Stash Report and Stitching Time 5/18/2025

It was a very productive week in the sewing room, with major progress made on multiple projects. That meant a significant amount of fabric used for the week, helping my stash report total get closer to being back in the black. I used 1.5 yards in the sashing and border for my Sewcialites 2 sampler quilt (read about it HERE.) 

Sewcialites 2 quilt top

1.875 yards was used for the backing and binding on the Diagonal Squares baby quilt, shared in the same blog post.

Diagonal Squares baby quilt

I also used 1.25 yards to make the last set of "Terry" blocks.

"Terry" blocks

Altogether, that adds up to 4.625 yards used for the week. I did have one small addition to the stash. We had a speaker from a local quilt shop at our guild meeting this week, and she did a pop-up shop for us. It would have been rude to not buy anything from her, right? I got one charm pack, Olive You by Zen Chic. It's not a color palette I normally gravitate toward, but for some reason, it spoke to me that day. 3/4 yard added to the stash.

I still have a long way to go before the stash total is back to even, but I feel really good about the progress made this week. Finishing quilts definitely eats up some yardage.

 

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:              4.625 yards

Used year to date:            34.5 yards

Added last week:                0.0 yards

Added year to date:           51.0 yards

Net added in 2025:        16.5 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. Along with the projects shared above, I also got caught up on my Temperature Quilt, cut the pieces for a guild sewing day next week, and attended a guild meeting. It was a week filled with quilting, just the way I like it!

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

5/11 - 5/17                7 of 7 days

2025 Total          136 of 137 days

Success rate               99.27 %   

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

UFO Challenge 2025--Report #1

Our quilt guild recently started a UFO Challenge (UnFinished Objects, in case you didn't know), with each member submitting a list of UFOs and what they hope to achieve on their projects. The challenge is running from April until October. For each goal successfully completed, we get our name entered into a prize drawing, and for each goal not completed, our penalty is one fat quarter. Those fat quarters become part of the final prize.

As usual, I greatly overestimated how much I am likely to get done on my UFOs. The list I submitted contains 13 different projects! Most people listed three or four. This week I buckled down and completed two of my UFO goals.

Sewcialites 2, 9" blocks

The blocks shown above were made as part of the guild's most recent Block of the Month, Sewcialites 2 from  the Fat Quarter Shop's website. I finished a quilt top with 3" blocks from the same pattern (see it HERE,) but lost interest in making more of the 9" blocks. My UFO goal was to join them together into a baby quilt top.

Before joining the blocks together, I decided to rework two of them that bothered me as part of the group. Those were the blocks at the top right (that bright blue isn't used anywhere else) and the bottom left (needs more of the background fabric.) I changed the corner squares in the bottom block to half-square triangles with the dark blue background, and I'm much happier with that look.

Instead of taking apart the block with the bright blue, I picked a different block pattern to make from scratch. This was a very easy block to piece.

After those were done, I figured out a plan for sashing and borders. It took a couple days, but I now have a finished quilt top. UFO Challenge Goal #1 completed!

Sewcialites 2 quilt top

39.5" x 50"

I didn't waste any time after that UFO success before I pulled out another project. This was a small quilt that had been pieced several years ago, then the quilting was started in 2022. Each fabric has been quilted with a different design in a different color thread. Here are some close shots of the fabrics and the quilting.

This photo of the back really shows the texture of the quilting. The backing is a flannel print.

All that needed to be done on this quilt was to finish quilting the borders, then add the binding. I took care of those items, and now it's a finished quilt. Goal #2 completed!

Diagonal Squares baby quilt

38" x 45"

It feels so good to have completed two of the goals from my UFO Challenge list. Maybe that will motivate me to keep pushing through the other projects I've chosen. If I can average completing two goals per month, it will be a very successful challenge for me.

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

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

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 1/5/2025

This week's stash report crosses over from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025. In my case, there's nothing to report yet for stash usage or additions in 2025, so my stash report will focus on the final totals from 2024.

I've been finishing up some blocks for the guild's BOM challenge. We are using the Sewcialites 2 pattern from Fat Quarter Shop. The pattern includes instructions for three different sizes of blocks, 3", 6" & 9". I started out by making all three sizes, but that didn't last very long. Two recent additions to the collection were blocks #11 & 12 in the 9" size, using 3/8 yard of fabric.

I decided to concentrate on finishing off my set of 3" blocks. I used 5/8 yard of fabric to make blocks #11 - 24 plus an extra block of my own choice. Here are all 25 blocks together, in no particular order.

Soon I'll be working on figuring out how to turn this set of tiny little blocks into a finished quilt. Our deadline for the final reveal is March.

2024 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                      1.0 yards

Used year to date:               137.0 yards

Added last week:                     0.0 yards

Added year to date:           117.25 yards

Net used in 2024:            19.75 yards

My final stash numbers for 2024 fit right in with my annual goals to use, donate or give away at least 100 yards of fabric and to use more fabric than I add to the stash. Maybe I can get up to 150 yards used this year?

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. It has been a very good year for getting in my daily time, with only five days missed all year, and those days were all when we were traveling. I'm looking forward to another year of tracking my days of quilting.

15 Minute Challenge for 2024

12/29 - 12/31           3 of 3 days

2024 Total         361 of 366 days

Success rate               98.6 %   

The new year has gotten off to a good start for quilting time. It's unlikely I will ever have a 100% success rate for a whole year, but I'm very happy with my total for 2024, and I hope to come close to the same this year.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

1/1 - 1/4                  4 of 4 days

2025 Total                4 of 4 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 7/14/2024

The main project filling my quilting time last week was the Sewcialites 2 blocks for our guild's Block of the Month. I used about 3/4 yard of fabric to make three different sizes of blocks.

