The good..the bad..and I call him Stumpy…….

THE GOOD — the stashbusting report finally has some movement on it.  Finished up the deer/fish quilt so 11.5 yards used for that bring my tallies so far this year to:

Not bad.  I’ve used over 50 yards more than I purchased.  Now if I could finish off those other nearly done projects before the end of the year but I don’t see that happening.

THE BAD — The Loopy Ewe put their Christmas fabrics 40% off so I had to purchase more of a couple I love before they are all gone so the numbers will change a little.  But I didn’t go too crazy.

THE GOOD — The tree is decorated!

THE BAD — one ornament bit the dust in the process.  Glass ornament do not bounce when they hit tile.

THE GOOD — I finished that deer/fish quilt binding and here it is

I threw it and another lap quilt that is a gift — this one —

in the washer because I wanted to have them shrink up a bit to cuddly level.

 

THE VERY BAD AND REALLY ANNOYING — when I took the quilts out of the washer, I discovered my dryer is conked out!!!  It was working yesterday; today it makes a horrible noise when I hit the button and it doesn’t move.   Now I have two quilts hanging over rods with fans on them to try to dry them.   I’d much prefer a quick dry in the dryer  — why does this always happen on the weekends!

THE GOOD — my Hy-Vee grocery delivery experiment went very well.  I had scheduled delivery to be made between 9 and 10 a.m. this morning.  I got an email about 8:45 that my order was checked out and ready to go and gave me the total (since a couple items were by weight and could vary.)   9:30 a very pleasant gentleman brought my groceries.  They are in plastic bags but then put in larger tote boxes that he brings in, takes the bags out of and lined them up on my counter, made one more trip in with the rest and off he went.  I signed for the order and off he went.  This will be great when I want to stock up again on stuff I hate getting when I’m riding the bus.

THE BAD — I can’t decide what I want for dinner tonight since I now have many choices with all the stocking up I did.

and now here’s “Stumpy”

I spied him below the bird feeder earlier today and no, it’s not just the angle of the photo — his tail is chopped off very short.     Wonder what happened to the rest of his bushy tail…

 

 

Fabric stashbusting and a new scarf

I haven’t gotten all the hand stitching of bindings done on the project I posted yesterday so I haven’t included it in my Fabric stashbusting numbers yet.  So currently they remain at:

  But that number should change by next week when I get that binding done and that will be the last of my Loopy Academy fabric projects done.  This week I hope to get a little sewing done each night on the lap quilt I need to finish before Christmas.

And on other crafty artistic fronts – I couldn’t wait to get a new scarf warped on the loom.

I never remember to measure how long I warp it – but it’s somewhere between 8 and 10 feet I think.

I’m using the same yarn in the warp and the weft.  I love how the strips show through but the color changes are wider and more gradual across the weft.  The flash is again washing out the colors but it’s turning out really nice.    And I even made progress last night on my sweater – one sleeve done and the other started.

Fabric Stash Report – 11/8/15

  Here’s the state of the stash.   I used 2.0 yards to make my Loopy Academy tote bags project.     So I’m 39 yards to the “black”  having used more than I purchased so far this year.

The third bag still needs a few finishing touches but here are the first two bags.

Totally utilitarian bags – nothing fancy – but they are fully lined and I found a quick way to make them starting with just sewing a long tube  of the main color  and after sewing pulling one selvage edge up through the middle so it’s an instantly lined tube of fabric before finishing off the drawstring details and sewing the bottom folded edge shut.  Very quick to do.

The first one is for my weaving tools for the loom  –

 It holds all the extra shuttles and heddles, brackets and warping peg and even the how to video so I don’t lose it among all my other videos.

 

 

And, when it’s not in use, it hangs by its drawstrings (which are actually sort of twill tape with a tape measure design printed on it) on the side of the loom so it gets stored right with the loom and I don’t have to go looking for where I put it.   The red rectangle at the bottom is a little pocket to hold the warping hook so it doesn’t get lost in the bottom of that long bag.

 

I haven’t woven anything on the loom in quite a while — for some reason it’s something I do mostly in the winter — but I think since I’ve got it pulled out I just might get it warped up so I have a project to work on.   Of course I’m going to have to pull out that DVD since it’s been so long since I did that.  But I have a thought I my head about warping up a long color change yarn and then using a mohair fluff type yarn to weave with it…. but I digress….

