Another UFO Bites the Dust!

About a year ago, at the height of my Farm Girl Vintage frenzy, I was doing projects left and right. It was around this time that I realized my "style" or quilting, so I took advantage and made project after project. No harm there! However, I have a few unfinished projects here and there in my sewing room as a result fo the FGV mania. This weekend, I finally finished one of them.

First up was getting the batting ready. I have so many 6" or 7" wide scraps of batting, most of them leftover from quilts taken to the longer-armer. I can't say it was a real joy to piece them all together, but it did yield enough batting to finish the project.

I butted the pieces up against each other and sewed them together with a wide zig-zag stitch then flipped them over and did the same on the other side. Stitching a second time may not have been necessary but I wanted to be sure they wouldn't come apart. A good pressing with the iron flattened them out nicely.

The main aim was to "git 'er done!" so I opted for a quick straight line quilting job. Easy peasy! Typically, I'm a fan of attaching the binding by machine and then hand-turning it. I love the look of a binding with no visible stitches, but lately I've gotten a lot better at doing the binding completely by machine. That's now my go-to binding method for some projects, mostly quilts that aren't going to end up on a bed or a lap. Within four hours, I had four of these little cuties quilted and bound...

The design was inspired by the Blue Plate Special pattern. This particular placemat is mine; I'm a lefty, so the cutlery pocket is on the left. ;) Although I have a couple projects that I've yet to finish from when I first learned to sew and quilt three years ago (don't judge!), I was happy to tick this year-old project off the list! Not only did I get satisfaction from that, but the patchwork pumpkin design also somewhat sated my desire for autumn. I am not a summer lover, and I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures, shorter days and those comforting foods of fall. These will be on our dining room table for a while.

Lastly, I finished my aunt's quilt - the Jinny Beyer project that scared me half to death and ending up being not so terrible - and mailed it off to her, but I completely forgot to take a photograph of the finished quilt! Ugh. She was kind enough to share a photo of it with me.

I'm happy that she is so happy with it!

I'm linking up again with Sew Fresh Quilts this week. Lorna is so creative and makes beautiful patterns...go give her a visit. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to make a torturous decision - start a fun, new project or tackle a long-idling one. Decisions! Decisions!

Bloomin' Away

I'm getting back into the swing of things, and taking care of some projects in various stages of completion. Today, I'll gift a quilt that I finished about a year ago and haven't had a chance to mail (translation: the post office feels so far away!). The good news is that I'll be able to give the gift in person, so that'll be fun. There's always the anxiety of "What if they don't like it?" but I'm smashing that as much as I can. I'm sure it'll be loved!

This weekend, I finished block sixteen of Lori Holt's Bloom Sew Along.

This one was a fun one to piece. As I said in my previous post, I'm really (finally!) learning to use the point turner to smooth out the curved pieces when they're not as rounded as they should be. I wish I took more care to do it when I started the project. Oh, well! You live you learn.

These are the other three blocks that will make up the row. I really love the block in the lower left. Those heart shaped templates make for great flower petals! I can't wait to finish these blocks, piece them into rows, sew on the borders and move onto the next projects! After that, I should finally finish up the Christmas quilt top I finished in December 2014; I'll post of photograph of that later tonight when I get home.

Speaking of Lori Holt - she's full of ideas that appeal to me - she mentioned a great gift idea on Instagram that I loved so much I took to the sewing machine straight away and churned one out.

It's a little 5" x 7" block, created from her Sew Simple Shapes. I'll head to Michael's tonight to see if I can find a frame suitable enough for containing its cuteness. Don't you just wanna pinch its little cheeks? Adorable!

When Does Stash-Building Become Hoarding?

I have a thing with fabric. A big thing. While I wouldn't say that it's completely out of control (yet), I do have much more fabric than I can use anytime in the near future. It is not uncommon amongst quilters and sewers, but that's not excuse. I need to scale it back some, but that proves exceptionally difficult when there is always new fabric hitting the market. Apparently, I relish the opportunity to go, "Oh, for cute!" and then hit the ADD TO CART button, because it happens all too often.

