Let's Hear It For The Stash

 I've never felt like I've had to justify

having a fabric stash.

It's important to have a readily available resource

for your creativity.

I do use my stash.

I don't horde it (too much) or

buy excessive amounts (too often).

I buy what I like and

enjoy the pleasure of creating 

something tangible from it.

There are times when having a stash

is super important.

 How about when you need

a particular style of fabric

and a shop, even a good shop,

doesn't have anything close to

what you were hoping for.

Or that particular color just isn't popular 

right now.

Having a good resource of reproduction fabric

came in handy last

year as I stitched along with

Barbara Brackman's 

Stars in a Time Warp Sew A long.

Barbara discussed
so many different types of
historical fabrics.
Without a good stash,
I doubt that you could have
found all the different examples.

 
 I finished machine quilting and binding
my Stars in a Time Warp.

 
It was a fantastic study.

I made 72 star blocks
and didn't buy one piece of fabric.
Thank you stash!

Until Next Time-

Merrily, I Stitch A Long....

I had been doing pretty well

steering clear of the many

wonderful Stitch A Longs, SAL's,

that appeared on line after the first of the year,

 but...

 there were so many creative opportunities.  

What's a quilter to do?

It's obvious....

 Dive In!

and

 I have.

Take a peek at my list.

"Let it Snow"

A super cute wool

BOM by Buttermilk Basin.

Check it out.

Anyone can do one wooly block a month, right?

***

And then there's

 Thimble Creek's free blocks

and mystery design.

You can have access to these if you sign

up for their weekly newsletter.

The theme is 6 inch bright civil war blocks.

I opted for the brights, no war involved.

***

Then, of course,

I couldn't pass up

Petra Prin's mystery quilt

which is available in the Quiltmania magazine.
I absolutely had to do this,

especially after purchasing her wonderful chintz fabrics

at the Houston Quilt Festival.

This is a project done in blind faith.

There's no clue to what it will 

look like in the end.

But starting off with a Mariner's Compass

in the center is a good sign.

I needed a few more beautiful chintz pieces 

and easily ordered them from 

Webfabrics.net

They have a wonderful selection

of the Dutch Heritage Fabrics used in this project.

****
Over at the blog, Aunt Reen's Place ,
I've started Doreen's
"Big Leap Sew Along"
making a triple Irish chain that is
jelly roll friendly.


I took the leap, but
I'm improvising a little by

not using a jelly roll and
making it only two solid colors.

A triple Irish chain has been on
my bucket list, as well as,
a yellow and white quilt.
A perfect match-up, wouldn't you say,
especially
in 2016 with a whole extra
day for sewing

***

The last one
is one where I'll be

Sallying along with myself.

I'm using Karen Style's

A Star a Day pattern and templates from 

Someret Designs

located in Victoria Australia. 

As you can see,

I haven't gotten very far

with these 3" star blocks, 

but there is still hope.

I've gotten organized now
and I'm ready to start stitching.

***

So is that all for me?

Hard to say.

There could still be some sweet temptations.

Until Next Time-

Team Work

 Way back 

when I was in school and 

had to do a group project 

it was so important to pair up with someone

who actually knew what

working as a team meant.
 Remember when that didn't happen.

This year my dear friend, Norma and I

 teamed up to make

two baby quilts.
 

We belong to a quilt group that

meets in a local church and

makes baby quilts for a ministry there

to offset the 

use of the building.

It's a great win win situation.

  Norma had a bunch of Fig Tree charms
that she didn't think she'd be using and

those quickly got stitched into a Chinese Coins pattern and

a little square medallion. 

So easy.

In a recent post I mentioned 

how careful I am about marking on quilts.

Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind

and try the Sewline

Air Erasable Fabric Pen.

 It marks with a very fine

sharp line,

which makes it very easy 

to machine quilt on.

And then the lines

vanish in a few days 

depending on how dark you mark.

Mine were actually gone

in a few hours.

I loved that!

I'm not sure how the word "vanished"

is defined, but

with the baby quilts it didn't bother me.

I figured they'll be washed lots and

if everything hadn't vanished, it soon would.

It was great handing the quilts off 

after they were machine quilted

for my teammate to do the binding and labels.

Two easy quilts

done and ready for new babies

All done with perfect team work.

Until Next Time-

B's to the 5th Power

 When I worked at the local quilt shop

customers would come in and

ask for many things all

beginning with the letter "B".

It actually confused some quilters

with so many B words.

Were they looking for 

Borders?

 Backing? 

Batting?

Basting?

Binding?

Over the past couple of weeks,

 I've been working on

" B's to the 5th power!"

But let's back up just a bit.

Over the past year, like many others,

I studied fabrics

from Barbara Brackman's
Quilt Along,

"Stars in a Time Warp".

I completed 72 sawtooth star blocks

and decided to set them in a 

medallion style.

 I chose a center block from

Di Ford's Antique Wedding Sampler.

I hand pieced the block and

then added Broderie Perse applique

to the corners and

then a narrow border print to frame 

the block.

Instead of needle turning the appliques

I fused the pieces and cut them out exactly and

finished the edges with a buttonhole stitch.

I found it pretty challenging keeping the stitches an 

even depth and an even width apart.

I wasn't sure how close to make the stitches because

I didn't want it to look like a satin stitch.

So I did my own thing.

***

Then came the B-words, Borders.
 

This is a French General border print

and I only had 2 yards.  The mitered

corners came out perfectly, but I didn't

have enough to really fiddle with 

the corner design.

All four corners are the same,

but don't quite have the "

Wow" factor.

 While I was looking

in my resource piles, I discovered

a great piece for the Backing.

It's rather plain,

but it's a great piece of reproduction fabric

that's almost vintage a second time around.

Does anyone remember that line?

Add a leftover piece of the border print

and now it's the perfect size.

Next comes Batting.

I was feeling so proud of my make-do attitude.

I fused 5 narrow strips of batting together

using a light weight fusible interfacing.

that I cut 2 inches wide. 

Five pieces out of the closet and 

now a piece ready for Basting. 
 

 I'm planning on machine quilting this
myself, so it might take a while to get done.

But in the mean time I 
worked on the last B-word,
Binding.
 
It's ready whenever I am.

Just wanted to send a big thank you

to Barbara Brackman for

sharing her wealth of knowledge

with so many. 

Just realized I could say B's to the 7th power...

Blocks,

Broderie Perse

Sorry, I can get carried away!

Check out my recent post
"Let's Hear It For The Stash"
to see is quilt finished.

Until Next Time-