Stash Report and Stitching Time 3/9/2025

The past week included several appointments and obligations combined with more fun activities like celebrating my sweetie's birthday. One of his birthday gifts was my most recently finished quilt, the Tiny Jewel wall-hanging. I blogged about it in this post.

Tiny Jewel Wall-hanging, 18" x 18"

I've also been working on a quilting project with a deadline, plus I made a placemat for the latest Project Quilting Challenge 16.5: Follow Your Arrow (see it HERE.) That has all kept me plenty busy, and I managed to use 2-3/8 yards of fabric in the process. I did buy some new fabric yesterday, but I haven't calculated the total added yet, so I'll report on that next week.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  2.375 yards

Used year to date:            25.125 yards

Added last week:                    0.0 yards

Added year to date:             10.50 yards

Net used in 2025:          14.625 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 have definitely been spending more than 15 minutes each day on quilting, but that's partly because I've been thinking about starting a new long-term quilt project. The design and planning stage of that has been filling up more time than it should right now. I need to buckle down this week and finish my Sewcialites 2 quilt before our guild meeting on the 20th. 

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

3/2 - 3/8                  7 of 7 days

2025 Total            67 of 67 days

Success rate                100 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 16.5: Follow Your Arrow

The theme for the fifth challenge of Season #16 of Project Quilting, hosted by Kim at Persimon Dreams and Trish at Quilt Chicken is "Follow Your Arrow. Here is the description:

16.5 Follow Your Arrow

This week’s challenge invites you to explore arrows.

As a motif or shape in quilting, arrows were there from Day One.

Chevrons can be a very modern, streamlined arrow shape.

You can find lots of patterns for arrowhead-and-feathered-shaft Robin Hood style arrows.

And of course tons of very traditional blocks create dramatic arrow shapes across your quilt

Your “arrow” can be simple and literal or deep and introspective (well, only as deep as a one-week deadline allows!).

Rule One: Your completed project must include an arrow shape.

I decided to feature yellow arrows in my project because that is our new color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The deep teal background fabric was leftover from another recent project. I made another placemat to add to the collection going to Meals on Wheels.

The backing fabric is quite old, but the colors coordinated perfectly.

Check out all the different projects inspired by this week's Project Quilting theme at Kim's blog, Persimon Dreams. There's only one more challenge left for this season of Project Quilting, to be posted at noon CST on Sunday, March 16th. Come join the fun! I'm also linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Hummingbird Quilt Finished!

My most recent finish was made as a special gift for my husband, Ed, who loves watching the hummingbirds at our feeders in the summer. We are both fascinated by their behavior, but Ed is the one who makes sure the feeders stay filled.

Tiny Jewel, 18" square

The pattern is called Tiny Jewel, and it was designed by Sylvia Schaefer of Flying Parrot Quilts. The hummingbird is foundation pieced, and three different block sizes are included in the pattern (9", 12" and 18" finished sizes.) I made the 12" block, then added the gradation of green solids as a border.

I pieced the top for this little quilt almost two years ago, soon after I bought the pattern, but it hung around my sewing room unquilted until just recently. I found the perfect fabric for the back at Hancock's of Paducah last December, and that helped motivate me to get this finished. It is now hanging next to our back door, waiting for the return of our favorite little flying acrobats.

Linking up with:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

One Monthly Goal--March 2025

The beginning of March seemed to come up very quickly, as February just came and went. Maybe it will help if I try to plan ahead a little more, at least as far as my quilting goes. I'm joining in with the One Monthly Goal link-up, hosted by Anne-Marie at Stories from the Sewing Room.

My goal for this month was easy to decide because I have a project with a deadline. The guild that I belong to has been making the Sewcialites 2 quilt as a Block of the Month, and we have reached the end of the challenge. It's time to join the blocks together and finish my quilt. Here are all my blocks together, plus one extra to finish with a total of 25 blocks. By the way, the finished size of my blocks is 3". There are some seriously tiny pieces in these blocks!

Sewcialites 2 originally ran as a weekly block program at Fat Quarter Shop from October, 2022 until April, 2023. All of the block patterns are still available on the Fat Quarter Shop's website. 

I auditioned several options while deciding on a color for my setting fabric. I ended up choosing to go with the darkest option because I liked the drama of the strong contrast.

My One Monthly Goal for March is to get these blocks joined together into a finished top. The bonus goal would be to also get it quilted and bound, but that is not required for the guild challenge.

Linking up with:

One Monthly Goal at Stories from the Sewing Room

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 3/2/2025

After spending a large portion of my quilting time over the second half of February working on using up some very old orphan blocks, it was a relief to finish turning them all into a collection of placemats. You can find more photos and information in my earlier blog post HERE.

This week's stash report shows 5 yards used for all those placemats, a good total for the week. No new fabric was added to the stash.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                     5.0 yards

Used year to date:              22.75 yards

Added last week:                    0.0 yards

Added year to date:             10.50 yards

Net used in 2025:            12.25 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. After the orphan block placemats were completed, I quilted and bound a small quilt that is going to be a gift very soon. I'm also working on getting a set of sampler blocks joined together into a finished quilt top. There's a lot going on around here, and definitely more than 15 minutes of quilting happened every day last week.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

2/23 - 3/1               7 of 7 days

2025 Total            60 of 60 days

Success rate                100 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA