So close

Both Saturday and Sunday I didn't get into the studio until the afternoon. Saturday was a haircut appointment, a stop at the Earth Fare for a few groceries, and a stop at Goodwill to look for hard rock/heavy metal t-shirts. I didn't find any t-shirts but I found this nice hooded sweatshirt for $4.48.

On Sunday it was an early morning trip to the other side of town to do grocery shopping at Marc's and to visit the new Giant Eagle Market District store which is a stones throw from Marc's. The GE store is huge and I walked the entire store to get some of my walking in for the day. I ended up buying more than what I went in for, but it was stuff that was on sale. After that trip it was putting all the groceries away and washing a lot of dishes.

With all that being said, I am very close to getting the t-shirt quilt done. I have the binding hand sewn on one side and have about 2 feet on the next side done.

Since it is snowing and the roads are terrible, I think I will stay at work at lunch and work on sewing the binding. Maybe I will have this done today!

T-shirt quilt and snow/wind/cold

I was happy to get another section of the t-shirt quilt done last evening. This is the front and back of a t-shirt. I also got the orange improv pieced section quilted on the upper right. I outlined the large letters STATE BOUND and meandered the rest. It is hard to sew thru the rubbery stuff that the letters are made out of and it looks terrible to have quilting go thru those areas so I just outline them.

All I have left to quilt is this section

and the Joe's Crab Shack t-shirt

I am so excited about getting this quilt done, I went and pulled from my UFO pile a group of baby quilts that I want to work on this weekend to get ready to quilt.

I need the baby quilts for my stash of giveaway quilts and I want to have them ready to possibly try out some new all over quilting designs. I borrowed these DVD's from the library and plan on watching them this weekend.

The temperature has risen a bit

but the wind has been howling! It was hard to fall asleep last night between the wind and the house sounds. It was hard to tell how much snow we got overnight since it was drifting with the winds. I was up at 2 a.m. and it was snowing hard. Here is a view from the garage as I headed out to work.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Progress on the t-shirt quilt

I improved pieced this quilt include the t-shirts. Yes, it takes longer, but I like the softer look of the quilt rather than if I had sashed the t-shirts. I made sewed together groups of shirts. To join the groups of shirts I needed to add some pieced units out of quilting cotton. This quilt is very orange as it has been my niece's favorite color her whole life.

I started quilting this piece by meander quilting the t-shirts and then next I would quilt any of those orange pieced units that were next to the quilted t-shirts. The last couple of evenings I needed to get caught up on quilting those orange pieced sections.

It is very cold here. I was outside shoveling yesterday at my house and at work and the cold almost took your breath away! Here is what came up for the temperature on the Weather Channel this morning.

The sun is shinning right now and I am grateful for that!

2014 stash report

I did a better job this year keeping tabs of my stash additions and subtractions. I am not out to accomplish anything is particular by doing this, but I find it interesting and I may learn something about myself from knowing this info. This year the stash increased by 224 yards with 18 yards of fabric that I won and 6 yards of fabric that was given to me. In the 22 finishes for 2014 I used 173.5 yards which leaves me with a gain of 50.5 yards. On this note, here are some pictures of my stash.

This section holds my bolts of whites, music fabric, linens, stacks sorted by color, and African Dutch wax. Way up on top are boxes with patterns, interfacing, Velcro, elastic, and scraps. To the left is my brother's wool quilt and it is sitting on top of three containers of scraps.

I keep my precuts that I have won on the window sill.

Here I keep the box of Velcro and elastic I use for making covers, some clothing fabric, hand dyes, flannels, rolls of drapery lining, car cover fabric, duvetine, and vinyl. On the floor in front of the shelving unit are my three cases of Sulky rayon thread. I use to machine quilt most of my quilts with Sulky rayon - not so much anymore.

In this section are my UFO's, more hand dyes in the white box, scraps in the small Rubbermaid boxes, FQ's in the black boxes and the Rubbermaid box they are sitting on, Halloween fabric, red and yellow fabrics (for a quilt someday!), and to the right a box of vintage fabrics with backing and batting scraps sitting on top.

In the closet I have 10 yard bolts of fusible interfacing for t-shirt quilts, large yardages of fabric on hangers, my small stash of finished baby quilts, stacks of finished quilts, and the storage containers with my son's old clothes, vintage fabric, wools, and fancy fabrics like silk and tulle.

Under the desk are two more boxes of scraps with more scraps on top of the blue container and the wool batting for my brother's wool quilt.

So that is my stash. I do have other sewing related items in another closet like zippers, lace, trims, etc and my rolls of batting are in the guest bedroom.