The second drawstring bag is totally utilitarian to but it replaces one of those reuseable grocery totes I used to use for this purpose.

 

 

This bag  hangs on a hook behind my bedroom door.  It’s the “hand knit sock laundry bag.”  I keep them separate so they don’t get mixed in with the regular laundry and since hand knit sock wearing weather is here this will come in very useful.  The ribbon drawstring and hanging loop are recycled finds – the ribbons that The Loopy Ewe ties around its fabric packages that you order.  The fabric on the bottom of the bag is printed with a light teal/white print that looks like knit stockinette stitch so very appropriate for a sock laundry bag.   The bottom of the bag (actually both bags) have the corners stitched so they made a rectangular bottom.  In this one I put a piece of an old rotary cutting mat that is no longer useable.  I save the old cutting mat and use it to cut templates or in this case it was perfect to give a solid bottom to this bag – which helps hold the top open as it’s hanging there so it’s easy to just pop socks into it.

Hopefully I made it large enough so that it will hold all the socks since I normally only wash them when the entire drawer is empty.

Fabric Stash Report and other Sunday happenings

So far there aren’t much in the way of other Sunday happenings.  It’s a lovely day – 70’s sunny and a light breeze – perfect day to throw open the windows.

I do hope to get a bit of stitching done today on my Loopy Academy sewing projects – the placemats and I need to trace the embroidery design onto my backing fabric for the seasonal wall hanging so I can start hand embroidering that. But need to take care of some other chores first.

The Fabric Stashbusting report – well it took a step backwards due to adding in my fabrics purchased for the Loopy Academy projects.  But those fabrics will be used by the end of the semester so not concerned about it.  But at the moment – the numbers are as follows:

LAST UPDATED 9/27/15: 

• Fabric purchased year to date:            61.50 yards
• Fabric used year to date:                         95.5  yards
• Net stash used:                                            34.0 yards

I made great progress on my Socktoberfest Crocodylia socks last night.  If you click on the Ravelry link to the pattern, you can see the texture on the designer’s photos.  Despite the fact that I can’t get a good photo of the texture (all due to my lack of camera skills), the Wollmeise really does make the texture of the stitches pop and for a change, the color is actually true in the photo.

See yesterday’s blog post announcing this year’s Socktoberfest KAL info and play along in order to be eligible to win some Wollmeise. 😉  You’ve got until the end of November to finish these socks.

Sewing room reclaimed!

Finally I had the time this weekend to finish going through all the stuff I pulled out of the sewing room closet during the “flood” and get things put back in the closet so I may actually get to some sewing tomorrow.  In doing that I found a box of photo frames and photos and some miscellaneous stuff that has been in that box unpacked since the day I moved into this apartment over 8 years ago.  I set it aside to see if there truly are any treasures in there I need to keep but considering I haven’t missed them in 8 years, I ‘m thinking not.  I think it’s mostly pictures of the nieces and nephews when they were much much younger that I used to keep on a shelf in the old apartment that I no longer really have a place for and heck, they are now old enough to be having kids of their own so these photos are really out of date.

I also found yet another container of scraps.  Good grief I thought I had cleared out all the fabric scraps I didn’t want to hang on to.  I had, what is basically sold as a scrapbooking travel case – large square case on wheels like luggage (that I bought for past quilt retreats to put my featherweight and supplies inside of) which has pockets that zip out on three sides and all kinds of partitioned pockets inside great for holding notions.  I haven’t actually used it in years and thought I had it stored in the closet empty.  Well at some point I must have decided to dump scraps in it – although some of them were more yardage than what I consider scraps so maybe I set them aside for some reason. In any event I forgot they were there and the inside of that case smelled sort of like my old garage (where it had been stored previously) that sort of dry dusty smell of things in storage for a while – so the case is outside airing out until I decide if I want to keep it or get rid of it, and the fabric got sorted.  Some I got rid of and the rest went in the washer.

That’s one of two loads I washed. dumped on the table.  But both loads are now ironed and folded and added to the fabric shelves.  I think some of these I had gotten tired of since I had already used them in a project or two so was going to cull them from my stash.  But it’s always funny as I sort thru fabrics I discover “this fabric that I didn’t like much anymore  would look so great with …” some other fabric that pops to mind the stash.  Two bonus finds – my all time favorite Santa fabric which I have used in lots of things  and bought many many years ago — there was still a piece in this pile.  And I found enough of the pink ladybug fabric I love to make a block for a new “Onesie” quilt so I was happy about that. I also discovered a mystery quilt – one of my own design that I didn’t like my fabric choices for – in bits and pieces in a box that I’ve been hanging on to for probably 5 years – yep it’s never going to get made, so that box had to go.

