Stash Report Sunday - Week 45 or 46

Well, I don't know if my Smart(?) phone is correct or if Judy's correct, but I suspect we both are because we're using different calendars and/or starting points.  My phone gives this as Week 46 beginning today.  But the argument could be that 46 is the beginning of the week and the report is based on the last week, so Week 45 is probably the correct annotation for adding to or depleting one's stash.  Still with me?  Good, you can decide for yourself which week you want it to be.  They're all beginning to run together anyway.

Once again, I've neither added to, nor used from, my stash.  It hasn't been touched...at...all.   Soon, hopefully. 

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date:  11.4 yards  
Added This Week:  0 yards
Added Year to Date: 56.69 yards  
Net Used / Added for 2015: 45.29 yards

Linking @ Patchwork Times

Stash Report - Week 43, 2015

I'm following Judy's example this week - nothing to report.  No fabric in, and none out.  And any that went out from the guest room closet clean-out doesn't count because it's not quilting fabric. 

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date:  11.4 yards  
Added This Week:  0 yards
Added Year to Date: 56.69 yards  
Net Used / Added for 2015: 45.29 yards

Linking @ Patchwork Times

After yesterday's closet cleanout, more like just reorganizing, I'm left with this:

The upper shelf is the same as yesterday with the batting bags.  The fabrics, instead of being in nearly a dozen bags, were condensed into about five bags.  I sorted by fabric texture, lighter-weights, mediums and heavier weights like denim.  I'm still thinking I can make some pet pads for shelters using the mid- & heavier weights, maybe some shopping bags with the same, and use the lighter weights to make some rugs from this kit:

I'm thinking this closet would serve me better with deep shelves, widely spaced and without the doors.  The width of the door opening is 40".  It has two, 25" overlapping sliding doors.  That leaves just 15" of open access.  I've thought of using fabric to make a curtain instead, hmmm, maybe some of these fabrics can work there too.  It's another back-burner project for now though.

Closet Cleaning

I'm attempting to clean out the smaller of two closets in my guest room.  It's become an overflow of bags & bags of miscellaneous fabrics, most of which were given to me at various times over the past 15 years or so.  I have labeled bags of odds and ends of batting too. 

The bed covered in the bags of fabric.  Don't you love that ugly old blanket on the bed.  It's been around since the 1970s!

I keep trying to justify that I need to keep these because 'I'll get to a project(s) some day', when the reality is, I haven't touched them in over a decade and probably won't.  I planned to make skirts and/or tunics out of some of the fabrics - and both are a much-needed commodity in my clothes closet.  Time to go through the fabric bags again.

The closet shelf stuffed with bags of batting - all various remnant sizes/pieces. There's also a roll of poly batt barely visible standing in the corner of the closet.  It sits atop a box of supplies from when I was doing Creative Memories albums - oh about 1999-2000.  In fact, one album is still in the protective plastic it came in and I understand CM is no longer in business.

My intent with some of the smaller pieces of batting, and some of these odd fabrics, was to make pads for cat/dog shelters and my cats' vet.  I still could, I just don't know that I'll ever get to it.  I've a lot of 'good intentions' and pretty poor follow-through.  I had other thoughts of using some of the batting to make place mats and/or pot holders.  The local guild makes placemats for the senior home.

More batting pieces in that black bag and the paper bag.

Oh, and these things came out of that closet too.  The guitar was my maternal grandfather's.  It's a small guitar, not full sized, supposedly brought back from the Panama Canal or South America - he was in the Merchant Marines before and during WWII.  He died in 1957 by his own hand; I have a few faint memories of him.  I use the white shirt boxes for my works in process.

The guitar will be Nick's whenever he leaves home if he wants it.  I have a picture of him with it when my Mom first brought it out and showed it to him when we were there one summer.  

