Stash Report and Stitching Time 7/30/2023

I have been working on a variety of quilting projects this week. When I looked back over the week, it turned out that several of my projects were placemats. The first set was inspired by a mini-charm pack (2.5" squares) given out at our recent quilt guild meeting. We were challenged to make something with the squares for one of the guild's community service projects, so I went with placemats which will be donated to Meals on Wheels. By adding a few squares from my stash plus a border fabric, I was able to make two placemats.

These placemats have been finished around the outside edges, but they are not yet quilted. Instead of adding a binding, I basted a piece of batting to the top, then placed the top and back facing one another and stitched all the way around, leaving a small opening to turn. After turning, I pressed well, then top stitched 1/8 from the finished edge. As you can see below, the backing fabric is the same as the border. I'm finding placemats to be a great way to use up some of my older fabrics.

The next set of placemats have also been finished off around the outer edges, but are not quilted yet. The tops for these were finished about a week ago, made with the A Maze Zing pattern by Candace Hassen. The placemat at bottom right shows the backing fabric that was used for all of them. This set of placemats will be one of the items for sale at the guild's Christmas market.

The last set of placemats for the week were made as part of the ABC Table Scraps Challenge, hosted by the Joyful Quilter. Our color of the month, as determined by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, is red, and our ABC Challenge letters are A and G. As usual, I struggled to figure out a way to apply the letters, but decided that as long as I made something, it's All Good!

I dug through my box of orphan blocks and found a bag of red hourglass blocks. I figured out that these were made in 2016 when Bonnie Hunter's annual leader and ender project featured hourglass units. There were over 30 blocks in that bag, and I used 24 of them to piece two placemats.

Unlike the other placemats in this post, this set is completely finished, including quilting. My quilting is diagonal lines following the piecing of the blocks. You can see it best in the photo of the back. The same backing fabric was used on both, another very old fabric from my stash that is now mostly used up except for a couple of strips. These placemats will also go to Meals on Wheels.

Now it's time to figure out the stash used for these projects. I'm not counting the mini-charm squares in the first set of placemats since they were given to me and are going right back out again. Altogether, I used 1.75 yards for all three sets of placemats, which covers the borders and backing for the first set, the backing for the Christmas set, and the backing for the red hourglass mats (the fabric for those blocks was counted when they were made in 2016.) I also used 3/8 yard for my red Jabberwocky blocks, shared in yesterday's post.

2023 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                       2.125 yards

Used year to date:                   60.50 yards

Added last week:                         0.0 yards

Added year to date:                62.375 yards

Net added in 2023                1.875 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. I'm trying to keep up with ongoing projects like the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, plus working on some of those community service projects for the guild. There was definitely more than 15 minutes spent quilting every day last week.

15 Minute Challenge for 2023: 

7/23 - 7/29           7 of 7 days

2023 Total      200 of 210 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. I'm also linking up with the ABC Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter.

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA