HtbaS 320: Holiday Swaps, Merriment, and Sewing

All You Need Is Love (and a Dog) Quilt, from The Nope! Quilt pattern

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Sunday Stash - Finally!

This week I powered through some of the donation quilts I had ready to go from all that piecing that happened last week.  Those two quilts I finished are in the wash, so no pictures yet, and of course the third I totally forgot to finish before taking in to the shop that it’s going to hang in! Next time I’m in, I’ll grab a picture of it.

It was Saturday Sampler blog pick up week for me, though, so I got four blocks done over the weekend.  Here’s the two house blocks since it was a double month for those:

  • Used this past week: 14.25 yard
    • 5.75 yd for Belinda shop sample
    • 4.25 yd for Rainbow Unicorn donation quilt
    • 4.25 yd for Shabby Chic donation quilt
  • Total Used Year to Date: 230.5 yards
  • Added this week: nothing!
  • YTD Used for Charity: 69.5 yards (30% of total used)

HtbaS Quilting Podcast Ep 313: Donation Quilts and Books Galore

The Hip to be a Square quilting podcast

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WIP Wednesday - Early or It Doesn’t Count

I’m going ahead and posting WIP Wednesday so I don’t actually forget to do it for the frillionth week in a row!  And there’s a pitiful Sunday Stash report to boot, too, at the end.

I got three sets of blocks ready to go for three different quilt tops, so one day (hopefully soon) there will be finishes in the spreadsheet for those quilts. One of them was a pretty traditional shabby chic type charm pack that I mixed up with some more modern prints in similar colors for a big four patch quilt; the other two are leftovers from the skirt finishes of prior weeks.

I’m also in the middle of testing a new pattern and that will get finished up in the next month or so, too.

  • Used this past week: 1.75 yard
    • 0.25 yd for pincushion
    • 0.75 yd for Bingo FQs
    • 0.75 yd for block testing
  • Total Used Year to Date: 216.25 yards
  • Added this week: a couple FQ bundles, and some yardage for a quilt back
  • YTD Used for Charity: 61 yards (28% of total used)

WIP Wednesday - Texture Galore

This week I did finish a couple more items , including this fun quilt that will get donated at my guild meeting tomorrow night!

The pinwheels and 4 patches are made from the final leftovers from the Silver Star quilt, and I dug out some 3 1/2″ squares from the scrap stash to fill it out.

After finishing that, I took some time to do some graffitti-style quilting on this sample pillow cover for an upcoming pattern:

Sunday Stash - More Charity Quilts

A couple finishes this week, coupled with failing to report last week, means a big jump in the “yardage used’ column this week! The Kites quilt from below is for a blog hop, and the gray pinwheel quilt is currently in the wash, but I did manage to remember to take a picture of the Riley Stripe quilt before popping it in the wash.

Not a lot of definition between the fabrics in this one, of course, but this is one of my go-to layouts; picking one fabric for sashing and pulling from the 3 1/2″ and 5″ squares to make 9″ blocks.

I need move on to some pattern samples that are fortunately small and should finish up quickly!

  • Used this past 2 weeks: 15.25 yard
    • 0.75 yd for 3 placemats
    • 4 yd for the Kites quilt
    • 5 yd for the Riley Stripe quilt
    • 5.5 yd for the Gray Pinwheel quilt
  • Total Used Year to Date: 209.75 yards
  • Added this week
    • 3 yd for low volume FQs
    • 3 yd for low volume print
  • YTD Used for Charity: 61 yards (29% of total used)

WIP Wednesday - More Like an Early Finish Friday

It’s a mixed bag for WIP Wednesday; some finishes and some in-progress shots!

First up, a quilt that I finished a few weeks ago, which will be donated through my guild to the Dept of Family Child Services.

This one is made from the leftover bits of Sparkling Gems, the quilt that keeps on giving.  The quilt I made from previous leftover bits of that quilt was called Morse Code. Sadly, all the bits are now used up, except for one lone weirdly sized pinwheel that I went Full Elsa on and let it go into the scrap bin for stuffing into animal beds!

I’ve also been brushing up my free motion quilting with this fun texture in prep for an upcoming blog hop with Christa Watson that starts tomorrow. The full results will get posted over on The Stitch TV Show blog, but here’s the sneak peek for you:

 

WIP Whoopsday: Ugh

You know how everything seems to happen at once? All the time? I suppose that’s just called life. Right now my son and husband are concurrently sick with a cold, although my son is handling it better. I am on day 3 or 5 of a migraine, depending on how you look at it and whether you count the day it took off on Tuesday. But on the other hand, my daughter totally put her own hair up in a ponytail by herself this morning and that feels like something.  Yes, she’s 11, but she has my crazy curly thick hair and has never yet fiddled with it on her own, so hooray!

I’ve been stalled a bit on sewing this week due to aforementioned headache and also taking care of Stitch business rather than sewing, so here is my in-progress neglected sewing machine with the two donation quilts I’m leadering-and-endering. Not pictured: cats who randomly sit on it and squash down the piles.

Sunday Stash - Mindless Stitching

My focus the next couple of weeks has been on some new quilt design without actually stitching them, so my actual stitching has been focused on wrapping up some charitable quilts.  As I sit typing, under my needle are two donation quilts that I am leader- and ender-ing to assemble as tops.  I’ve got another quilt under the quilting needle for donation, and fourth top ready to be sandwiched. And just to keep the trend going, I made two pillowcases to donate. Once all of these quilts are done, I’ll probably do one big blog post with pics of all of them.

It’s a lot of sewing, but a nice spell of mindless stitching after doing quilt math for several days! My particular problem today has been dealing with a headache and some related symptoms, and hoping it goes away overnight.

  • Used this past week: 6.75 yard
    • 2 yd for 2 pillowcases
    • 4.75 yd for Sparkling Pinwheels
  • Total Used Year to Date: 194.5 yards
  • Added this week
    • Nothing!
  • YTD Used for Charity: 45.75 yards (24% of total used)

Sunday Stash - Cat-atonic

It was the final week of summer break for my kids (I know, it feels early to us, too), but I managed to chip away at quilting the full-sized Meow or Never quilt I showed in last week’s Sunday Stash report.  Despite another busy weekend, I managed to get the binding on it tonight!

Next up I have to sandwich and quilt two more quilts to be donated for our guild’s Community Services efforts, and piece a third top.  It’s been laid out and is ready for piecing, so those should go fairly quickly since they aren’t behemoths like the one I just finished!

After all the donation quilts, I’m due to make another sample of Belinda, so hopefully I can get those all knocked out in the next couple of weeks!

  • Used this past week: 13 yard
    • 13 yd for Meow or Never quilt
  • Total Used Year to Date: 187.75 yards
  • Added this week
    • Nothing!
  • YTD Used for Charity: 39 yards (21% of total used)