Sunday Morning

I've only spent a couple of hours this week on the Tumbler quilt, sorry but no pictures of it today.  And there's no fabric in, nor is there fabric out, so no link up to Patchwork Times.

But on the "quilting" front, of sorts, a wee bit of progress has been made in my quilt room, and I may be able to start getting back into it this week, hopefully. 

My original thought, and thinking it would be the inexpensive route to go, was to get a remnant piece of linoleum/sheet vinyl.  However, there were only a few pre-cut options available at the local stores, and I didn't care for them as they had "grout lines" and I was looking at an all-over pattern.  This apparently isn't a popular product in this neck of the woods.  The one I really liked was this one:  Armstrong Eagle's Nest-Snow Fall  It was white, and I loved the faint leaves in the design.  We located a place that could order it, well, actually only something similar to the tune of nearly $400 plus the long drive to get there to pick it up and decided we'd go back to a product we had looked at at Home Depot a couple weeks ago.  It isn't white, but it looks good, and it isn't sheet vinyl or linoleum but installed really easily, so looks almost like a solid piece of flooring.

This is plank flooring by Allure.  It is a vinyl product. You might be able to see a couple planks in there with their adhesive strips.  Those adhesive strips are all that holds the floor together as it is a 'floating' floor.  There is no other adhesive used underneath it attaching it to the subfloor, no nails either.  The planks overlap end to end and side to side on those adhesive strips.  If one of the planks had been turned upside down, you'd be able to see the adhesive strip on the backside that overlaps the adhesive strip on the top side.  It took Marty only a couple of hours to cover the 9'4" x 10' of floor space including using that L-shaped metal ruler and a box-cutter knife to cut some of them to fit and give the proper spacing for the alternate rows.  This particular pattern/color was simply called "Oak".

Marty prepared the floor trim yesterday as well but as he was painting in the garage, realized that the paint wasn't quite looking as it should.  He was using semi-gloss, but it was going onto the boards looking like flat paint, which just would not work, so he'll have to see if he has a glossier paint or if he'll have to go buy some.  To me, it looked like there was a 5-gallon bucket of shiny white stuff out there, but I'll let him do the 'dirty' work of digging it out and opening it.

Right now, I can't do much lifting, or anything else as my lower back is acting up again.  It isn't quite as bad as earlier in the year, but it's bad enough that there is no comfortable position sitting, standing or laying, and any painkiller type meds I may have around here, don't help a lot.  So time, probably a good couple weeks or more, is what it'll take for it to settle down to where I can do a little more.  In the meantime, I do what I can knowing that any step, or twist or turn could, and often does, cause a stab of pain that nearly knocks me to my knees, so I'm very cautious and careful about my movements.

Stash Report Week 25

I went shopping this week out of project necessity, and it added to my stash.  Though I only needed a 2.5" - 5" strip of each fabric, I purchased a 1/2 yard piece of each, except for one which was a fat quarter.

You can find the details about my purchase here (about 6 paragraphs down), but in a nutshell, I needed more light fabrics in 1800s repros for the project I'll be taking to quilt camp 7/10. The pattern is a scrappy Tessellating Ts.  I've decided to cut out twice as many pieces as I needed because I'm not sure but I may want to make the quilt larger than the pattern which is 58.5 x 72, or I will make two quilts if I find that size is to my liking.

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date: 10.25 yards
Added This Week: 5.25 yards
Added Year to Date: 28.875 yards
Net Used for 2013: -18.625 yards 


Linking up at Patchwork Times.

Reporting Late for Stash Report

I didn't have any changes one way or the other this past week, however, I did the week before but didn't get my changes so posted, so, these are my updated numbers.  There is only an increase...again...as I had a wonderful Friday with a friend on the 15th and she and I went to JoAnn's and a local craft store that carries quilt fabric, and then had lunch at a tea garden restaurant and then just chatted awhile.  While at JoAnn's, she found a white-on-white of multi-sized dots or looked like snowballs depending on your intended application.   We prefer the latter since we're taking the same class and doing a Christmas quilt.  At the cutting station, I decided I'd get two yards as well, since w-o-w's are always good to have in your stash :)

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date: 0 yards
Added This Week: 2 yards
Added Year to Date: 5 yards
Net Used for 2013: -5 yards


I'm sure just about everyone else has already posted at Judy's Patchwork Times, but you can still check if you want to.

Time to go see what's on my design wall for that report ;p

Stash Report - Week 2, 2013

We're nearly at the middle of January already; before we know it, it'll be week 52!

I had to add a little to my stash this week because I needed some additional fabric for a project I was working on.  I needed a light background fabric and fabric for the inner border.  I won't say that I'm 100% pleased with what I was able to find, but they 'will work' and I think the end product will be just fine!

