Autumn Coat

Happy New Year!

When I took these photos it was still Autumn and there was a lot of snow on the ground. The weather has since warmed up and the Chinook wind (the snow eater wind) has melted all the snow. It is  warm enough to wear this knitted coat instead of a parka.

I purchased this yarn at a garage sale. It is Lamb's Pride Superwash Bulky and there was barely enough to finish this sweater. I had a strand of about 18" left after sewing up the seams. No buttons or button holes because I plan on using a shawl pin as a closure. It is as warm and cozy as it looks. The color is a royal purple that shimmers in the light.

The pattern is Autumn Coat by Oat Couture.

Double Four Patch

I love a good barter and I can't seem to stop trading. What did I do this time? It is for another bronze statue. This is from a young new artist. He wants a king sized quilt in earth tones and I wanted this one of a kind bronze. The majority of the four patches were already made as leaders and enders ala Bonnie Hunter so I didn't have to make too many more. I raided my 5" square bins and came up with a lot that will work by cutting them down to 4.5". The rest of the squares will be cut from yardage and fat quarters. This will be a true scrappy stash quilt even the batting and backing are from stash.

This is  the UFO/WIP that I need to finish first. Stay tuned for progress reports.

Donation Quilt (for the Cure - 2010 version)

Recently, I pulled several new, but vintage, Harley Davidson bandannas from the bandanna stash. In the 1980's I made several of these quilts to sell and if you know your audience they sell quite well. There are still enough of these bandannas to make 5 more quilts after this one.

There is an area motorcycle Poker Run that benefits the Susan G. Koman foundation. It has been on hiatus for a couple of years but started up again last year. There is auction after the run and I used to donate one of these quilts. This is next year's quilt.

For the backing, I cut 10.5" squares. Now THIS method uses stash! I just made sure I didn't have like next to like and didn't stress if there was a darker area. This method also generated a lot of scraps for the paintbucket quilts, so there are some of those in my sewing future.

This was tied with some black wool yarn and then stitched in the ditch around the red border. Binding will be more of that black Kona cotton. I like to use wool yarn because when it is washed, the wool felts into little balls that will never, ever come untied. In the past, when I used crochet cotton, I have had some come untied. The quilts were returned to me for repair, so I started to do it this way and have not made a repair since.

But during the fabric pull to make this backing, I was really surprised at the quantity of pastel sweet prints that I found in the stash. A lot. They will make wonderful lights in a scrap quilt, so I can see them being used in the paintbucket quilts too.

Ah, the possibilities!

The Firewood Quilt

Remember this quilt? (Click on it for a bigger photo). It seems that this thing has been on the design wall forever. It all started with a trade with a guy at work and one charm pack. The one charm pack turned into seven plus a lot of stash fabric and it resulted in this quilt. I quilted this behemoth (it is 100"x100") in a divide and conquer style and I plan on doing a tutorial in a few days.

O and I am now the proud owner of 5 cords of firewood.

ALQS Sneak Peek and other Wednesday Happenings

Here is a teaser for the quilt I am making for Another Little Quilt Swap. I have been working diligently and it is actually quilted now. In fact, all I have left to do is bind it and label it. I have enjoyed the research and the 'stretch' this little quilt has made me do. I do not know if you do this, but in the swaps in which I participate, I stalk my swap partner. What I mean by that, is I read her blog and look at her flickr site(s) to discern likes, dislikes, style, etc. This little quilt is basically an abstraction of one photo that I saw on my partner's blog. I hope she likes it.

In other news, I have been working on the PI shawl. O. My. I have to unknit about every third row. What made me think that I could knit lace? I had this same problem when I knit this item. I guess I really need NO distractions when I knit lace. But sometimes that doesn't even help because I find my mind wandering and then Oops! there is a mistake about 3 rounds back.

I started riding my bicycle to work again this week. Remember how far it is? It is 10 miles (16 km) round trip. It felt good to be moving again. I have been sedentary for far too long. I guess I subconsciously felt that if CarGuy couldn't do it (move around, walk, etc) then I wouldn't do it. I need to change that way of thinking because it really, really felt good to exercise. Now how often do you hear that? I cut my riding time by five minutes this morning. This is a good thing because it means that I'm not coasting as often. But the bike needs to go to my peeps at the shop to get the front brakes adjusted. Boy are they loud!

Have any great and exciting plans for the weekend? Me? I'm going to finish up a paving project TheKid started, reconfigure two zones of a drip irrigation system, plant some tomatoes, chop down some weeds and tall grasses and other assorted garden stuff. Once I get the bag of sand for the paving project out of the back of the truck, the pop-up camper can go onto the bed of the truck for the summer. Then I can mow the grass and weeds in the back section. It's one of those domino effects, you know. This can't happen until that happens which can't happen because this other thing didn't get done. I hope that by the end of the weekend I not only will be caught up with the yarden but be a slight bit ahead. Does that ever happen?

