Stash Report - Week 32, 2014

I have no changes in my stash this week, but since I am home, I have washed all of the last couple weeks' additions and am documenting them in my files, folding them nicely, and hopefully still while home, will plan a new project.  We'll see how far I get on that!

Used This Week: 0 yards 
Used Year to Date: 3.5 yards  
Added This Week: 0 yards  
Added Year to Date: 75.81 yards  
Net Used Added for 2014: 72.16 31yards                  
Linking @ Patchwork Times

Did anyone notice my mathematical error?

Design Wall Monday 04 August 2014

While I'm still away from my home design wall I'm not getting any sewing in. But I will show the newest project I started when I was at quilt camp.  I'm going to pretend it's on my design wall.  I have one block done. The pattern has 30 blocks.

I have all the pieces cut, having actually cut them back in May or June in advance preparation for quilt camp not knowing where I'd be when.  This is a quilt pattern from the November 2000 issue of The Quilter Magazine by Lucy Fazely called Subtle Charm.

While at quilt camp, we had gone into Sisters to The Stitchin Post.  There, I found this acrylic template tool that became a big help in getting the quarter-square triangles to play nicely.  It was one of those providential finds as when I saw it, I only thought "Oh this looks like a handy tool" not realizing it would be useful to this project as I had not yet begun stitching this project.  What is this tool you ask?  You are asking aren't you?

 The acrylic tool is a Point Trimmer.  The tool has a copyright date printed on it of 1996.  How could this tool have been around for that long and I have never seen it before? 

These are some of the QSTs both prior to trimming and after.  With as many as I have to trim, I admit it will be time consuming to trim them all, but after sewing them together as seen in the picture of the block, it will be well worth the time spent to do so.

I have checked at other quilt shops for another one without success.  They do however, appear to be available at this website: Judy Martin.

There have been a couple of shop hops going on.  I've managed to get but two from each, and that's about all I'll get.  The one on the left is the Row by Row and it's going on I believe into/through September.  The other, however, was a much shorter one and ended this past Saturday.  This had to be the busiest week since I've been back in the Northwest and we couldn't find a day to get to the shops in some of the other towns.  Since I'll be headed south again on Thursday, I won't be getting any of the rest of the Row by Row, though I will be back the end of August, so maybe I will.  I'll have to check as to where the other locations are that are participating in that shop hop. 

I think I'm all caught up now, at least on those things I can still take part in with my crazy life right now.  I am SO looking to be home with my guys, even if it is for only a little over two weeks.

Linking up at Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times.

Stash Report - Week 31, 2014

I've done it now!  I've added a WHOLE LOT MORE fabric to my stash again. 

Used This Week: 0 yards 
Used Year to Date: 3.5 yards  
Added This Week: 37.06 yards  
Added Year to Date: 75.81 yards  
Net Used Added for 2014: 72.16 yards                  
Linking @ Patchwork Times

Two weeks ago, after I lasted posted, I discovered I'd overlooked the fabric I'd bought while at quilt camp in my numbers, so that's included this time.

Solid yellow-tone called "Cornmeal".

One day this past week, I wanted to go to one of my favorite quilt shops in this area so hit my aunt up to go with me, which she did.  I was specifically looking for 1930's repros in florals but ended up with mostly solids instead, also needed. These were all FQs.  I also picked up a few pieces of yardage and some FQs in 1800s repros.  The 1800s prints were a package of 20 at $2.00/FQ.

Solids to go with 1930s repros, a coupld of prints, and 1800s repros.

Three bolt-end yardages and 1930s florals.

Another day, I met with my aunt and cousin for lunch and the cousin was looking for a new sewing machine.  We drove to Boersma's where they gave me another fabric.  Well, they didn't give it to me, but I did buy it there.  And my cousin found a machine to her liking and took it home to play with, paying for it of course.

I bought 2.5 yards of this yellow-tone honeycomb fabric.  Hmmm, I can see a hexie pattern in it.

Then on Friday, we went to Newport, OR for an annual quilt show that we traditionally attend.  

I love this print that graced the cover of the show program.  It's seems to be the logo/theme each year.  I think it has something directly to do with the guild(s) that put on this show and that it is on the coast.  Sailing ships often represent coastal waters and when you combine quilts...hey, works for me!  I'm descendant from Vikings and other Norwegian seafarers!

I found these 1930s floral prints at one vendors...they were a bit pricey I thought but I'd not found as many at Grandma's Attic as I'd hoped for so went ahead and purchased them.  I realize the price of fabric is on a steady increase.

At another vendor I found these, and they were only $2 per FQ - cash.

In the room for consignment sales, I found these fabrics.  They were just over $1/yard.