What do you do with your batting scraps?  Are you frugal and try to piece them together for your utility quilts?  Do you save them for that some day project?  Do you throw them out without regret or the thought that they could be used?  I certainly don't want any more! I'd like to rid myself of much of this, but I'm just not sure.  If I were truly ruthless, I'd just toss them into my trash bin and be done with it.  Please don't suggest I give it to the guild...some of it came from there for a specific project that was done, and they don't want it back.  At the very least, a good portion of it needs to leave the closet, but right now, I've no where else to put it with a garage full of stuff that needs to be picked up...and all I need to do there is make a phone call and schedule it...that should be my goal for Monday! Make the call!

Design Wall Monday, Week 43, 2015

I'm making no progress REALLY fast.  I didn't sew a stitch this week even though I thought about it a few times.  This getting back on track business hasn't been very successful yet.  Maybe I've never really been ON track???  Anyway, this is still the same as last week.

Subtle Charm...exactly as it was last week.  Well,actually, the blocks are picked up and put in it's WIP holding bin.

Linking up at Judy's Patchwork Times.

If anyone wants to know what I have been doing all week since my last post, switch over to my DOoW blog.

Don't forget to go check out everyone's design walls, I enjoy doing that even if I don't comment, but the thought crossed my mind that at least for those who don't have a big following, it's nice (and encouraging) to get a comment now and then, so I'll try to make more comments :)

Design Wall Monday, Week 42, 2015

A wee little bit of stitching was squeezed into this week's goings on.  I get so very side-tracked...have you noticed that?  

The Sublte Charm blocks have now been sewn into sets of two.  Except for the six remaining on the real design wall.  The layout configuration is 5 x 6 blocks, and I guess I was thinking that since there are six rows of five, I needed to keep those six blocks to add to the end of each row.  But really?  I could have sewn them in sets of two also and looked at it as five rows of six blocks.  It should go without saying that I need to put my thinking cap on a little earlier in the game.  I can still do them, but not for this week's photos!  I'll stop rambling now and just show a photo or two.

I first laid them out on the bed diagonally - but that's not the setting, although it looks good that way.

Then I placed them on the bed in the direction they'll be set; definitely a warm-tone quilt, perhaps even drab.

A close-up of the joining seam.  They haven't been pressed yet and this is a stack of a dozen sets, so not laying flat at this point.  The points in the seam are good, though they don't look like they meet at all.

It looks like I'll have to get the ironing board cleaned off and get them pressed before I do the next stitching.  First I'll get the remaining six blocks stitched together in sets of two.  

Linking up to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

There has been absolutely no change from last Monday, at least not as far as a photo is concerned.

On Subtle Charm, by mid-week I had pinned together sets of two blocks, so a little progress.  I've been side-tracked with decluttering my recipe files stacks and trying to put together some menus.  I wrote about that at DOoW. 

The only progress on this one now that it's been layered and pinned was that Marty helped me run a strip of blue painter's tape diagonally from each corner to use as my starting straight-line quilting guide.  Unfortunately, as this fabric had not been pre-washed prior to my receiving the partially stitched project, the painter's tape isn't wanting to stick very well.  I'm sure when I go to put it under the needle, I'll lose my guide-line, so am rethinking how to mark that initial line.  If it was drywall I'd get out a chalk line....hmmm, maybe that would work...if I had one.

 Check out Patchwork Times for more design walls.

Subtle Progress

I've been making steady progress with Subtle Charm over the last few days.  All 30 blocks are now completed so now I get to match up all those points.  I'll work on that perhaps later today.  For now, housework must come first and Nick and I both have optometry appointments this afternoon.  It's been a few years since I've had my vision checked, so maybe if I get new glasses, I'll do better at cutting and sewing accurately.

6 of 30 Subtle Charm blocks

After working on so many scrappy quilts in recent years, it does seem a bit strange to work on such an organized quilt of just four fabrics.  It certainly makes it easier to put blocks together in rows, no switching them around to get the best placement or to keep from having too many of the same color or fabric side by side.  

 While my bias edges have been a little bit of a problem (blame my eyesight for cutting and sewing inaccuracies?) I am quite pleased that I have no volcanoes in the center of the blocks, they aligned quite nicely...

...and my points are pretty much on target.  We'll see how they line up though when it's block to block; there may be some easing and stretching to keep them in sync.