If I have any time left over, I do want to get the binding done on the ALQS quilt. And make a bag. I warm up for free-motion quilting on a fairly large quilt sandwich which is almost covered and decided that my practice pieces like this would make excellent quilted bags and use up stash! Maybe I'll have something to show by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Red Bird

Well, I finished up the pincushion. Isn't he cute? It's a bit fiddly to make but the results are great. The pattern is from Gooseberry Hill and is called the Sewing Bird. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see it. I have had this pattern for a long time, years in fact. I made one of these for Auntie when I first purchased the pattern. This is my second one.

This is just a wee bit of stashbusting. The fabrics are from stash, the tape measure is from stash and the notions I'm tucking under his wings are all from stash. I even used some glass-headed pins from my everyday pins for his eyes and beak. I did not buy a thing: I already had it.

I think my birdie is fatter.

Quilters and the Planet: Blog Action Day

Have you ever stopped to think that it might be too warm in the (near) future for quilts? I have. And I have taken steps to help the environment and since today is Blog Action Day I have joined in. I have always based my premise on waste. We are, as a whole, a wasteful society. I started my green tendencies way back in 1978 when CarGuy and I built our first and only home -- we still live there. It is passive solar. I think I've told you about this before. Anyway, it hasn't stopped there. I like the saying "Reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle" and should be quite common amongst us quilters. I try to do that in my daily living.

• I drink a lot of water and use a refillable bottle. In fact, I have several.
  
• I plan my trips and routes when I drive my car. I'm trying to get better at riding my bicycle daily.
• Unplug those rechargers when not in use!
• I have a clothesline that I use. And before you say, but my towels will be stiff, I have found that if the item has never gone in a dryer then it doesn't get stiff.
• I don't use fabric softener; vinegar works really well.
• You know I knit too, right? Well, I wear those sweaters and socks that I knit. I hope that the people I gift knitted items to wear them also.
• Along that same vein, I have been known to unravel a thrift store sweater just for the yarn. Ahem.
• If you have a serger or know anyone with one, it is really quick work to whip up a set of cloth napkins. Think of the waste of paper towels and paper napkins in land fills. A good size for a cloth napkin is about 16". I cut mine 17" and then do a narrow or rolled hem on the serger. You can get 4 napkins out of 1 yard. They make fabulous gifts and I've had repeat requests for them. And best of all? It's a wonderful STASHBUSTER!
• I have canvas grocery sacks. I keep them in my car and I actually use them. It took me a long time to remember to use them but now it's second nature. Bags are a hot item right now. Why don't you make some for yourself and for giving. And to repeat myself: it's a wonderful STASHBUSTER!
• Have you heard of energy vampires? I am taking steps to reduce the amount of energy CarGuy and I consume. I unplug things. Things like teevees in sewing rooms, sewing machines, stereos, dvd players, the computer. You know the things I'm talking about. The ones that have a constant trickle of juice (power) to them. I can't remember the last time the stereo in the main room was used but that little red light on the receiver told me that it was consuming power. I unplugged it. I use the 'go to sleep' mode on my computer too.
  

My goal is to leave as small a footprint as possible.
What have you done for the planet today?

The Stash

I just posted about giving away 60 yards of fabric in my last post. That generated some comments and questions about how much fabric is in my stash. Well, this morning I toured my sewing room and the nether regions of my basement - anyplace that part of my stash could be hiding. I am embarrassed. I kept finding more and more and more. What follows is a photo-laden tour of my stash. As always, the photos are clickable. O and I did not clean up the room. It really does look like this. Here goes.

When you first come into the room and close the door you will see this. This is the corner behind the door. I have an Iris cart absolutely stuffed with sock yarn. There are two bolts of fabric there on the floor under my shawl and the Bo-Nash Bonding Agent that are hanging on the wall. I notice a FQ on top of the Iris cart that needs to go into the giveaway pile. On the shelf (pay attention you Primatives Girls!) are 3 (three!) brand new bolts of homespun (24 yards each) with boxes of Kabinet Wax, parchment paper and freezer paper nestled in around them. See the little green fabric basket hanging from the shelf? That hold little bits and bobs of ribbon for I don't know what. The chalk board is good for practice drawing free-motion quilting designs among other things. Let's move on.

The next corner is the fusible corner. My design wall is the barely visible gray wall there on the right. I use this end of it for ideas and such. You can barely see a WIP that is slowly turning into a UFO there in the blue on the right. There is a cartoon drawing toward the bottom of Buckhorn Canyon road that I want to do in appliqué. There is my road map of block placement of another quilt right above the drawing and above this is a barely visible glue-page idea of another quilt. See my salamander? In the corner itself are all my different interfacings, fusible webs, vinyls and upholstery fabrics. This is also where I stash my tripod and Featherweight. You can see the only time I made a fabric bowl up there on the wall. And at the bottom is a recurring theme in the room: milk crates. I love 'em.

