Finally, a completed top.  It’s Judy L’s Bears in the Farmhouse (mine is renamed Bears in the North Woods):

Mine looks different than the others because of my error, described previously, in making the HSTs the wrong size; I switched the five borders around and made one (the green one) wider.  Now that it’s done, I love it!  Thank you, Judy, for not only sharing this pattern, but for your work in distributing the pattern to us in segments and setting up a photo site for sharing our Bears pictures. 

Sue

Judy Laquidara of Patchwork Times is hosting a Quiltathon Weekend this weekend.  I was gone part of yesterday, but here is what I’ve worked on so far.  (I will update this same post later tonight with any new progress that I may have to report.)

Our quilt club (Prior Lake Quilters) has a challenge out that’s due in May.  We were each given a fat quarter of the blue and burgundy paisley fabric used on the jacket.  We can use it the FQ any way we want, but we are to bring our finished project to the May meeting.  This is a jacket I got for $7 several springs ago on clearance at Sears. 

I have more work to do on this jacket, and have some more of the fabric left.  So this is another “what do YOU think” post.  Doesn’t it look like it still needs something?  A flower appliqued on?  I didn’t do anything on the back; maybe it needs something on the yoke in the back.  Any other suggestions?  I thought about the cuffs, but they are already so thick that I think I will leave them “as is”.

Well, DH is going to the Timberwolves game this afternoon and I rented a couple of movies from Red Box, so I’m heading downstairs to quilt the afternoon away.  I’m such a lucky girl.

Sue

Two weeks ago my totals were 51.5 yards out of stash, YTD.  I had purchased 57.75 yards YTD, with a net of 6.25 yards over my starting point, YTD.  And this past two weeks, I slid a little further into the stash black hole!  Well, to my defense, the LQS that’s practically in my backyard continues their going-out-of-business sale, which resulted in a 20-yard purchase (honestly, that took some restraint on my part); I also purchased another 2 yards for a future bag project with Featherweight Club.

I used 12 yards that went into aprons that are cut out and waiting to be sewn; 5.25 yards into the Bears in the North Woods top; 1/2 yard into jacket embellishment. Total of 17.75 yards out.

I also want to thank Judy Laquidara for the fabulous Gingher shears in the patriotic design that I received from her in the mail this week!  They are absolutely gorgeous.  I will have to be careful though, because every time I pick them up, I want to put my hand over my heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  I’m right handed.  A person could hurt herself!!!  Thank you, Judy.  I feel very honored to have won them.

Sue

One of my favorite people ever to work with was Sue K.  You never had to wonder what was on her mind — she would let you know!  We were using copiers side by side, and Sue was doing some sort of complicated copying of boxes of documents, unstapling, double sided, trying to keep everything in order.  Sue said, “Do you ever feel like you’re way too smart for this job, and then you go and *flub* it up anyway?”  Okay, if you know Sue, you know she didn’t say “flub”, but this is a family post.  That is exactly how I feel today.

I’m working on my Bears in the North Woods quilt, a Quilt Along offered by Judy Laquidara at Patchwork Times.  And let me say up front, JUDY”S DIRECTIONS ARE PERFECT.  This was totally my screw-up.  Judy sent out the last of the instructions for this quilt, and we are going to finish the quilt with three more borders.  The next border is comprised of 86 half-square-triangle blocks, which will march in a row around the entire quilt, 23 on each long side, 20 on each short side = 86 blocks.  So far, so good. 

Last night I made the 86 HST blocks, then laid them out next to the quilt.

This may not look like a problem, unless you count the blocks.  This is a 20-block strip on what should be the 23-block side.  What???  I’m usually accurate to a 1/4″ or so, and this is waaaay off.  Checked the math, checked Judy’s directions, and still didn’t stumble onto my error.  The pattern clearly says to trim the blocks to 3 1/2″ (these would finish at 3″); my blocks are FINISHED at 3 1/2″.  I used Thangles (r), and having 3 1/2″ on the brain, I grabbed the 3 1/2″ pack, not thinking through that it says 3 1/2″ finished right on the package.  Grrrr.  (For you non-sewers who might care, you lose 1/2″ on each block on the seam allowances.)

So here’s the deal.  I could take one of the previous borders off and redo it larger to compensate for my HST blocks so at least I would come out even with a whole block so I don’t have half a triangle or something strange.  I could  do that.  If I had any more of either of those fabrics. 