UFO's with Vicki

I work on trying to complete all my UFO's every year, but I still have a lot to do. Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber is having a UFO busting event for 2015. I spent Sunday cleaning up my fabric storage room and recording my UFO's. Vicki is counting non-quilting items as well as quilting projects so I added some sewing projects that have been needing to get done. Here is my list so far. I think I have listed the worst of it! Us participants are to post on her website once a month our progress. I will be printing out my list and hanging in my studio so if I find that I need something to do I can go look at the list. With 40 items on my list I wonder how many I will get done by Dec. 31, 2015?

1. Done 1/12/15 82.25 x 91.25My niece's t-shirt graduation quilt - in progress. This top was pin basted at the end of 2013.

2.Done 1/24/15 37.75 x 49Baby quilt 38 1/2" x 50" This top was done 4/15/2014

3. Amish diamond 42" square I made this many years ago

4. My one and only convergence quilt. 44" x 43" Done April 2015I made this a number of years ago

5. Hand dyed striped quilt 74" x 85" When I was cleaning up on 1/4/2015 I found this quilt and had forgotten that I had not finished quilting all the black stripes.

6. Done 1/26/15 35 x 46Blue & white log cabin - baby quilt

7. Drunkard Path Flannel 84" x106" Done 9/21/15

8. Small quilt 42" w x 41" from the challenge earlier this year that didn't get picked

9. Log Cabin quilt - this is the second large quilt I had pieced. I had started to hand quilt this and it kept getting pushed aside. After two moves and several home remodels, the quilt was filthy and back then I used the batting that was available - polyester. I took out the hand quilting, washed the top and back, and plan to machine quilt this. This is my oldest UFO - 30+ years - and yes, I am going to get 'er done!

10. Improv musical quilt - queen sized - I have started quilting this, but had to put is aside.

11. Log cabin hand dyed fabric - look at the date - 2010! I don't remember the challenge I made this for, but I am way pass the entry date for sure!

12. Black and white star top - queen sized

13. done 2/5/15 Improv baby quilt 42" x 57.5"

14. done 2/12/15Pinwheel baby quilt

15. Blue and tan log cabin - this is partially hand quilted and has polyester batting. I am going to remove the hand quilting, replace the batting, and machine quilt.

16. Wedding ring quilt for a friend - needs some major TLC!

17. Tea towel quilt

18. T-shirt quilt - Done 10-31-15this is my son's quilt that I took apart to repair and re-quilt.

19. Hockey flannel quilt for my son 81" x 89"

20.. Soccer boy 54 1/2 x 73" I may put a border on this one to make it a bit wider.

21. Scrap black and green 34" x 52" Done 10/27/15this one is partially hand and machine quilted. It has been in this state for years!

22. Maple leaf 78" x 102" the blocks were made by the late sister of a neighbor I had in Dover. I put together the top, because the neighbor does not sew.

23. Danks 90" x 99" this is a young fellow I work with. I made this as a housewarming gift. He and his long time girlfriend have been in their house for 3 years! Up date: they have now been in their house for 5 years and are now married! I need to get this done!

24. Red dog 54" x 65"

25. Done 4/13/15 Cobbles 38" x 49"

26. Red lips 30" x 43"

27. Done November 27, 2015floral 16 patch. I started this 4 or 5 years ago and have no particular plans on what size quilt this will be

28. Done November 2015pink zig zag strips - this could be enough for two quilts. I guess I will find out once I get these sewn together!

29. pre-cut baby quilt. Done 11-9-15I started this several years ago and I am not sure where I was going with this. I guess I will figure it out! I did at least attached a drawing of the block I was originally planning on making.

30. Art museum t-shirt piece. All I need to do is finish up the hand quilting with pearl cotton. This has been sitting around for at least 4 years.

31. Leftover flannel - see the dark green strips laying on top? I found those in my big clean up yesterday! I needed some more solid colored flannel so I am glad I found them!

32. Homespun - this is the remaining fabric from making 4 donation tops in 2014. This will be the end of the homespun in my stash.

33. wool quilt - this quilt was put on hold until my brother could get me the measurements he wanted the quilt to be to fit his bunk on the tour bus.

34. DP solid quilt

35. a pile of socks that need small holes mended Done 10/25/15

36. a pair of pj's that I need to alter for my girlfriend. They belonged to her late husband. He passed away 3 years ago Jan. 2. I need to get these done.

37. Living room drapes

38. guest room curtains

39. African fabric cut. These pieces have been sitting here for quite a while. Let's not even talk about the yardage I have!

40. Done 8/23/15hard rock/heavy metal t-shirt quilt. These are the shirts I have collected so far for this project, but I need more! I have to have a Led Zepplin, AC/DC, Ozzy, and Black Sabbath shirt for this quilt for sure!