, and c-i-l's mom - we had a great time!  Showing off our completed passports - only c-i-l's friend had but 5 shops.

My final fabric purchases, and a wild & crazy elephants in flowers Challenge FQ!

So how did my additional totals tally?  Here it is:

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date:  8 yards  
Added This Week:  13.58 yards
Added Year to Date: 39.69 yards  
Net Used / Added for 2015: 31.69 yards 

Linking @ Patchwork Times


I suppose I could have done a lot 'worse', and I'm hoping I'll not add any more to my stash before I can start showing some fabrics used.  With heading home on Thursday, I'll be having opportunity to sew again.  I'm looking forward to that!  Next year, should I take part in this quilt run, I have decided I just may start 'stashing' thread.  I could use it as an opportunity to get some Aurifil, or other threads often deemed to be higher quality. Do you think I could spend less that way?

Quilt Run 101 Purchases (Photos), part I

As promised, though late, I am presenting the photos of my shop hop purchases.  As I typed the title of this post, I realized that some may not know that the reference to "101" is not an educational term, but is the coastal highway (Hwy 101) on which all 14 of the shops from Astoria, OR to Brookings, OR are either on or very close to.  

We will be finishing up with the remaining five northern shops from Tillamook to Astoria tomorrow.  I don't know if we'll head straight to Astoria and finish in Tillamook - at Jane's, one of my all-time favorite shops - or if we'll begin at Jane's and hit the others as we travel north, then making haste in returning home.  

Now, on to the photos (the number with each photo is the order in which we stopped at that shop):  

(1) This is the 'passport' that we dare not lose nor forget to have stamped!  It needs all the stamps from all the stores to be eligible for all the prizes.

(9) The FQ is the Challenge fabric from this store.  They also gave out the hem guide. My fabric purchases (other than the Challenge) had a theme of sorts.  I tried to stick with Jacobean prints, or prints that would mix well with them.

(9) You can see by the time stamp, I checked out of this store just over three minutes before closing...we were racing to get this store out of the way so we'd have fewer to do this next Saturday (tomorrow).

(8)  The store in Brookings provided everyone with a reusable cloth bag for their purchases.

(8) The black FQ is the Challenge fabric.  I also bought a pattern - I went back & forth on it and finally said yes.  The candy bar was another gift from them, in the pouch, which included a discount coupon (expires in May-oh well) and 2.5" full width strip.  I didn't get a pic of that strip, it's dark brown with multi-colored dots scattered all over it.

(7) Loved the two Jacobean prints here, especially the white/gray one.  That very colorful, large scale is the Challenge FQ.  It's a Bethany Reynolds Stack-N-Whack fabric.   The candies were gifted by the store.

(6) I found a white on cream neutral, and the black/red/white Jacobean.  The multi-colored in the upper right is the Challenge FQ.  Look what else I found!  A needle nanny, just like the ones Barbara at Cat Patches was offering as a prize when she was hostessing her NewFO challenges each month.  The magnets on that kitty are very strong - so strong, they are almost impossible to tug apart without sliding them to do so.  The fabric pieces with the green pipe cleaner were the store's gift to patrons.  It's two 6-inch squares (or thereabouts).

(3) The chevron FQ is for the Challenge.  The other was as close as I could find to a Jacobean print at this store, and it's a neutral.  There's also the paisley/Jacobean white tonal that almost got lost in this picture.

(4) Hmmm, another auto-rotated photo :/   OK, so the blue and the gold aren't Jacobean but I just fell in love with the line!  The gray/black is Jacobean, and the turquoise with chain-link rows is the Challenge FQ.

(1) By the time we reached the first store, I decided I should have a plan of attack at these shops rather than just going in willy-nilly.  I think having a plan, helped to keep my spending under control, though at $11.50 plus or minus per yard, it isn't hard for the pocket book to take a big hit.  14 shops, a couple yards of fabric at each, or a pattern and some FQs, and there goes the budget.  So here, I found the pattern first.  From the pattern decided what I wanted to start looking for in fabric, and decided I'd do Jacobean prints, though I'm not really sure they'll endup paired with this pattern after all - we'll see.  The two FQs on the left are my prints, though the floral one is more a stylized 'Jacobean' and the other leans a little more paisley.  That very strange gold in the upper right corner, yeah, that's the Challenge FQ.  Are you starting to wonder how on earth an attractive Challenge quilt could be made from the Challenge FQs?  Yep, me too!!!

(5)  The Challenge FQ is actually NICE here, it's the black & white bubble-looking one.  The other black, as I was going through my purchases, I realized is the same line as the blue & gold fabrics I bought later in the day.  I just love, love the brown & black Jacobean print. 

