ALYOF: March finish

For March my goal was to finish my top from my BOTM class last year. I got busy on it right away and had it completed pretty early in the month.

I was only able to get one picture of it before my son ran by and pulled it down. The clothesline isn’t working for my pictures for a number of reasons lately… I need to find a different solution.

Anyway, there it is. I wish I had placed a couple of blocks differently now – I was trying to balance both the colors and the surface area of the blocks. I played around with it quite a bit, but it is always different when you have it done and can step back from it and see the whole thing. Anyway, I am proud of myself for completing it. I signed up for the class again this weekend and it starts in a couple of weeks. I will be glad to show my teachers my progress.

You can see my March goal post here

You can see (most) all of my posts about this top here

I’ve been busy this month. I need to catch up my posts!

 

 

Sunday Stash – Shop Hop

This weekend is shop hop, and I am hopping the shops. I’ve shown a lot of restraint, gotten some things I’ve needed and caved on some unnecessary purchases. My biggest disappointment is that I have NOT found the fabric I need more of to back my bento quilt. I was really hoping I would. I have found a lot of other nice things.

Oh, Have I mentioned I have fallen in love? Like, love. L. O. V. E. Love. His name is Jason Yenter and he designs for In The Beginning. I don’t know what rock I have been under, but I decided the back I had picked out for my chevron wasn’t good enough and started searching and in my search came across Musings. I really want the print with the birds and large flowers, but at the first shop I went to I came across this in the sale room:

So I bought a whole bunch of it.

And I just couldn’t resist the Saltwater. I should probably have bought yardage (I am seriously lacking the saltwater on my Tula shelf) but totally caved on a kit. I’ve never bought a kit before. I just couldn’t resist.

I’ve already cut out all the squares and this may be a stash bash project. It’ll make a great quilt for my parents’ Florida home.

Today while I was out I was informed one of my picks for Michele‘s Kate Spain swap was duplicated and I needed to repick. Luckily, one of the shops I went to had TONS of Kate Spain. Oh, I wanted to buy tons of it, but I am having a lot of spending guilt. So I was good and stuck to picking just one for the swap.

Look familiar? I bought this exact print at this exact shop last year at shop hop for my bento top that I am currently trying to finish. A year later. We’ve come full circle.  This caused me to do a lot of reflecting that I am sure will be its own post soon. But I didn’t even know this was a Kate Spain print. I remember wondering if it would even work in the quilt. Isn’t that funny. I got a little extra so it may end up in my bento back too (the scrap I had left was too little).

I also found the treasure chest of Lemon Grove in their sale room. Also, very hard to resist. I picked up a couple yards of the tree print that I love.

So, those are my shop hop purchases so far. That last shop forgot to give me my charm for making a purchase. 😦  I have three shops left. One is my regular shop and the other two are real country shops. One is actually in a feed store.

Sunday Stash

My mailbox has been overflowing this week. Here are some of my new additions –

I had seen this fabric during a Fabric.com sale and thought it would be great for my bento back, but then I got flu and missed it. A couple weeks later, it went back on sale for even less! I snatched it up. But, as seems to happen, 6 yards in stock really meant 2.5.

As long as I was buying, I also added these coordinating prints, which will not be going in my bento. I am not sure I will have any of the above left to coordinate with now, but when I ordered, I thought I was over ordering. Oh well. Still pretty.

Westminster Beachwood Park

And, of course, I can’t pass up Lizzy House on sale – especially twinkly lights.

Lizzy House Guising Asterisk

Next, I ordered these Moda prints (the two on the left) to supplement in my Bento back as well. The print on the right is one I used in my chevron quilt, and I really fell in love with it. I want to do another quilt just with it, and it is getting hard to find. So, when I found it at the same shop as the leaves, I grabbed it.

Moda Eat Your Fruit N Veggies
RK Fusion Texture

That’s enough for now!