Moving right along you'll find the antique cherry-wood, glass fronted cabinet that was left to me by my grandmother. The doll collection Daddy started for me many years ago has long ago outgrown this cabinet so now it houses my Fat Quarters. Except for the upper left shelf of aboriginal type fabrics in yardage and the lower right shelf of Christmas fabric yardage. You can barely see the corner of another (of 2) Iris carts that double as a TV stand. The carts hold things like bias binding, trims, ribbons, glues, and sundry stuff.

This is the front side of my sewing cabinet. See another milk crate? This is where I store the giveaway fabric. Actually there is some in there now. I'll pull some fabric from the shelves and in a "what was I thinking?" moment put it into this crate. If I continue to think about it I'll pull it back out. But if I forget about it then it gets donated. Sitting on top of the crate is a basket a girlfriend made for me that contains my leader/ender squares. See those plastic shoeboxes on the floor to the right? The bottom one has vintage trims and the top one has elastics.

I'm going to take you back to the door and down the other side of the room. So if you come into the room and look to your immediate left you will see the countertop/cabinet setup that is my primary cutting surface and drawing area. The countertop is set on two standard kitchen base cabinets with a cubby hole in the center for a stool. The first picture shows all the garment-type fabric in the cabinet. It is two rows deep. The other picture is the other cabinet and is also two rows deep. It has all the 'other' fabrics in it. You know, the Osnaberg, the cotton sheets, the Harley Davidson bandannas. You know, miscellaneous fabric.

And THIS is the main stash.
Everything on these shelves is a minimum of one yard. I have it sorted by color. On the floor are more milk crates. The one in the very corner is just crammed with velvets. The others are wool yarns and cotton crochet threads. The paint buckets are my strings and sitting on top of them in the large basket are sewn leader/ender blocks. Um, let's see. To the very right is the bookcase the holds my quilting books. Above the paint buckets I hang some plastic templates and a teflon pressing sheet. To the very left you can see 3 archive boxes that hold all the garment patterns including some vintage ones of my mother's from the 1940's. And hanging from the rod on skirt hangers are the lame fabrics and the ultrasuede. Things I don't want to have creases.

Above the closet is the orphanage. These plastic shoeboxes contain various things: some UFOs, lotsa hankies, 1930 and 1940 fabrics, mosiacs and yo-yo, notions, and four of them are labeled as Orphan Blocks! One box is full of half square triangle blocks that were scavenged from the corners of snowball blocks. So I guess you could call them Orphans too. And then there are all the 3" paper pieced blocks in another box that are all Orphans. Next to the labeled shoeboxes are 3 that contain things like beads and sequins. Next to them are the project boxes. These usually contain WIPs, but I know for a fact that two of them contain more Orphan Blocks. See what you've done, Finn? I know where all my orphans are! And the floursack pillowcase contains flimseys from the 1930s and 1940s.

We are almost done with the tour. Hang with me a bit more. 'kay? We've got to move into another room.

This is a box of needlework magazines and pamphlets that I want to get rid of, but I'm not certain where they should go. They are counted cross-stitch, knitting, crocheting, home dec sewing, machine embroidery, etc. And to the side of this box are the quilting books and patterns that need to go. I think I may offer some of the quilting books for sale on Amazon and some of the unused patterns as giveaways on my blog here. Whadaya think? Good idea? or not?

These are the scrap bins. Starting from the bottom we have all flannel scraps. The next one up is all silk. Above that are large chunks of batting. The top tiers are 10.5" squares, 2.5" dark strips, 2.5" light strips and prefused scraps. I may have to dispose of the prefused scraps since the last time I used some they didn't fuse well. I know fusible web gets old and that might be the case with these. O well. It's not like I don't have more fabric, now is it? To the left of the bins you can see the rails for the John Flynn quilting system and to the right is all my dye stuff.

Are you still with me? There is one more area.

This is where I store all my batting. And fiberfill. And some yarn. And some leather scraps (what am I doing with those?). Ah, and I notice I have a bin of flannel for a nine-patch and snowball quilt there too. The other shelves to the right have some more dye and fabric painting stuff and a whole shelf of Quilters Newsletter Magazine back issues.

It's an addiction. Hi, I'm Paula and I'm a fabriholic.

Stashbusting

Yesterday I gave this fabric (which is a little over 60 yards) to my quilt guild for charity quilts. This included two bolts of fabric.

Down in the sewing room, it doesn't look like I even made a dent in the stash.

Crafty Lady...

I haven't been quilting much lately. I've been busy making these stash busters. They are 'Ditty Bags'; just a drawstring bag for whatever, however. The size is dictated by fabric quantity. Notice the draw strings? I have a stash of old hemming tape that is perfect for the drawstrings. I keep my knitting in one of these bags. I also use them to 'wrap' gifts.

I also copied Finn, who uses strips of fabric, by crocheting this little item out of a stash of nylon stretch lace hemming tape. I have a largish mat to put under plants.

Stash busting hemming tapes. Yay!