But for this week’s Stashbusting report – although I didn’t get to any sewing in order to count usage that way, through cleaning out stuff there is probably a total of  at least 10 yards of fabric I culled from the stash so my numbers this week stand at:

Purchased YTD:  44.5 yards

Used YTD:          105.5 yards

Net used:             61.0 yards

So I ‘ve used a good deal more than I purchased so far.  Of course these numbers will take a bit of a dive next week when my fabrics for my Loopy Academy projects come in but the good thing about that — they have to be used by the end of the semester so they’ll won’t sit idle or indefinitely in the stash.

I do think tho that the fabric shelves are as full as they need to be (okay actually more full if I’m being honest).  I was putting things back in the closet and wondering why it seemed like there was so much room.  Well this shelving unit used to be inside the closet but I decided not to put it back in there.  So left it out in the sewing room and filled it back up.  I love the look of freshly stacked fabric shelves.  So neat and tidy – they never stay that way for long.  This shelf has all the fabrics I don’t arrange by color — bottom shelf all Christmas, next shelf up just fabrics that don’t fit into one color category and there’s one stack of flannels, next shelf up, stack of Asian style, two stacks of batiks and another stack of Christmas/snowman fabrics – mostly fat quarters from fabric swaps, next shelf up, stack of McKenna Ryan prints from Hoffman Fabrics for a design I did for them – they sent me some of each fabric – actually a lot of each fabric.  I already made on quilt from some of them which was donated to a charity but I think it’s time to make another quilt out of them for me to keep (those are the pastel fabrics behind the embroidery hoops), a stack of Halloween fabrics, and then I think all the rest are fabrics from TLE which I bought for specific projects.   The other shelving units has fabrics stacked by color family and it’s not quite as full as this one but nearly.

So part of the day spent trying to figure out what else I wanted to put in the sewing room closet, moving stuff from other closets — when storage space is at a premium, I’m always looking for new ways to make the most of it and sometimes that means tearing apart all the closets to move things around.

Like for instance my coat closet – which held no coats.  After the last leaking flood through the ceiling of the sewing room closet that ruined a quilt hanging in there, I moved all the quilt tops that were hanging on hangers waiting to be quilted into the coat closet.  After the last leak, they believed they found the problem but I’m still not that trusting so the quilts are hanging on the opposite side of the closet and I may get some plastic garment bags to put them in, but at least they aren’t in the direct like of “leakage”  area – only things enclosed in plastic tubs are in that section of the closet….. just in case…   So when winter comes, I’ll actually be able to hang all my winter coats back in the coat closet. Imagine that! LOL

Now perhaps to get in a little knitting time. I had a project I was going to work on in EQ7 but dang if I didn’t really make a mess of things.  I forgot to deactivate it when I upgraded to Windows 10 so now they are not playing together correctly.  So I deactivated it today to see if reactiving it would correct the problem and of course it doesn’t recognize my computer now. 😦  Good thing I don’t have any projects I need to get done but I’ve put in my request to the EQ solution center and should hear back after the holiday.  I think I may just need to uninstall and reinstall and have them work some magic at their end but will wait to be sure before I make matters. worse. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Well how annoying…

I thought all went swimmingly with my  Windows upgrade and now I was trying to pull up a document I had saved to edit and change and it’s telling me I don’t have administrator privileges to save the document where I want, asks me if I want to save it to a different location (sure I’m not picky) but then does nothing.  Clearly I am the only “administrator” around here. LOL But, I’ll think about that another day since I seem to have found a way to work around it for the time being.  But it is annoying.  One of the documents I was trying to edit was my Excel spreadsheet with my stash report on it.    The numbers, since I am counting my Camp Loopy 3 project below finished, now stand at 44.5 yards purchased to date, 95.5 yards sewn to date, for a net used of 51 yards.

I was going to just machine quilt the sashing on my Camp Loopy 3 project and then do the rest of the quilting tomorrow but one line of stitching led to just one more and I now have it all quilted.