WIP Wednesday: BOTM

I have been diligently working on my BOTM. At the expense of my spring cleaning? Well, not entirely sewing’s fault. I am still not 100% from the flu. I’ve had a fussy tummy and am very low energy. The dreary weather and dwindling naps haven’t helped my motivation either. Oh well.

I completed the blocks pretty quickly. It goes a lot faster when I am not in class socializing. But, that’s the fun of going to the class. I’ve mentioned before I have no discipline to finish BOTMs if I am not in a class for them. They pile up in my email.

All the blocks

paper piecing

I know paper piecing is all the rage, but I really dislike it. I am sure I said this when I made my pineapple last year, but I find it incredibly wasteful. It wastes paper. It wastes fabric. It wastes thread. It wastes tons of time. And there’s so much getting up and down. Maybe it is different if you are doing many blocks at a time. I don’t know. Someday I will tackle Prism or a Pineapple but the time consumingness of the paper piecing has them low on my list. Look how long it takes me to do the simple ones.

I have the sashing between the blocks attached. Then my rotary cutter broke. I hope to finish the row sashing and the first border today.

March ALYOF Goal Post

Last year I participated in a BOTM at my LQS. There were 12 blocks. I have 8 done, 2 partially done, 2 not done at all. The class starts again in April and I want to at least have my top completed to show off. I figure as long as I have black thread in my machine, now is the time to tackle it. I originally was only going to make the blocks my goal, but I really should just finish off the whole top while my attention is on it. Otherwise, it’ll never happen. Everything else is held up for the time being anyway.

Here are my blocks:

 

 

Here is the shop example of the finished quilt:

Sunday Stash

I’ve been following a fabulous blog, Molli Sparkles. He does a weekly Sunday stash, and this is right up my, self -proclaimed fabric hoarder, alley. Why am I only just now finding out about this?!?

Well, I’ve bought about a billion dollars in fabric this month, but only one thing has actually come that I can show at this time. I fell victim to the Craftsy impulse sale. Who can resist Tula for $6 a yard?!? Seriously, I was completely defenseless. (Yeah, just wait til I show what’s to come. If I have the guts to cop to it).  Well, they had two color ways of the raccoons. I tried to get them at my LQS sale last month, but they were already out of them. I have no idea what I will ever use this for – like most of my fabric. It will sit on my ever widening Tula shelf looking pretty at me.

That’s 4 yards of the light blue and 2 of the dark. Yup. 2. separate. yards. Ugh. Oh well. Shoulda seen that coming. Warning for those of you who might someday find yourself pulling from the impulse endcap of the Craftsy sale – putting qty 2 does not mean continuous yardage!

Ok and I also found this in my cart as well –

There is no excuse for me. What the frig am I going to do with this? No idea. It looks very pretty on my shelf though. I’ve never bought precuts before. But it was on sale (my mantra) and I noticed in my February swap that I have exactly zero fabrics with anything heart related on them. I guess I felt I needed to fill a gap? I generally stay away from stuff like that.

My mailbox should be overflowing this week.

March Goals

Hey guys! This is my 100th post!!

March goals –

So for the first time in a long time, I find myself without many quilts in the hopper. Which I guess means it is time to cycle back around to making backs and finishing quilts. Hmm. I am sure I will find something to start on…

1. Make a back for my bento

2. Make a back for Chevron

3. Economy blocks

4. Make a back for pixel

5. As long as I have black thread in my machine maybe I should finish my botm blocks. And maybe the top?

6. baby’s bathroom (finish installing and then clean/organize

7. So last year in March I did a big spring cleaning of my downstairs. I meant to do the upstairs in the fall, but we had such other things going on it didn’t register as important. I had planned to do spring cleaning again this year, but now that I am facing it down, I so don’t feel up for it. But I am going to tackle it. Ugh. I absolutely have to.

8.Finish Tula squares (the only reason this is so low on the list is that I am involved in yet another swap and I am anxious about picking out these last fabrics.)

9. read