Used This Week: 0 yards
Used Year to Date: 0 yards
Added This Week: 2 yards
Added Year to Date: 2 yards
Net Used for 2013: -2 yards

light and dark golds added

Added were the whole yard pieces that I have here on my ironing board with the blocks and partial blocks laid out on them.  The LQS (if you call local about 10-15 miles away) has a huge store with lots of fabric, but the particular oriental-Kashmir style I was looking for in just the right golds was not there and this is the closest I could get after rejecting six or seven others.  The next closest store is yet another few miles further away, and I know they tend to be heavier on other styles of fabric, so didn't head out there.  I think I really do like the background fabric, it's in the tone I was looking for.  I'm slightly less pleased with the darker gold which will be the inner border, as it should really be either the same or darker than the dark gold squares.  What makes it look lighter is the heavy gold paint, which will probably gradually lessen with future washings.  Now, in the blocks in the center where the light background is, there are those gold half-square triangles.  Well, somehow when I was laying out my fat quarters and choosing which to put where, I missed that they needed to be the same darkness (in this case black and not gold) as the dark squares in the 4-Ps.  And while they play well, it changes the look and though they've been cut already, I dug through my stash and found a perfect black with gold scroll filigree, seen in the photo below with the gold blocks.

black & gold from stash

What I learned from this project, if you buy a pre-selected grouping of FQs for a specific project, read the directions, and determine if you need additional fabrics of any of those FQs, and/or fabrics for borders, because if you wait several years, you may not find just the right co-ordinating fabrics or the same fabrics as the FQs (should you make a mistake) at that later time.  I should  have remembered this from another project I worked on where I wanted a rich, dark brown for the binding...I went to several stores and quilt shows and still settled for something 'close' but not really what I'd hoped for, and I didn't want to wait until that color may reappear in fabric shops because it could have been years!

Jump on over to Patchwork Times for other reports of input/output this past week.

Stash Report ~ Week 48

My last Stash Report was back in October and nothing has changed.  I have just pulled a bunch of fabric from my stash for a mystery quilt hosted by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville, but to keep the ol' brain straight, I only count fabric as used once the quilt it is for has been completely finished and since that hasn't happened yet this year, there has been nothing out all year.  But the year isn't over, so there's always hope, right?

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 53.8 yards
Net Used for 2012: -53.8 yards

Edit: Forgot to link up to Patchwork Times, I'm sure all who've posted there have made progress, + or - , on their stash-busting(increasing) this year... four more Sundays to post for 2012.

Stash Report ~ Week 41

 I haven't posted a Stash Report since the end of July!  There hasn't been a need to, and, haha, still isn't as I've neither added to nor used anything from my stash.  The finished quilt I returned to my local guild was from fabric all provided by the guild.

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 53.8 yards
Net Used for 2012: -53.8 yards

Linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times for more stash reports.

Stash Report, Week 3, 2012

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2012: 0 yards

You can find stats from others at Patchwork Times.

Whether good, or bad, news ~ NO fabric changes this week, nor were there any last week when I didn't post. I have almost daily worked on cutting scraps into squares, strips and bricks, but they were all scraps on hand and have no specific destination except their respective storage drawers. These are the wheeled storage drawer stacks I purchased at Staples for $14.99 each. I have one drawer out sitting atop the stand. There are compartments on the top to place things without them falling off. One, maybe even both, will fit in my stash closet.

Wk 52 Stash Report

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 119.25 *yards
Net Used for 2011: -119.25 *yards

OK, this is the final tally for this year, not so impressive, but I have to clarify the fabric added (and net used) for the year. Only 16.41 yards were actually purchased, the remaining 102.84 yards were given to me and are more-or-less set aside for missionary quilt projects. It's my option to use as I choose. I also have some other m.q. fabric that hasn't yet been tallied, but it was acquired years ago so 'doesn't count' lol. I'm also not counting as used, the fabric in the Storm At Sea project I worked on as it wasn't counted as fabric 'in' either.

I hope 2012 is more productive, especially since I've joined the UFO Challenge too.

Thank you to Judy for hosting these activities, she's been a blessing in so many ways as I've mostly read along at her blog (Patchwork Times),

May 2012 be a joyous, prosperous, and productive year for us all!

Week 42 Stash Report

Nothing in, nothing out lol. I'll start adding this weekly Sunday report so that I can get in the habit in order to begin adding my report to Judy's post over at Patchwork Times. Hopefully, I'll be showing something in the "out" category as I get organized, my wrist heals and I get back to working on my UFOs and WIPs...do they count as WIPs if at present not working on them but want to be?