Stashbusting January 2010

January has 5 weeks, so ought to be able to use up more fabric this month! Here is my report so far:

Used this Week: 14.5 yards **
Used year to Date: 20 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2010: 35.5 yards

** Used
5 yards of a beautiful blue batik for the WHQG quilt show donation quilt.
2 yards various yardage for Bricks swap (due Feb 9)
1 yard various prints for Road to Stars swap (due Feb 2) for KR Bee
2.5 yards various prints for Montana Two Step Swap (for Thursday Bee)
1 yard for 9 patches for new grandmas (great-grandmas) for KR Bee.
1 yard scraps for triangles charm quilt (1000 pyramid type)
2 yards (8 fat qtrs) of various Christmas prints cut into 1.5" strips. Sharing with Nita.

Week 49 (wow) Stash Report

OK, so I lost track of fabric months ago. But, I have really been going through a lot of it lately. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between fabric I use for my stuff and customer quilts. BUT, if I use fabric for backings that have I have had for more than a year, that should count as stash-busting. In that case, I have been doing awesome.

I joined a new group with some friends of mine that while we only meet once a quarter, we have really been busting the stash. It is strongly encouraged to use only fabrics from our stash. The first exchange was 6 inch 9 patches, and the 2nd swap was HourGlass blocks to go with the 9-patches. I would have to do the math to figure out how much fabric I used to make 100 9-patches and 80 hourglass blocks, but I did not make a dent in the fabric. . The 3rd swap was with Black on White with BRIGHTs making Churn Dash blocks. Think I made 60 of those.

The fabric stash grew when a friend of mine moved to San Antonio and she passed on a bunch of fabric that she did not take with her.

My Thursday Bee is doing another swap that is not due until after the first of the year, but I have already started on the blocks. (Montana Scrappy from Lynn Roddy Browns 2nd Book - a "Texas 2 Step" variation) These blocks consist of smaller Hourglass blocks and 4 patches.

The Katy Rotary Bee (my Monday Bee) is doing two swaps. One is for the quilt that was on the cover of the June 2009 McCalls Quilt magazine. Then we are also doing a Thousand Pyramids triangle quilt and we are all swapping fabrics so that we can go for each triangle a different fabric (500 lights, 500 darks).

Now, I must brag that at Quilt Festival this year That I only bought 4 yards of fabric. 2.5 yards were fat quarters that were .75 cents each and the other was some woven stuff I bought (and have already used) in some Halloween projects.

Well, after looking at this list, guess I better go get to work on some of these projects!

Stashbusting Report -

StashBusting doing pretty good! - Got about 1/2 of that 50 pounds of fabric from last week cut into strips. Then we used a 'bunch' of those strips at our Bee on Thursday making a kind of half log cabin block. (Instead of going all the way around, you just have the darks on one side, and lights on the next side. The 'center' square is in the corner. Clear as mud?

Used a bunch of GREEN yardage to make my 48 5 inch green and off white rail fences that we trade tomorrow at the Katy Rotary Bee for the Around The Block quilt that we are doing as a group. I'll take pictures after the exchange and see what I get back.

Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 3 yards
Fabric used this week: 2 yards
Fabric used year to date: 10 yards
Net fabric busted: 8 yards

Got hooked reading a bunch of other blogs last night. Mostly tutorials. I'm going to have to do some of those, but the problem is sticking with a project long enough to finish it AND to remember to take pictures while doing it! No one can relate to that huh.

I cut out the wool for a journal cover. Started cutting out Poinsettia's then after laying them out, thought maybe I ought to go for a more spring type theme. I do love poinsettia's though. I did get some awesome reds, greens and yellows wool bundles at Houston Festival last November from The Wool Garden . However, I still have a bone to pick with them. They were working on a Poinsettia project, and it wasn't finished, but they had it hanging at both Market and Festival. They put me on the list to get the pattern as soon as they finished it, and I still haven't heard from them or seen it on the website. All those gorgeous bundles just waiting for a project.

Started a couple of other type projects. None of them far enough along yet, but after cutting a bunch of the ugly fabrics into 1 inch strips, I dug out my locker hooking project that I had started last spring, and worked on that some more. I need to finish this piece - it is to go under my bobbin winder that I use to wind those big ole M size bobbins for my longarm. The base to the winder has a tendency to scratch (gouge) the wood cabinet that it sets on. The mat is to protect the finish from being further damaged. That should be enough incentive to get it done.

Then the 1" strips reminded me that I could crochet a rug or something with those sized strips, so I cut some 1/2" BATIK strips and started crocheting a round rag type rug. I'm on round 8 and it is really going to be BRIGHT! The center is red, then a mixed up orange/turquoise/green batik, and I just changed to a rich brown batik. Hmm, forgot to measure that fabric to include in stashbusting...

Only one more quilt to finish for the WHQG Quilt Show in two weeks. The turn in date is this coming Saturday, and the customer still needs to put the binding, sleeve and label on it. I figure I will have it completed by tomorrow afternoon. The quilt show program goes to the printer tomorrow. Had several people proofing it, so hopefully we took care of any glaring mistakes. I got permission from Carla to use one of her cartoons in the program It is so perfect to go with the quilt show and judging.