The blocks have basically eight lines of stitching which cross each other in the center block of the star.    The binding has been added and I just need to hand stitch it to the back.

oops just remembered the stash totals are not exactly correct – I was at the quilt shop today and four or five or six batik fat quarters came home with them so I still need to add those in since I can’t really remember how many I got.

One of the other things I did buy were some Machingers  – quilting gloves.  I am in love with these.  I’ve tried many types of quilting gloves and other gloves with rubbery fingertips, and rubber fingers made for quilting but these gloves are the greatest. About an inch or slightly more of the fingers is rubbery – grips great – and the rest of the glove is a thin fabric that is very comfortable on.  I can even thread my machine with these gloves on – something I could not do with the various other bulkier gloves I had tried.  Plus they come in different sizes you I could get a great fit – most gloves are made for people with smaller hands than mine.   Yep these are keepers and I highly recommend them.

State of the Fabric Stash report – 8/2/15

Yesterday was extremely productive.  My own little sewing marathon all day and evening long.   So my fabric use numbers stand as follows:

Purchased fabric year to date – 44.5 yards

Fabric used year to date – 89 yards

Net fabric used year to date – 44.5 yards

So I’ve used twice as much as I purchased so far.

Here’s the lastest two projects that helped those numbers:

I finished adding the binding to Eleanor’s (great niece’s) baby quilt and hand stitched it down last night.

Her name is quilted into one of the Onesie blocks.

These are really fun and simple applique blocks to make.  It’s fun to choose the fabrics and you could embellish them in so many ways – especially if you had an embroidery machine.  Mine are needle turn.  The pattern is free at Fat Cat Patterns

 

The last photo is my completed top for my Camp Loopy Safari August project – that was made during yesterday’s sewing marathon.

 

As for today – I think there needs to be some cleaning up of the sewing room before deciding what to use for backing for the Camp Loopy project – the front is made up of a Short Stack of Christmas fabrics so I think I’ll be able to find something in th stash of Christmas stuff that will work.

 

7/5/15 Stash report

With getting my top all sewn yesterday for my Camp Loopy 2 project, that adds 5.0 more yards to the fabric used tally.

So my numbers stand at:

74.5 yards used so far year to date

38 yards purchased year to date

36.5 net yards used.

I haven’t begun to tally up all the fabric used for the second project I showed yesterday on the design wall but all those large triangles, when you are cutting mostly 8.5″ wide strips, will add up quickly I think.

And a little eye candy for today… just another EQ quilt image.

State of the Fabric Stash Report – 5/17/15

With all the curtain making yesterday for the sewing room and the bedroom, fabric has left the stash and been put to useful use.

Seven yards used for the curtains this week.

That brings the year-to-date totals to:

Fabric Purchased:  21 yards

Fabric Used:  60.75 yards

Net fabric used from stash: 39.75 yards

Click the Fabric stash button in the block sidebar for photos of finished projects, and other stages of projects I’m tracking this year (new projects started / UFOs making it to tops, etc).

Have I said how much I love those bright orange print curtains I made for the sewing room?  Even on a dark, overcast morning like today (feels like it will storm any minute), they make the sewing room so much brighter and cheerful.

Today’s plans — gets some laundry going, doing a bit of straightening up, and get back to quilting on the wedding quilt which has been languishing.  I was going to run a couple errands but since it looks like storms are supposed to be moving through all day, I think I’ll do those another day.

Stashbusting report

I thought I had nothing to report for stashbusting – lots in the work but nothing finished to top stage where I usually count it. But then I glanced up and there sitting on the ironing board is the new shower curtain I made yesterday and just need to add the buttonholes along the top to finish it today.  The bathroom is getting a fresh look.

So add in that fabric used and my numbers stand at:

53.75 yards used year to date

21 yards purchased year to date (I haven’t added in my Camp Loopy Safari fabrics yet since they haven’t arrived – with Camp the next three months, there should be much fabric movement in and out as each project has to be done by the end of it’s specific month).

So year to date net used is:  32.75 yards.

Hopefully this one will be finished to top stage by next week.

  I’ve just got about half the last block to applique yet. These will just get a thin little sashing strip between them.  Not sure yet if it will get a border or if I will be borderless.

One of my favorite blocks (other than the upper left one that looks like knit fabric) is this one.

Critters in their little sleepers.  I have a whole other stack of these cut out  for a boy’s version – lots of bugs and fire trucks and dogs.  Need to gather a few more fabrics for that one.

 

Happy Mother’s Day!