This is the contents of a $5 grab bag.  It was all stuffed into a 1-gallon zip-bag.  I forget what cause the vendor was supporting, but the fabrics in the grab bags were all donated fabrics / scraps.  I measured and calculated, and this equated to almost seven and one-half (7 1/2) yards.  I think that's a pretty good price to pay to add some variety to ones scraps.  There were some much larger bags set at $25 but I didn't want to have to carry one around - it was heavy.

I know it's Monday, and I'll get to that post, but also wanted to get this update in, even if it's late!

A Little More of Quilt Camp

Did I mention that I had a nice time at quilt camp?  I think I may have had a better time this year than last actually.

My aunt Irene and I shared a room.  The building our rooms were in has a huge room with a big wood-burning stove in it and that's where all sewing was done.  The stove was most definitely NOT needed, though I'm sure that in cooler months, it might be appreciated greatly.  It was quite warm, I lie, it was hot.  Far hotter than last year.  There is no air conditioning there.  It cools off wonderfully at night so of course, windows were opened up as soon as the outside air was cooler than indoors or if there was a breeze.  They were left open all night too until it started warming in the mornings, which was fairy early.  During the day, we had numerous fans going and that helped some.  One of the hottest days was registering around 84 inside.  The bunk rooms were more shaded so stayed quite comfortable even during the day.

 

 

Sleeping quarters ... only the sheet was necessary!

This year, we were in a room that was just slightly larger, and had two sets of bunk beds rather than two twin beds.  I  liked this better, as it was easier to toss extra stuff onto the upper bunk than it was to stuff it under the lower one. 

Each room has a window.  The windows look out to the parking area.

There are no bathrooms in the individual rooms, rather there is a women's room and a men's room which the latter is designated "women" by a paper sign taped over "men".  Each has but one toilet, and one shower, and two sinks.  Another set is on the upper floor.  With just 14 of us this year, there never seemed to be any waiting time for toilets or showers.

Ann

As my aunt and I have a cousin who lives near Sisters, we arranged to play hooky from camp and go have dinner with her on Thursday night.  We had a wonderful time chatting and catching up with all things from the past year.

A spinach salad that had bacon-wrapped prawns, oh yeah, yum!

 We ate at a Mexican restaurant, out on the patio.  It was nice and the food was mighty good.  When we got back to camp we asked how that night's dinner was.  The camp has a new cook this year, and I'll just say that the regulars who have been going to quilt camp for its entire eight years, were far more happy with the meals prepared under the direction of the previous cook!  Upon hearing what the meal was, we were very glad to have eaten in Sisters.  Apparently, the main parts of the meal were cooked cabbage, potatoes, and chili.  Interesting combination.  Sharing the camp at that time was a Latino youth group, and a couple other very small groups, so perhaps the cook was trying to please their tastes?  For breakfast the following morning we had tamales along with a few other things.  I can't say as I've had tamales for breakfast before, but hey, it was good, and it may become a breakfast staple, or not.  All groups eat in the 'mess hall' at the same times.  The youth group left Saturday morning, and the meals after that improved tremendously.  We were treated with a very yummy tiramisu for dessert Saturday night.

 My aunt Irene started this quilt last year.  In all the years (decades) she's been quilting, she had never done triangles before, and she struggled with it a bit and after q.c. last year, she set it aside, but this year, she plugged on and finished it, and was pleased with it.  She's not a perfectionist, and will often be heard remarking about imperfections something to the effect of "If it can't be seen from atop a galloping horse, it's good enough.".  She has every right to be proud of her accomplishment with first-ever triangles!

 This is the other top that she finished at camp this year.  Quite lovely!  The following few pictures are those of some of the other ladies' projects.  It was quite a treat to see each lady working diligently on her project and then seeing the results on the show and share evening.

I believe she said this was her first quilt and it might have been started at last year's camp - but I could be wrong.  It's very nice!

This is for this lady's son.  I think she said it was for his high school graduation, but that was two or more years ago.

I like the scrappy simplicity of this one especially.

In addition to the 'Stairstepper' project I showed in yesterday's post, I also worked on my Sister's Choice blocks finishing the final 40 of 72 blocks.

Some of the first Sister's Choice blocks completed in 2013.

I also started a new project, again having cut most of the pieces while still at home a couple months ago.  It has a gazillion quarter square triangles and I finished on the initial test block while at quilt camp.  While in Sisters on that Thursday waiting for our cousin to get off work, we stopped in at The Stitchin' Post and I found a nifty tool that I wasn't even aware existed.  I'll try to post about it tomorrow, or somewhere in the near future along with a photo of the single block done for this project ;)

Oh, and as it was SO unbearably hot this year, both my aunt and I opted to forego the show in Sisters, and stayed back at camp contentedly sewing, and trying to keep cool!  There's always next year, right?