I also used almost 1/2 yard for the Rail Fence Spinner blocks shared in yesterday's post. No new fabric was added to the stash last week.

2024 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                     1.25 yards

Used year to date:              47.375 yards

Added last week:                     0.0 yards

Added year to date:               43.0 yards

Net used in 2024:            4.375 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. Making the three sets of Sewcialites 2 blocks took up most of my time during the week. Choosing fabrics for all of those different sampler blocks seems to take a surprising amount of time, but maybe I'm just slow to make my decisions. 

15 Minute Challenge for 2024: 

7/7 - 7/13                 7 of 7 days

2024 Total          192 of 195 days

Success rate               98.46 %   

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

Sewcialites 2 Blocks

A large portion of my quilting time this week has been spent getting caught up on my Sewcialites 2 blocks, which our quilt guild is doing as a block of the month. Actually, we are making two blocks per month. The 

Sewcialites 2 pattern includes instructions for blocks in three different sizes: 3", 6" and 9", and I foolishly chose to make my blocks in all three sizes. 

This month I decided to get the most difficult blocks out of the way first, and those are the 3" blocks. I've been using solids for these blocks.

Sewcialites 2, 3" Blocks #9 - 10

Next I made the 9" blocks with the dark background.

Sewcialites 2, 9" Blocks #9 - 10

Here are all of my 9" blocks together. The bright blue in the top right block really stands out to me. I need to either remake that block or be sure to use that color in more blocks.

The last group of blocks to make were the 6" blocks in reds and greens. I had fallen behind on these and needed to make last month's blocks too.

Sewcialites 2, 6" Blocks #7 - 10

The original pattern for Block #7 was a butterfly, which didn't make sense to me with the Christmas colors. Instead, I looked through a couple of books for a substitute and made the Christmas Star from Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. That is the block at the top left in the photo above.

The block in this group that jumps out at me as being way too different than the rest is the one at the bottom left because it is so dark. That's another block that might need to get remade at a later date. Fortunately, it would be an easy block to make again.

I always like to get a shot of the different sizes of blocks together, just for some perspective on scale.

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. 

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 everyone!

Julie in GA 

Stash Report and Stitching Time 6/23/2024

There is only one more week until the end of June, and I'm trying hard to catch up with my on-going projects. This week I managed to make the monthly blocks for three different quilts.

Up first were two tiny little 3" blocks for our guild's block of the month, Sewcialites 2. This quilt-along 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. These are blocks #7 & 8.

Sewcialites 2, 3" blocks 

To really give an idea of how small these blocks are, I'm also showing them along with the 9" blocks I made earlier in the month. The general opinion when I showed the 3" blocks at our recent guild meeting was that I am nuts for making anything that small, and I can't say they are wrong.

Sewcialites 2, 3" & 9" blocks 

After those were done, I needed to do something easier. Thank goodness for Jen's Color Challenge blocks. This month's color choice was inspired by the Harlequin Rasboras, a raspberry colored tropical fish. I've been making two blocks each month, one using two shades of the monthly color and the other combining the monthly color with a dark blue background. These blocks will finish at 12".

Jen's Color Challenge , June blocks

We are halfway through the year on this project, and it seemed like a good time to check out my color combinations. The two-color blocks are a very colorful, cheery group.

As you can see in the next photo, I've used a few different dark blue background fabrics for these blocks. I didn't have enough of any single background for them. The dark fabrics really make the bright colors stand out.

I'm very happy with the way both sets of blocks are coming together. I should be able to make two colorful kid's quilts from them at the end of the year. 

Making all of these BOM blocks made a small dent in the stash. The blocks shown above plus the Hollow 9-Patch blocks shared in yesterday's post used a total of 3/4 yard of fabric, and there was no new fabric added to the stash this week.

2024 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                      .75 yards

Used year to date:                 38.5 yards

Added last week:                     0.0 yards

Added year to date:               32.0 yards

Net used in 2024:                6.5 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. On top of all of the BOM blocks, I also finished up some clothing alterations that have been needing to get done. It was a great relief to get those out of the way!

15 Minute Challenge for 2024: 

6/16 - 6/22               7 of 7 days

2024 Total          171 of 174 days

Success rate                 98.3 %   

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 6/9/2024

My stash report for the past week covers a variety of projects, as is typical for me. That includes my Bite-Size Gems project from a recent workshop, plus my scrappy blue Rail Fence Spinners blocks, which were shared in yesterday's post. I also finished two new blocks for Sewcialites 2, our quilt guild's block of the month for this year.

I've been making the Sewcialites 2 blocks in three different sizes each month. These are 9" blocks, and I still need to make the 3" and 6" versions. I think I will simplify the 3" butterfly block, and I'm going to come up with a different block pattern for the 6" set. I'm using Christmas fabrics for those, and in my mind, a butterfly just doesn't fit with that group.

My total for fabric used this week came to 1.5 yards. I just received my order from a Memorial Day sale, but haven't totaled up the additions to the stash yet. That will be included in the count next week.

2024 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                    1.50 yards

Used year to date:             37.125 yards

Added last week:                   0.00 yards

Added year to date:             27.50 yards

Net used in 2024:            9.625 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. It was a busy quilting week, with one new project started plus continued work on ongoing projects. I also went to one quilt museum exhibit and one quilt show (more on those later.) It was an excellent quilty week!

15 Minute Challenge for 2024: 

6/2 - 6/8                   7 of 7 days

2024 Total          157 of 160 days

Success rate                 98.1 %   

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