Stash Report Week #5

The wedding placemats are compete, and since the wedding is Saturday, I figure I can post a picture and not spoil too much. I used rayon thread that I had bought somewhere on clearance, and am glad it is GONE. It did not cooperate with me. 4 yards out.

The Unbaby Quilt is finished too, although not washed. This quilt started with the cream-background, blue flower fabric picked out by my sister in the summer of 2000 from the Amana Colonies in Iowa. It took me a LONG time to find fabric that matched, and then a pattern. The pattern is from Judy's Star BOM (patchworktimes.com). I didn't make all the stars, but picked the ones I liked best. It is handquilted, and I think I probably put 100+ hours total into piecing and quilting this quilt. I ordinarily wouldn't use the golden color, but it was in the original fabric, and I think makes it really lovely. Now I will give it to my older DSister, and hope she likes it as a wall hanging or lap quilt (kinda) for the couch. Anyway, I love it. DH asked if it was for us. Don't I wish? I'm quite proud of it! (5 yards out)

I am making progress in my fabric usage. I have a Strip Twist (ala Bonnie at quiltville.com) ready to quilt for a charity quilt, and am going to assemble the Aunt Martha's Irish Chain blocks for my SiL this week. Those two are another 15 yards or so.

I tried to set up my gifted serger today. No wonder no one wants to thread sergers! I had it threaded correctly, I think, it the needles do not move even though you can hear the machine trying to run. I can run it by hand, but who wants to turn the handwheel a few hundred times to serge around things? DH is going to take a look at it later, but for now, I'm done with it.

IN this week: 0 yards
IN YTD: 41 1/4 yards

OUT this week: 9 yards
OUT YTD: 24 yards

YTD Total: 17 1/4 yards IN

Check out the other reports on Judy's blog, www.patchworktimes.com.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #4

I have a finish! I finished the quilt for Baby Nugget (a niece/nephew being born in Colorado). If you click on the link on the sidebar to Baby Nugget's Blues, you can see a picture of it.

I also counted one last birthday present, for 3 1/4 yard, and bought 2 yards of flannel for burp rags and baby things. Sigh.

Another spool of thread was finished off. I finished another block of the "Unbaby Quilt" and hope to finish the quilt entirely this week. That's a bit ambitious, as I have a wedding gift to finish as well, but I want it done! It's been a long time in the making. My 32-triangle Irish Chain is coming along. I decided rather than do a few blocks at a time, I would make all of one unit, then all of the next. So far, so good. Only one unit left to make (I need 72), and then I will assemble the blocks. As this is my next handquilting project, it's time to get a move on!

IN this week: 5 1/4 yards
IN YTD: 41 1/4 yards

OUT this week: 4 1/4 yards
OUT YTD: 15 yards

YTD Total: 26 1/4 yards IN

Check out the other stash busters at Judy's blog.

Bring a quilt in public, and suddenly everyone talks to you!

This Tuesday, I had my glucose-tolerance test at my OB/GYN to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes. Since you have to drink nasty glucose-water and then sit around for an hour, I figured I would bring my sister's quilt to work on. Since it's a baby quilt, I figured it was small enough to be inconspicuous, but I laughed at the number of people who felt they had to comment on it. I sure am glad I brought it, as my doctor had to leave (just before he came to see me) to deliver a baby, and I ended up having plenty of quiet time until he came back!

Last night, someone tried to break into DH's truck, so I couldn't sleep, and between the extra-long doctor visit Tuesday and the late night last night, I managed to finish her quilt! DH says he would probably have put the dark in the middle, but I was working with my stash, and this is how it worked out. That's okay - it's for a baby, and babies don't care if the color order is perfect!

Then, today, I decided I would take a picture of it and the patriotic quilt before I forgot or lost the camera! The patriotic quilt is entirely of scraps left from another quilt (I was going to link to it, but can't seem to find the post!) that I didn't want to deal with any more!

The Screamer is sick again (why, God?), so we are having a quiet day that involves lots of laundry.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #3

No Quiltathon for me this weekend. Instead, I spent the day watching the kids and providing meals while DH learned how to butcher chickens. We now have 8 yummy chickens in the freezer, so I'm definitely NOT complaining. We came home and the girls and I went to sleep for 2 hours. It was glorious.

This week, I received some more birthday goodies, including some of Lori's people fabric. I also shopped at JoAnn's, purchasing some yardage to go with a piece of fabric DH purchased, as well as some yardage for dresses (one in pink, for the Assistant). All in all, it is going to take me a while to redeem my purchases, but I did spend some time gathering fabrics I would like to use in various projects. There is one birthday gift I haven't totaled yet... it's home decor fabric, and I didn't want to open it, but it will be on next week's report!

IN this week: 7 1/4 yards
IN YTD: 35 3/4 yards

OUT this week: 0 yards
OUT YTD: 10 3/4 OUT

YTD total: 25 yards IN

I also used one spool of thread.

This week, I plan to quilt another block on the Unbaby Quilt, quilt two corners on the turquoise "Blooming 9-Patch," and make progress on my "Aunt Martha's Irish Chain." I am definitely regretting that I chose the pattern I did for the Irish chain. It is full of 32 triangles in each block, and there is no nice way to speed piece most of it. I will also be working on wedding gifts for my BiL and his fiancee.

Check out the other stash reports at Judy's blog.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #2

I showed such excellent self-restraint last week that DH had to connive a plan to blow my stash-busting efforts for at least the next six months.

The assistant sewed her first "dress." I thought I had a picture, but then I remembered that she's not letting me taking pictures of her dress or the robe I made her. Suffice it to say, it's not really a dress but a conglomeration of scraps. She cut it all by herself and showed me where to sew it. Pretty clever! I did make her a robe, and I finished the kitchen curtains. All in all, that was 8 1/2 yards out for the week, enough to put me at 1 1/4 yards out. Until...