(2)  I didn't find much here I liked and the brown/tan was the closest Jacobean I found.  The striped fabric, not bad, is the Challenge FQ.  It's the one we had to stop at the shop again on the return because I had forgotten to buy it at our first stop there.  As it turned out, everyone else still had a couple of things they wanted to pick up there, so the shop benefited from my forgetfulness.  The item that says "Quilters Flock Together" is a round folding fan; it folds like the sunshields one might use in their cars. It fits nicely in ones purse.

  There you have it.  It doesn't look like I was going overboard, but by the time you add in meals, and a motel room, and gas contributions to the driver, it does add up.  Now I'll need to see how to 'justify' the expense of quilt camp again in July.   I figure this might be my one and only opportunity to do a quilt run/shop hop of this magnitude, so I'm enjoying and not really fretting too much about the expenses.  It's most definitely mental therapy, and I had the company of three lovely ladies.  What more could I ask?  It was a great time, and we have one more day together to finish the run, and this time the weather is supposed to be a bit better too.  

My next post, hopefully will be with Sunday's stash report....and on time!

Touting My Totals - Week 6, 2015

I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, but I don't want to wait to include my purchases from this past weekend in next week's totals, so am linking up at Patchwork Times for the Week 6 Stash Report.  I might get to the photos tomorrow, but that's not a promise.

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date:  8 yards  
Added This Week Month:  17.36 yards
Added Year to Date: 26.11 yards  
Net Used / Added for 2015: 18.11 yards 

Linking @ Patchwork Times


There are still five more stores on the Quilt Run 101.  Oh dear, I need to go home so I can work on some projects!  Home in nine days....hopefully.

Monday Meanderings

I almost had to double-check to see if we were actually still on Monday.  I'm wondering if some of my dad's dementia is rubbing off on me!  He had a scheduled 3:40 eye exam and asked me half a dozen times throughout the day if it was at 2:30 before he finally wrote it down on the whiteboard, and even then he kept it in his head as 2:30! 

My new fabric purchases have not yet been tallied up and photographed, but I can show you the shops we visited on our first leg of the coastal Quilt Run 101.  I may also have taken a few shots of the ocean, and a shop mascot.

Quilter's Cottage in Newport: our first stop.  Does my cousin-in-law look excited? I really liked this shop; lots of "my types" of fabrics, but I restrained myself pretty well.  I knew I had a whole lot of shops yet to visit.

Cute little pooch - and I've forgotten its name.  There was also a black kitty which I didn't get a picture of, named Tiberius.  A sign in the window warned of an 'Attack Cat'....he was friendly at first but reached his tolerance level and became grumpy.

Quilter's Cove, also in Newport.  They had mascots too, but I didn't photograph them.  This shop is always nice, but compared to a number of years ago, doesn't carry as much fabric since they moved.  We had to stop here again on our return as I forgot to get the Challenge fabric from here, and each store carried only the one that was offered at their store. 

Ruth's Family Fabrics is in Waldport.  This store also carried other types of fabric, such as for clothing construction.

Cousin-in-law and her mom getting ready to enter Wenz-Daze Quilter's Emporium in Florence.  We poked around here for quite a little while.

In Coos Bay is Threads that Bind.  Love that name.  The funny story here is that my cousin-in-law was our driver and she was using "Simon" her gps on her cellphone to locate the store.  Simon took us all the way south of Coos Bay to a construction type of company.  Turns out that was Central Lane, not Central Avenue, so we had to backtrack a little bit and had a good time razzing about "Simon Says" and "Simon, you're fired".  Simon later goofed up on another direction.

We won't forget you here at Forget-Me-Knots Quilt Shop in Bandon.  Bandon is a nice little town.  I remember some 30+ years ago, my first husband and I stayed at a place in Bandon and ate at an attached restaurant and I had salmon plate that was the best I'd ever had.  I remembered it had very thinly sliced onion on top and capers.  On the return trip, we shop hoppers stopped again in Bandon for lunch.  We dined at the Wheelhouse Restaurant.  I enjoyed a bowl of clam chowder and mixed salad with greens, pineapple tidbits, sunflower seeds, house dressing - yum, it was so good!  My aunt enjoyed her crab sandwich - we all enjoyed our meals.

Quilter's Corner in Port Orford was our last stop on that first day.  We didn't have time to make it to the next one before closing so went straight to our motel in Brookings, then went to dinner.

One ocean view along our drive between Port Orford and Brookings.

Country Keepsakes Quilt Shop in Brookings, while not as much for my fabric tastes, was absolutely the.most.fun.  The ladies here were so absolutely fun, friendly and helpful.  We hung out here quite awhile.