Stash Report – Week 29, 2014

Hooray!! I have some fabric being counted as out of my stash this week.  It was actually out last week, but since I was still winding down from quilt camp, I didn't get a post in, so it's here now. 

Used This Week: 3.5 yards 
Used Year to Date: 3.5 yards  
Added This Week: 0 yards  
Added Year to Date: 0 yards  
Net Used for 2014: -35.10 yards                  
Linking @ Patchwork Times

I had purchased this project as a kit in December 2009.  It's called 'Stairstepper' by Pressed For Time Quiltworks and is a bargello design.  All fabric except the backing and batting was included so I take no credit for the coordination of the fabrics.

While still at home down south, I had prepped all the fabric that came with the kit and cut the strips and other specific sized pieces.  At quilt camp, those strips were sewn together and then cut further and then those segments were sewn in a specific manner incorporating the other pieces I'd cut earlier.  It went together quickly and easily, and best of all, there were no seams to match!  I haven't had that ease in awhile!  

I'm not sure why I waited so long to do this little quilt (42 x 63); perhaps I thought it looked more time-consuming from the pattern picture, or maybe from the designer's instructions than it truly was.  Total time to make this to the flimsy stage was 14 hours including prepping the fabric, pre-cutting, and working in an environment of sweet gabbing women (read: distractions).  Included also was the time taken to have to unsew a few pieces because, when using fat quarters, they don't all measure 18"x22", therefore, sometimes you don't get out of them what the instructions want you to cut.  One of the fabrics was apparently just that much less which equaled nearly 1/4" too narrow in cutting them after the strips were sewn.  Not to worry, there was some fabric left that I could cut the needed three rectangular pieces from and all was good. 

Stash Report Week 24, 2014

Since I'm on my computer and just finished a post for Saturday (it's still Saturday), I thought I'd get a jump on getting my Stash Report ready for Sunday...but you won't see it until Sunday...so I guess it IS Sunday, got it?  

Used This Week: 0 yards 
Used Year to Date: 0 yards  
Added This Week: 37.5 yards  
Added Year to Date: 0 yards  
Net Used for 2014: -38.60 yards                  
Linking @ Patchwork Times

While I was still up north in the wet land (could use some of that here in the south right now), my aunt and I took a day away and traveled up to Tillamook.  In Tillamook, there is a wonderful quilt store called Jane's Fabric Patch.  This store is one of my favorites. I thought I'd written about Jane's in an old post over at DOOW, but see that I only mentioned it as a comment in a photo here. It has a huge amount of fabric.   One room is books and magazines, another is Christmas and other holiday themed fabric.  A large, well-lit room is used as a class room, but also has fabrics, many of which are discounted to $3 / yard!  There's an area dedicated to DMC floss and embroidery - might also have had some knitting stuff in there, but since I don't knit I didn't pay attention.  It's all housed in an old two-story house that is now (as it was then) painted hot pink - sorry I didn't get a picture. 

Additions from Jane's

These days, when I shop for fabric, it's mostly keeping in mind what I might use to enhance my scraps or what I can use as backgrounds or what I can use for neutrals, or whatever just jumps out at me at the time.  Jane's requires multiple visits because frankly, I think too much is missed in just one.  Upstairs is the "clearance" area with books, magazines, fat quarters, etc.  There is a bathroom on each floor.  Just thought I'd add that in case you were wondering.  At Jane's, I found 10.5 yards of fabric that came home with me: FQs, 1, 2, 3-yard pieces and a 2.75 yard piece that was a finish-the-bolt.

From Jane's, my aunt knew of another store that she'd been to in the past.  This one was out of town, near Cloverdale, and also housed in a house, but operated entirely out of the basement, while the upper floor is a residence.  We had to use Garmin to find it, and from the highway, you drive up a narrow, graveled single car wide 'private' road.  Charming!  This store is BJ's Fabrics and Quilts and a write-up can be found here.  I enjoyed this store as well.  They have a great selection of fabrics and offer (at least at the time we were there) a free pre-cut of fabric with the purchase of two pre-cuts of fabric.  The pre-cuts were located throughout the store and were of various sizes from FQs to over a yard.  At BJ's, I found a total of 10 yards of fabric to bring home and add to the mix.  The ranged from FQs to two-yard pieces.

Additions from BJ's

After our quilting purchases we continued traveling south having passed Pacific City, into Lincoln City where we had lunch from a wonderful little stand called Jay's Fish & Chips, and on down past the Newport bridge where I had to drop off a VCR tape at my step-sister's.  We then went back to Newport where I located the cemetery where my grandparent's are buried and located their headstones.  We stayed long enough to snap a couple of photos before heading back.  