Then I started experimenting with adding another border as an even-up-the-dimensions border to anything that’s divisible by 3 1/2″ plus 1/2″.  Math!  I have light green yardage (used in the bear paw claws) and the light taupe (the inner sashings) left.  I’m not thrilled with either of them, but here are their “audition tapes”:

I’m leaning towards the green one.  What do you think?  I’m going to walk away from this one until tomorrow and then look at it with fresh eyes.  I really don’t like this border so wide, but it’s either that or a very slender border (1 1/4″) so my blocks will come out okay.  Right now I’m thinking the wide border will improve with some quilting in it.

On a brighter note, when I was looking for another fabric that might save the day, I came across this Minnesota hanky that was sold during the 2007 Minnesota Shop Hop.  Cute, isn’t it?  It will go on the back close to the label.

Sue

I ended my last report two weeks ago at minus 4.5 yards for 2009.   Uh, oh — I did some shopping this past two weeks.  Fabric In:  11 fat quarters in a bundle, 40% off, loved them, and they had to come home with me.  Some bad news — our local quilt shop that’s about 3 minutes from my house is closing their doors.  It’s been a rough time for the owner(s), and we’ve all been trying to support this shop so they could stay open.  So with a heavy heart this week, I shopped at their going-out-of-business sale.  Came home with 18.5 yards, for a total of 21.75 yards added.  Fabric Out:  I used about 7 yards in my Stash Quilt, 1 yard went into my Bears in the North Woods quilt, another 1/2 yard went into my two stars blocks for Judy’s Star BOM, and two yards for another apron (all but the apron are Judy Laquidara projects), for 10.5 yards out this week.  The not-so-good totals are:

• YTD 51.5 yards out
• YTD 57.75 yards in
• YTD Net:  6.25 yards IN
• Goal is 75 yards out, so 81.25 yards to go!!!

My first thought was, Yikes, that’s awful, I will never reach 75 yards out at this rate (but I might be closer to 75 yards in)!!!  Then, being The Queen of Rationalization, I thought, what’s really important is I’m USING what’s OLD and FORGOTTEN, and BUYING things I really LOVE and better fit my needs.  It makes me think of that little bit of accounting I took a hundred years ago.  FIFO — First In, First Out.  That’s going to be my new stash rule.  Most of the time (FIFO – MOTT).

PhD List (Projects half done) for March:

Exercise report:  I not only fell off the exercise wagon, but I landed on a bakery truck.  Time to regroup and get back on course!

Fun Stuff report:  This was a fun two weeks!  I had lots of stitching time with quilting friends, breakfast with neighbor friends, breakfast with my buddies, throw in a little shopping with Betty, winning Judy L’s gorgeous patriotic Gingher shears (appropriately named “Glory”) in her drawing (THANK YOU, JUDY!!!), I didn’t need to wear a coat to church this morning (we are currently in the 40s, which is almost a heat wave), and life in general feels pretty darn good.  Having said that, I will probably wait all day for the other shoe to drop!!!

I think I must have a little SAD because I always feel so energized and renewed this time of year.  I hope everyone is having a good spring, enjoying the sunshine and later sunsets, and is enjoying the gift that is springtime!  (And I heard geese honking their way over the house this morning; it was a little early in the morning for me, but I’m not complaining!)

Sue

Yippee!  This is the last star block in Judy L’s Star BOM quilt.  I am CAUGHT UP.  For the next four days, anyway.  Then she will begin giving us the setting directions.  In celebration, the blocks all got together and smiled for a group shot:

And this is how they will appear in the quilt:  on point.  This group picture makes me happy.  The gold background fabric has been soooo difficult to photograph.  It either looks way too gold, or dull like a brown paper bag.  This is probably the most accurate picture I’ve taken of these blocks, colorwise at least.

Have a happy Wednesday, whether you’re fortunate enough to be quilting or not!!!

