Stash Report and Stitching Time 5/4/2025

I missed writing a Stash Report post last week because we were traveling, so this post covers two weeks. It's time for a little bit of True Confessions regarding my stash report. Remember back in March when I wrote about starting work on a Jane Stickle sampler quilt? (If not, you can read my post HERE.) I had started out by buying 1/2 yard cuts of a variety of teal/turquoise/blue Grunge fabrics. I narrowed down my choices to six colors plus a cream background. After prepping several blocks from one color, I figured out that 1.5 additional yards of each color should be enough for my quilt. I also threw in another color of teal. To top it all off, I bought a bolt (15 yards) of the cream background Grunge, my first time ever to buy a whole bolt of quilting fabric. Total additions to the stash: 26.5 yards. Ouch! It's going to be hard to get back in the black after an addition like that.

Fabrics for Jane Stickle sampler quilt

My usage over the past two weeks has been minimal, partly due to being out of town for a week. I did use 1/2 yard for the purple blocks made to round out the collection for my Terry Rowland colorwash quilt (read about it HERE.)

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  0.5 yards

Used year to date:           29.25 yards

Added last week:               26.5 yards

Added year to date:         50.25 yards

Net added in 2025:        21.0 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. For the first time all year, I missed a day of quilting. We had gone to Wisconsin for a niece's wedding, and I never found any time to stitch on the wedding day. We had a great time at the wedding and visiting family, so it was definitely worth missing one day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

4/20 - 5/3              13 of 14 days

2025 Total          122 of 123 days

Success rate                99.2 %     

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

RSC Green Scrappiness

My main focus for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2025 has been making more "Terry" blocks, the scrappy little blocks inspired by Terry Rowland's colorwash quilts, which are featured in her series of three YouTube videos. I started making these blocks last February,  but I missed making any in green because that had been the color last January. Green is our color for May at the RSC, so I spent much of the afternoon yesterday cutting up some green fabrics to use for my blocks.

Each piece of fabric measures about 4" x 5". As you can see, I have a lot of different greens (and there are still plenty more that weren't included.) My plan was to make 60 - 70 blocks, but I believe there are more than 80 pieces in those stacks. Now I need to cut each piece into segments, plus pull contrast squares and rectangles for the centers.

I did manage to put together the first few green blocks. These scrappy little blocks will finish at 3" each. The other color that was incomplete is purple. I've been making 60 - 70 blocks of each color, and only had 45 done in purple. Here are the purple blocks that were made in 2024, followed by the 25 new purple blocks made in late April.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday and Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

One Monthly Goal Success!

There's nothing like waiting until the last day of the month, but I got in just under the wire.  It is time to report on the successful completion of my One Monthly Goal for April. My Quarter Log Cabins quilt top is done!

Quarter Log Cabins quilt top

54" x 64"

Our quilt guild is making throw quilts to be donated to the local chapter of Meals on Wheels. They distribute the quilts to clients who are in need of comfort and warmth. 

I received the fabrics from the guild's head of community service projects. The design I chose to make is the Quarter Log Cabin pattern from the Sew Can She website. Caroline at Sew Can She offers a huge selection of free patterns on her site, including several of the popular 3-yard patterns. My quilt is a little bigger than the pattern because I had about 1.5 yards of the red print and made my outer border larger.

I'm joining in with the One Monthly Goal link-up, hosted by Anne-Marie at Stories from the Sewing Room. It's possible that my One Monthly Goal for May will be to quilt and bind this quilt. That is still to be determined.

I'm also linking up with:

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

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 everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 4/20/2025

I have a very fun stash addition to report this week. Our quilt guild had a program on Ice Dyeing this week, followed by a hands-on workshop . Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay for the entire workshop, but I was there long enough to learn the process. Yesterday I had the time to make my own set of ice-dyed fat quarters at home.

It was so much fun to learn a new skill and play with fabric in a very different way. We started with three primary colors of dye, and I mostly combined them in pairs. I love the way the indigo blue and turkey red mixed into purple, and the mustard yellow and turkey red produced some gorgeous sunset-like oranges and fuchsias.

I'm not as wild about the mustard yellow and indigo combinations; they came out more olive green than I had hoped. The other three pieces in the above photo have all three colors combined. I was afraid they would just turn out muddy and dull, but they are surprisingly pretty.

These pieces are all fat quarters, which means 3 yards total added to the stash, and no usage to report for the week. I'm debating how to use these pieces in a future project. One of the leaders of the workshop confessed that she has a hard time cutting up her hand-dyed fabrics.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  0.0 yards

Used year to date:           28.75 yards

Added last week:                 3.0 yards

Added year to date:          23.75 yards

Net used in 2025:             5.0 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. The past week was one that had me wondering what I spent all my time doing, because I don't have much to show for it, even though I did spend time quilting every day. I did alter a new suit for Ed to wear to an upcoming wedding, which was my main activity early in the week. Toward the end of the week, I was able to finish a couple more blocks for my Jane Stickle sampler quilt. Here are the latest additions to my set of blocks.