All the while during our day away, we had wonderful weather of sunshine and clouds but no rain or drizzle, and very little wind - just enough to see some kites flying along the beach and with temps in the upper 60s.  Very pleasant.  The next day in the valley, it poured rain a couple of times amidst the scattered showers.

Additionally, my aunt gathered up all her fabric scraps and passed them my way.  I've laundered them, and dealt with the thread nests created with smallish pieces.  They now fill a large round fabric tub, and there were a couple larger pieces which were measurable, and those amounted to a just over 1 yard piece plus four pounds of pieces.  

Scraps

Scraps

Scraps

Some of the scraps were cotton/poly so those had to be eliminated.

Trimmed off nests of threads from those scraps after laundering.  This may become my new header background if I can remember how to change it.  It DOES look like Webs of Thread :)

Now, if I calculate correctly, having weighed a yard of fabric at around 4 ounces (some heavier ones are 5 ounces), divided into 4 pounds (16 ounces per pound) that comes out to more than 16 yards of fabric in scraps!!  I suppose I should add that in my numbers too!   That sure adds to my stash :).  She has also sent me a notice that she's found some more to send my way!  I'd better get some flimsies done so that I can show something USED and DONE this year.

While in the Northwest, I had a very real opportunity to go see Bonnie K. Hunter (Quiltville) when she was in Portland, but I lacked the courage to drive that far for an evening in an unfamiliar area alone.  Yeah, I know, me, who travels alone 890 miles each way every four weeks or so.  But the key is, it was unfamiliar with total strangers, and I am still a bit shy, so long story short, I missed my opportunity to see her presentation in person and yes, I'm kicking myself in the backside.  Well, maybe she'll return some day or I'll have another opportunity.

Of Long Arms and Treadles

I know, I know, I've been gone too long again and how can one get a following when they're so inconsistent, right?  Well, it is what it is and for now it has to be that way.  As much as I'd love a bigger following, I'm afraid right now I'd be disappointing way too many so I'll just enjoy reading the blogs of others for now and update when I can take the time to get to it and hope that those who do follow, or read even without following, enjoy when I DO post.

This morning I got up in time to watch Fons & Porter on a near-local PBS station.  I didn't catch who the guest was that was demonstrating long-arm quilting.  It was very interesting though.  Her teaching technique, at least on the show to the hostess (Mary - the daughter of Marianne Fons), was with using a strip quilt and using the strips in much the same manner an elementary student would use the wide-lined paper to practice their cursive skills, using loops, or one letter repeatedly and then using a letter with a variation to it.  It was pretty impressive and I have to say that having the quilt, batting, and backing attached on rollers for quilting, sure looks easier than pinning, marking and wrestling a big quilt around on a small machine...most of my quilts are larger than lap size.

Many of you have long-arms and some of you quilt for others (to me that's terrifying - I'd be afraid of ruining someone's hard work) and I barely quilt at all and when I do it's only been straight-line quilting, though I took one class on free-motion quilting - learning both with template and without.  Free-motion is all about practice, as I'm sure the same holds true whether using a long-arm or a standard machine.  Maybe that's why I prefer piecing.  I just haven't taken the time to practice my FMQ enough to get that visual and muscle memory going.  If I were ever to get a long-arm, it'd have to go in my living room, there just isn't room anywhere else. Hmmmm, dream list: new home with large, finished basement for long-arm. But then, I'd probably never buy a machine that costs as much as my last vehicle for something that I do just as a hobby.

Shifting gears, it's hard to believe I've been home now for a week, and I'll be leaving again on the 30th.  But what I wanted to share, is that I DID bring the treadle machine home with me.  I posted about it here and here.

Arlington Treadle Sewing Machine mfrd after 1900.

Cabinet housing Arlington Treadle Sewing Machine

When I get back to the northern town I'll go into the LQS and pick up the leather belt for it.  That's all it needs along with a little TLC on both the machine and the cabinet.  I let my brother Eugene (who claims it as his aided by mom's divisive ways when she was living) know that I brought it home and he's made no comment.  He'd previously only requested that if I did bring it home, I should make sure I put in my will that it gets bequeathed to his son.  The machine belonged to my (step)dad's family and my brother and I only share the same mother, so hence his request.  I like my Dad's idea better as he says it's HIS and he can give it to whomever HE wants, hehe.  Eugene does contract jobs all over the country so lives in a travel home and uses public storage for those things he has no room for so having this with me is better than having it in storage, or with my Dad who would like to see bare walls and minimal everything else.  Some day I'll have time to just be at home and I'll clean it up and play with it.  When I was in high school, a treadle was all we had at home to use, so I'm hoping that's a bit like riding a bicycle...one never forgets.