Star Mini Quilt Swap

I've been at the swapping game again and this time the theme was stars -- there are so many great star blocks out there that it was hard to narrow this one down but then I remembered a pattern that I had won a while back that really seemed appropriate for this person. I had a few perimeters to go by -- like she liked blues and greens so I pulled out Simple Celestial by From Blank Pages and determined that scrappy was the way to go on this one. 

I made 4 blocks of the 9 inch version and really love how things shaped up for the final result. 

There's even some fun fussy cutting involved. 

This lovely is headed off to live in California with Alex 

This was my 2nd finish for the quarter and one of my August OMG goals. 

KS Love

Back before Stash Bash I pulled out several patters that I thought would be good to take with me to the retreat that I might want to start on, one of them was the Moda Love Star. It's a great pattern and goes together really quickly and it comes set up for 3 different sizes of precuts. (We all know how I love a precuts.) 

I decided to take a charm pack of Day Dream and give it a try -- the blocks went together super fast and in about 2 hours I had a top. 

It's been waiting in my sewing room for me to find some quilting time and this weekend I set forth to do just that. 

I'm happy with the results and am planning to hang it in my office since I have changed locations and now work closer to home and need some color and cheer added to the space. 

I've got plans for an upcoming KS Christmas quilt and I'm thinking I may need to make a mini star with the extra charms from that one as well. 

This is my 3rd finish in the 3rd quarter. 

July Sewing and Stashing

With the beginning of July being a holiday weekend that meant an extra day to sew and look forward to the beginning of a new quarter. My first task was to finish up hemming a bunch of curtains for a friend but then I actually found some time and finished a project that had been around for a while, a scrappy trip along that has been waiting for some time to be quilted. (-2 yards) 

I got my stash bee blocks put together (-.5 yard) 

Then my Bee Hive Blocks put together (-.5 yard) 

Then I did some fun Hive jumping (-.5 yards) 

My aim at decreasing my stash did not go well when I went to the annual girlfriends sale at Mary Jo's and to another quilt shop in that area.  I found plenty of things that followed me  home, some of these were planned for the Traveling Stash Bee projects since several ladies are going the Rainbow route and I didn't have a true Rainbow in my stash (shock I know) 

The others are for some upcoming clothing projects that people way smarter than me will be making, and some for Stash. 

(+15 Yards) 

This month started our traveling quilt swap and I got to work on adding to Catherine's starting point of the word Sew. (-6 yards rainbow stack since I will be using this for most of my traveling bee projects) 

At the end of the month I got Alice's block that had been added to by Catherine -- can't wait to get started on this one and I'm happy that I already have an approved plan. 

These are really fun and I am trying to get them turned around quickly so that they have limited exposure to cat hair in my house (the next 2 ladies on the list are allergic to cat hair). These two and the next one are extra fun because all 3 ladies belong to the same quilt guild that our guild paired up with for a mini quilt swap. The McKinney Modern Guild in Texas and this month's meeting was our deadline. I got the pleasure of making this quartet of squirrels. (-2 yards) <-- my OMG goal for this month

I attended a sew in at the end of the month and that's always an awesome time with the ladies. I used that opportunity to get started on a swap that will be going out next month, this star mini quilt. 

I had also pulled out some orphan blocks that were leftover from my Jewel Box quilt, made a few more and put together this smaller throw size that I will be gifting in the future. (After I got them on the wall I noticed that I still need to make a few more to complete my pattern.)

The most exciting thing was getting all my Kate Spain Christmas charms ready and sewed into HST units -- now to cut apart, press and trim them so I can start assembling the star blocks. 

June finished with a lightened stash of 98 yards, this month I added 15 yards and used 10.5 yards making my new total 93.5 yards lighter this year, still working to hit that 100 yards mark, maybe it will happen as I head into August since I have a few days off coming up.