Jane Stickle Sampler blocks

Top row: B8, A12

2nd row: A11

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

4/13 - 4/19               7 of 7 days

2025 Total          109 of 109 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

Stash Report and Stitching Time 4/13/2025

There was very little change to the stash numbers this week, with only 5/8 yards used for the 30 red "Terry blocks" made as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here are all the new blocks made this week.

I've been cutting purple fabrics for more Terry blocks, which will be followed by the greens. After that I'll just need to join all 450 - 500 blocks together into a quilt top.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                 .625 yards

Used year to date:           28.75 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:          20.75 yards

Net used in 2025:             8.0 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. Other than the "Terry blocks", my main quilting project for the week was a Quarter Log Cabins quilt top for the guild's community service. I was able to cut and piece the entire top in a week. You can see in-progress photos of it HERE and HERE.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

4/6 - 4/12                 7 of 7 days

2025 Total          102 of 102 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

More Terry Blocks

After finishing the yellow "Terry" blocks last week, I decided to get right into making red blocks. Red is the color for April at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I had already made 36 of these blocks in red last year, but I'm now working toward having around 60 blocks of each color group.

 

Here are last year's red blocks. There are 36 of them, but I've decided to leave out the one in the bottom row with the very white wavy lines; it's just too distracting.

Here is the new batch that I finished this week. 31 more blocks for the collection.

That all adds up to a big, beautiful mass of red! 66 red blocks total.

I started making these blocks early last year, inspired by Terry Rowland's colorwash quilts, which are featured in her series of three YouTube videos. That is why I call them my "Terry" blocks.

These scrappy little blocks will finish at 3" each. The only colors left to make are around 15 purple blocks and 60 or so in green. I'm not planning to include brown or black, but might end up adding some if needed to finish off the outer edges of the quilt.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday and Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Fabric Serendipity

I hadn't planned to write a blog post today, at least not until I read Alycia's post and saw the photo of her latest quilt. Check it out HERE--go ahead, I'll wait. 

Did you happen to notice the red border on her quilt? That's what especially caught my eye and prompted this post. It's because I've been working on a throw quilt that includes the very same red fabric in the blocks and for the outer border. Mine isn't as far along as Alycia's. The blocks are all made and joined together for the center of the quilt, and the border strips are all cut and ready to be attached.

The pattern I used for this top is "Quarter Log Cabins", a free 3-yard quilt pattern by Caroline Fairbanks of the website Sew Can She. My quilt is going to be a little larger than the pattern because I had 1-1/2 yards of the red print, which made it possible to cut that outer border wider. My quilt should finish at 54" x 64".

Here's an even closer view of a couple blocks and the border strips.

The piece of red fabric that I used for this quilt had one selvage removed, so there wasn't any information about the fabric line/designer. It reminded me of several red, white & blue lines designed by Minick and Simpson for Moda, but it took some serious digging to figure out which one. The fabric line was "Prairie Paisley II", which was issued in 2012. That's some well-aged fabric there! The center cheater print in Alycia's quilt is from the same line. It's a classic line of fabrics that still look beautiful today.

It's time for me to stop babbling about this bit of fabric serendipity and get those borders sewn on to my quilt top.

Linking up with:

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Design Wall Monday and One Monthly Goal

My design walls currently display a wild variety of projects, ranging from very small, intricate blocks to much larger and simpler blocks. It's that kind of variety that keeps quilting interesting for me.

top: Temperature Quilt

bottom: Quarter Log Cabin

I've posted about the Temperature Quilt project before; you can see a couple of earlier posts HERE and HERE. I've been doing well at keeping up with making the blocks, never getting more than a few days behind. The photo above shows all of the blocks through April 2nd.

Just last week, I figured out the layout for my temperature blocks, and I started joining the blocks together into groups. It's tricky to keep them in the right order and pointing in the right direction, so I have to be very careful during this part of the process.

The lower half of that design wall contains my newest project, Quarter Log Cabin blocks. Our guild is having a community service sewing day in late May, and we will be working on throw quilts to be donated to Meals on Wheels, along with the placemats that we give them. The guild's community service chairperson had put together bundles of fabrics that could be used for 3-yard quilt patterns, and I offered to make a sample to show at the next meeting.

Quarter Log Cabin blocks

The design I chose is the Quarter Log Cabin pattern from the Sew Can She website. Caroline at Sew Can She offers a huge selection of free patterns on her site, including several of the popular 3-yard patterns. If you sign up to receive her daily emails, you can get that day's featured pattern as a free pdf download.

I've been enjoying making this quilt because it is coming together so quickly. Using only three fabrics made the cutting much faster than my usual scrap quilts, and the blocks are very easy to put together. They will finish at 10" each, and I need only 20 blocks for the entire quilt. I especially love the red paisley/floral print that was included in the fabric bundle. One selvage was gone, so there was no maker information on it, but it has a wonderfully smooth feel to it.