Sue

or, as I’ve renamed mine, Bears in the North Woods.  The twelve blocks are done for the top:

And for the few non-quilters that read my blog (hi, Jim, Patrick, Rob, Tony, Dave…), I thought I would tell you why this quilt is named anything to do with bears.   The square piece of fabric with the picture is the bear’s foot, and the triangles are the claws, so each block has four paws radiating out from the center of the block (and remember, there WILL be a test later):

This is going to be my Minnesota Quilt.  These motifs were fussy cut from fabric sold during the 2007 Minnesota Shop Hop.  If it wasn’t for Judy organizing this Quilt Along, these fabrics would probably be celebrating their 10th anniversary in my closet in 2017.  (If you concentrate and close your eyes real tight, you can almost hear the fabric shouting, “we’re free, we’re free!!!”)  Of course, after I took it out of the closet, I chopped it all up, stitched it full of thousands of holes and pressed the heck out of it with the iron set on “cotton”.  But I know the fabric will agree it’s been worth all the pain when it feels the love that we give to quilts!

Next we’re doing the sashings, and I’m going to make mine a medium green.  I think this very pale quilt needs more color!  Then after the green, a first narrow border of the natural color, another thin border of a nice Bourdeaux wine fabric (is it happy hour yet?), followed by half-square triangles, another wine border, then about a 4″ border of a lighter green.  I’m not sure I want to do the HST border, as I don’t have all the fabrics I started with to do the HSTs from.  Fortunately, we have two weeks before the next step is due, so I will have plenty of time to work things out in my mind.

This is another quilt that will be 100% from stash.  What a good feeling!  Of course, you always have so many left-over scraps that sometimes you feel like you don’t really deplete your stash at all!  It’s like those giant, humongous salads that are served in some restaurants.  You eat and eat and eat, and it seems like the salad just gets bigger. I think the theory is the same.  As you eat the salad, it kind of gets moved around and fluffed up; and scraps of fabric are fluffier than folded yardage.  Keep that in mind when you look at your scraps:  there’s a lot of AIR in there!

Sue

Judy L’s Stash Quilt top is finished!  This was really fun and quick to do.  The creams/tans were leftovers from another quilt.  The original quilt was shades of cream to coffee for the background, very scrappy, with a great red for stars.  Loved that quilt.  I almost forgot about the leftovers, because they were in a box on the shelf (yes, it was see-through, but I never looked at it!).  I added some blues, burgundy/rust, and gold/brown fabrics, all from stash.  The burgundy/rose paisley fabric for my setting triangles and border was a 7-yard cut on my shelf, bought it ages ago for a back, and it was never the right thing to use.  It’s also not the greatest quality fabric, but now that it’s all stitched up, it’s okay!  I will use the rest of that piece to piece together the backing and for binding.

For fun, go to this link.  It is Judy’s post of the last part of our instructions.  Scroll down to the end of the post, and you will see clickable names where you can look at other people’s completed Stash Quilt.  And be sure to check back, because there will be more people adding their names as they finish their quilts.  It’s always interesting to see what different quilters do with the same pattern.

Thanks, Judy, for sharing this pattern and encouraging us to just go pull some fabrics off the shelf and make something!  It was a lot of fun.

Sue

Yesterday Judy L posted the layout and fabric requirements on her Stash Quilt.  I arranged my blocks and chose my setting triangles/border fabric.  It occurred to me today that since I have some rosy blocks, and my setting triangles will be a rosy fabric, the rosy blocks on the edges will kind of disappear into the setting triangles and make the quilt look a little odd.  Or a lot odd.  So I moved all the red blocks to the interior of my layout:

Much better.  I also added in the four new blocks that will match the setting fabric, and laid out the setting fabric underneath some of my blocks so I can get a better idea of what my colors are going to look like:

So far I’m liking it!  Then I starting play with my Bears in the Farmhouse (or Bears in the North Woods) blocks (also Judy Laquidara’s pattern).  My original plan was to mix the six various motifs in each four-bear-paw block, with this green check I really liked as the center square in the sashing.  Put it all together, and . . .

I didn’t like it.  The green is too wimpy — not enough contrast.  The four varied motifs are okay, but each block takes four, and there are only six different designs.  It will be hard not to have them too close together.  Take Two:

I like the burgundy center much better (my sashings and setting blocks won’t be scrappy; they will all be as pictured above).  And I decided to use one motif per block, and rotate it like Judy rotated her stripes.  A bonus is there won’t be an up or down to this quilt.

Now that I’m pretty sure that I know what these blocks are going to look like, I feel much more confident about sewing some triangles together!

Sue