Some of the fun we had while at Country Keepsakes was to sit "in" this car in assigned seating (the same seating positions we rode for our trip).  Cousin-in-law Leanne is driving, her mom is to her right wearing the other feather boa (store props), my aunt Irene in the black sweater, and I hugging the car behind Leanne.

I don't remember exactly where this was, but we got out and watched the waves crashing for a short while. 

We fit in the final one for this first leg.  #9 on our list was BJ's in Cloverdale.  It's in the northern group of quilt shops. The shop takes up the 'basement' of a family home, and there is a lot of fabric crammed in there.  Don't expect to have room to hang out and chat!  This was my second visit to BJs having been there I believe in summer 2013.  We had hoped to make it to Jane's in Tillamook, but it will have to wait until next weekend.  The reverse trip back up the coast from Brookings seemed to take a whole lot longer even though we weren't stopping at all the shops.  We stopped for lunch, but then on Saturday, we had stopped for breakfast, so we aren't sure where the time went.  Our other stops were brief too.

That concludes Part I of the Quilt Run 101.  I'm looking forward to Part II.  It can be done in a single day.  I've heard the weather is supposed to be much better next weekend.  For Part I, we had a lot of rain and a lot of wind.  If I remember more details about any specific shop as I photo my purchases and post about them, then I'll mention them, but it was pretty much a whirlwind for me and I'm not always attentive to all the details of the shops aside from recognizing whether or not their overall fabric selection fits 'my style' or not.

Great Weekend, Part I

I should be posting my stash report but I don't have my numbers tallied, so it will have to wait.  Remember, I went on the coastal Quilt Run 101 this weekend and we just got back a few hours ago - in the midst of a lightning, thunder and rain storm - and then I still had to drive back from my aunt's to my dad's.  I'll try to get to that tomorrow and link up at Patchwork Times, albeit late.

Upon getting back, I checked my blog's dedicated email box and wow!! I won one of the Quiltmaker magazines offered by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville....so excited!  So when I get home, I'll have that to look forward to as well as playing with all my new fabric.  

I'll be posting more about the weekend trip with photos too in the next couple of days, so I will apologize for no photos today.

Post Updates & Copyright Comments

The last few days have been (re)educational.  For those of you who follow Bonnie Hunter/Quiltville, you know she had a recent issue over someone posting her copyrighted material in an inappropriate way.  

I always try to be respectful of copyright yet know that in today's media/social-centric world, inadvertent lapses could be made.  In that respect, I went back and reviewed what she had written in her Grand Illusion Introduction and she stated there that neither sizes nor (element) quantities should be posted on our blogs, and I thought, uh-oh, I may be guilty there, so I went back and reviewed all my own posts that dealt with G.I. and found a few personal offenses in that vein and have changed them.  I don't expect anyone to go back and review my blog posts, the changes wouldn't be obvious anyway, but should someone new come along and read my older posts, hopefully they will be inclined to look up Quiltville for the instructions and/or purchase Bonnie's (future) book when the pattern is removed from the website to be put in that book.

As much as it relies on me, I will keep the piece (peace) in the quilting world; won't you join me? :) 

Quilter's take on the adage "To err is human, to forgive Divine."

Stash Report - Week 5, 2015

It's the first stash report of February but the fifth of 2015.  Time is once again flying by. 

The fabric out that I reported last week with having turned Grand Illusion into a flimsy, was swallowed up this week with new purchases at the LQS here in my dad's town.  I went there in search of more of the yellow constant as I really had my heart set on using it also for the binding, and I knew I had an insufficient amount left over at home for that purpose.  I found that they still had quite a bit of it on the bolt, so bought a full yard.

The yellow constant for the binding.

While there, I thought, well, why not look for backing fabric, so downstairs where they keep their discounted fabric, I found this and bought five yards.  That's probably a couple yards shy of what may be required, but I can fill in with plenty of leftover pieces from what was used in the top.

Backing for Grand Illusion

And while I was already downstairs rummaging through the discounted bolts, I found this very nice looking neutral/green paisley.  There was less than three yards left on the bolt, so I bought it all. 

Lovely, fairly large design, green paisley.

How's that for trying really hard not to increase my stash?  Well, I already know that's not working too well, and this coming weekend a group of five of us will be piling into a vehicle to do the southern portion (from Newport south) of the Coastal Quilt Run...hmmm, how much MORE fabric will I be reporting in a week?

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date:  8 yards  
Added This Week Month: 8.75 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards  
Net Used / Added for 2015: .75 yards 

Linking @ Patchwork Times