It was my birthday on Wednesday, and I have been sick for almost two weeks with H1N1 or some other dreaded influenza that is not prevented by the flu shot. Dang. Well, I did not get to celebrate my birthday much, but DH was a very, very dear man and sent out an email to lots of women I worked with or am friends with and asked them to buy a yard or so of fabric for me and tell me why it reminded them of me.

19 yards later (and I hear there's still more coming), I am in the hole! Here are two shots of some of the lovelies (as well as some thread). DH and the Assistant contributed most of this, but I still received 9 or so yards from friends. Isn't he sweet? I knew he was doing something, but had no idea it was anything like this. This is my kind of surprise! None of these people are quilters, but there is not one yucky-feeling fabric in the bunch. They did good, didn't they?

Some of it is definitely not "my style," but that just means I will get to stretch my brain a little. It's a good thing I still need to make 7 more baby quilts by August so that I can have some busts to make up for this. I really like the two fabrics in the upper right of the first picture and have something in mind for a coin-type quilt. The angel fabric already has an end home in mind too, but that might take me a while to get to.

I also received a new "commercial" iron, two books on Ireland, two fabric-store gift cards, and an umbrella-clothes line for the spring.

AND... two days after my birthday, we closed on 40 acres. I'm looking forward to a huge garden this year.

IN this week: 19 yards
IN YTD: 28 1/2 yards

OUT this week: 8 1/2 yards
OUT YTD: 10 3/4 yards

YTD total: 17 3/4 yards IN

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Cold in more ways than one...

I was born on this day, many years ago, right before the 10 o'clock news. I don't remember what the weather was supposed to be back then, but today it's going to be filled with blowing snow, maybe ice, and tomorrow the high is 5 F. If it's really that cold, we're going to spend all day in front of the fire place, not the sewing machine, so that we can feel our fingers!

Our influenza/bronchitis/whatever this nightmare is, is slowly receding. I'm ready to be done coughing, but at least I can sleep at night. DH will tell you a funny story about how I kept saying I couldn't sleep because I couldn't breath. I did have trouble breathing, between being pregnant and having so much mucus in my nose and throat that I couldn't get enough oxygen to my brain.

Today we will NOT be having a birthday party as my sister, BiL, etc., don't want to catch this nasty bug from us. Maybe next week! Today, my mom's bringing lunch and I'm going to sew up a storm. I really need to finish these curtains, as I heard a rumor that the Assistant took DH fabric shopping for my birthday. I don't want to have another bad report this Sunday!

Fortunately, the girls are content to watch movies today (although they refuse to watch the same one!), and nobody's crying with fever.

I'll leave you with a picture of the Assistant's first-ever snowman from last week, before she was sick.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

On the 11th Day of Christmas...

I'm going to finish the last three. It has been a long week with sick kids, so forgive the out-of-orderness of this.

my true love gave to me twelve "Did you hear that's?", eleven floods of water, ten days of training, nine months of homegrown, eight pails of paint, seven total grandkids, "six" axes broken, five crazy kids, forty acres, three haircuts by Assistant, two new-old cars, and a baby boy named Q.

I completed the first half of Level One training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in June. In June of 2010, Q and I will attend the last two weeks of training. We’ve enjoyed incorporating Montessori thinking into the raising of the girls. The Assistant loves to polish and fold cloths, and is always willing to help Mama work in the atrium.
Screamer is a water fiend, sneaking into the bathroom and running the water full blast whenever she has a chance. Our water bill has increased 25% since she started this experimentation.
The Assistant asks this question AT LEAST twelve times a day, usually more. She asks it when she hears a car, a bird, the heat turn on, you name it!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me nine months of homegrown, eight pails of paint, seven total grandkids, "six" axes broken, five crazy kids, forty acres, three haircuts by Assistant, two new-old cars, and a baby boy named Q. A bumper crop of 50+ pounds of cucumbers was offset by 0 strawberries, but we tried a plethora of new foods in our garden this year, and it was lots of fun. Broccoli never did produce, but until the week before Christmas we had one little plant trying to make it. Why did it grow in December? Good question!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #1

Being six months pregnant and having 101.5 (F) temperature really kills sewing. Then Screamer woke up on Friday with a temperature of 102. The poor girl.

I did finish 29 window draft guards for DH, using 2 1/4 yards. I also finished the next block on my DSister's quilt, but didn't get much else done.

IN this week: 9 1/2 yards
In YTD: 9 1/2 yards

OUT this week: 2 1/4 yards
OUT YTD: 2 1/4 yards

YTD Total: 7 1/4 yards IN!

The purchases are all for specific projects. Now when I can breathe again, I'll get them busted. Check out everyone else's new year start on Judy's blog.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

On the 8th Day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me eight pails of paint, seven total grandkids, "six" axes broken, five crazy kids, forty acres, three haircuts by Assistant, two new-old cars, and a baby boy named Q. oom by room, we will be repainting walls and trim. So far, we’ve worked on our “cubby hole” room and our kitchen. DH insists we will paint the outside too, but we still need to put in a new dishwasher and replace some illegal plumbing. Oh, and there’s carpet to rip up and wood floors to refinish.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

On the 7th Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me seven total grandkids, "six" axes broken, five crazy kids, forty acres, three haircuts by Assistant, two new-old cars, and a baby boy named Q. Elm does not split nicely, so DH has broken several axes this year. In 2010, I will have a baby, and so will my SiL and my younger sister, so there will be 7 grandkids in my family. Wowee!