Take for instance this morning. I was happily avoiding work and my web browser accidentally went to The Fat Quarter Shop (I just hate when that accidentally happens!). That's when I saw these...

They spoke to me, and then I did some speaking to my wallet. We had a disagreement, but I won. It's too easy to make purchases like that online, so I try not to make a habit out of it. A few weeks ago, I made a trip to S.R. Harris, a great fabric outlet that sells all their quilting cottons at 50% off retail, and midway through the trip my cart was already starting to fill up.

There were sixteen bolts in there when I took this photograph. By the time I made it to the cutting table, there were twenty-five! The most ridiculous part of that trip? Most of those fabrics on the right are from a great Riley Blake collection called Happy Harvest. It is a collection I already own, as a fat quarter bundle and some additional yardage. "Why then were they in your cart?" you might ask. Because I was afraid I would run out...before I even used them! And because issues. Madness. Luckily, I came to my senses and left with only 7 pieces of fabric.

I do take some amount of comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in this affliction. About a year ago, a well-written and researched article was making the rounds in quilting circles, Quiltanomics: The Real Cost of Quilts. There was a ton of good information in it, but the number that blew my mind was this one:

[Quilters'] buying power each year is $3.76 billion – with “dedicated quilters” spending over $3,200. What I found jaw-dropping was the statistic that dedicated quilters typically own $13,000 in tools and supplies, and their fabric stash is worth close to $6,000.

SIX. THOUSAND.DOLLARS. That's just fabric! That doesn't include the sewing machine, the tools, the furniture or the time (one of the biggest expenses). I keep that number in the back of my mind to make me feel like I'm in control. Some call that denial; I call it...well, that's probably what I would call it, too.

It's time for me to put a moratorium on fabric purchases. I'll take a few months off and give my finances a big break. Except for maybe a bundle of Halloween fabric. And maybe Lori Holt's Cozy Christmas bundle when it's released next month. Oh, and I need a few solids, too. Dammit!

Know who's sensible? Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts. Give her blog a visit, would you?

Berry Cherry Potholder

I've finished two quilt tops in the last few weeks, so I'm taking a wee bit of a break from big projects at the moment. I almost took the weekend off from doing any sewing at all but decided yesterday to break my boredom with a bit of time in the sewing room. I thought about doing yet another small project from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage book, but I've already done approximately 1,305,211 projects from that to date. I can't help myself! And then I saw Lori's Bloom Templates when I was digging through the drawer on my sewing table.

Why not do a block from Farm Girl Vintage using the templates? Easy peasy! I need to keep brushing up on my applique skills anyway. I would only need two of them: A-3 and A-11.

I picked out a few fabrics...

...and a few tools, and I was on my way. That little Clover 1/4" bias tape maker has come in handy lately, and I also really like using lightweight sew-in Pellon as backing for the applique pieces. One of these days I'll give a go at hand-turned applique, but for now this is my comfort zone and it makes for good results.

I went with this guy  at first, because I love the little Scotties, but in the end it was too close in hue to the other red I was using and went with a pink print instead.

In virtually no time at all, I had a little cherry block! I'd been wanting to try the Fat Quarter Shop's tutorial (their video tutorial is at the end of this post) for using the backing fabric as the binding to see how I liked it, so after a quick quilting job...

...I attached the backing fabric, and cut and pressed it according to their directions.

Then it was time to sew the binding to the front of the block. It's only an 8" square, so binding only took a half an hour or so to get the job.

And there's the finished product. Cute as a li'l button! I'm not sure how much I love the backing/binding method. The corners look good not great. Perhaps it's just a matter of getting the method down, but it certainly was more than adequate for a first time, and I have another adorable little nugget to use in the kitchen.