Finishing this quilt top will be my One Monthly Goal for April. I will need to make 14 more blocks, join them together, then add three borders. The guild meeting is next week Thursday, which gives me only 10 days to get it done.

Completely on the other side of the spectrum as far as block size and complexity are the latest blocks to be finished for my version of the Jane Stickle sampler quilt. I finished four blocks last week, bringing my total number of finished blocks up to 14 (out of a total of 169.) My current goal is to make at least two blocks each week. These blocks will finish at 4.5".

Top row: Blocks C9, D10

2nd row: Blocks E3, I3

Now you can see what I meant at the beginning of this post about the variety of projects I've been working on. When I'm in the mood for something easy, I can make temperature blocks or the log cabins. If I'm ready to be challenged, I can make some of the Jane Stickle blocks or join more of the temperature blocks together. That's all a big part of the reason why I tend to have multiple projects in the works at the same time.

I'm  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 everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 4/6/2025

My Stash Report for the past week doesn't show a lot of movement, but at least there was a little fabric used and no new fabric added. The fabric used includes 5/8 yard for the deep blue setting/border fabric in my Sewcialites 2 quilt top, shared earlier in the week in THIS POST, plus 3/8 yard in 20 yellow "Terry" blocks for a neglected Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. You can read more about that quilt HERE.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  1.0 yards

Used year to date:         28.125 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:          20.75 yards

Net used in 2025:         7.375 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 spent time on a variety of quilting projects, including blocks for my Temperature quilt and the Jane Stickle sampler, plus the yellow Terry blocks shown above. I also attended a quilt guild board meeting and wrote up the guild newsletter. There has definitely been more than 15 minutes devoted to quilting activities every day this week!

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

3/30 - 4/5                7 of 7 days

2025 Total            95 of 95 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

Yellow "Terry" Blocks

It has been several months since this project made an appearance, but I've been wanting to get caught up on my colorwash blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I started making these blocks early last year, inspired by Terry Rowland's colorwash quilts, which are featured in her series of three YouTube videos. That is why I call them my "Terry" blocks.

I made 48 yellow blocks last April and May, and they made a lovely sunny glow on the design wall.

I made blocks in a different color each month, based on the monthly color assigned for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I ended up with more than 60 blocks for some colors later in the year, so I decided to make some more from yellow scraps that hadn't been used yet.

I was easily able to find 20 more yellow fabrics to use for additional blocks. After that I looked at all of the yellow blocks on the design wall together.

These scrappy little blocks will finish at 3" each. There are still a couple other colors that need additional blocks, plus I never made any green blocks last year because I started this project after that month had already ended. The assigned color for April is red, and I will work on those blocks next. I'll continue filling out my block collection over the upcoming months.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday and Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Sewcialites 2 Quilt Top Finished!

I can't believe it is the last day of March already! I'm cutting things a little close here with a last-chance report on the successful completion of my One Monthly Goal for March. My Sewcialites 2 quilt top is done!

Sewcialites 2 quilt top

27" square

Our quilt guild chose the Sewcialites 2 pattern as our Block of the Month for 2024-25. Actually, we made two blocks each month, and I made one extra block at the end. 

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. The pattern includes instructions for blocks that finish at 3", 6" or 9". For some crazy reason, I decided to challenge myself and make the 3" blocks.

The above photo shows all of my blocks after I finished making them back in December of 2024. At that point, I had no idea how I would arrange them in the finished quilt.

In February I auditioned some options for the setting fabric. I had expected to go with a lighter aqua/turquoise, but ended up choosing the darker blue for the dramatic contrast. Below are my blocks on the setting fabric before the top was assembled. Some of them changed position, but this gave me a good idea of where I was headed.

 

I'm very happy to have this quilt top done, and I look forward to getting it quilted and hanging on the wall. Making all those 3" blocks convinced me that I could handle the challenges of very small piecing, which is probably what led to my newest project, a Dear Jane quilt.

I'm joining in with the One Monthly Goal link-up, hosted by Anne-Marie at Stories from the Sewing Room.

I'm also linking up with:

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

TGIFF at Sew Preeti Quilts

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 3/30/2025

My Stash Report for the past week shows no changes to the numbers for fabric used or added. I've mostly been obsessed with getting organized and making a start on my Jane Stickle sampler quilt, and it is very slow going. I finished up a grand total of three blocks for that project this week. All blocks will finish at 4.5".

Block A13

Partially rotary cut, partially foundation pieced

Block B6

This block has 43 pieces in it!

Block G13

I was able to machine piece the curves in this block

I don't think I will try to calculate the amount of fabric used for each block in this quilt. That's just too many tiny pieces and strange shapes. I will buy an equal amount of each color to use in the quilt, and I can just see how much is left at the end.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  0.0 yards

Used year to date:         27.125 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:          20.75 yards

Net used in 2025:         6.375 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. My quilting time took a hit this week after an unfortunate encounter between a rotary cutter and my left index finger. It slowed me down, but didn't keep me from doing something quilt related every day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

3/23 - 3/29              7 of 7 days

2025 Total            88 of 88 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