Tag Archives: sewmystash2015

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In 2014, I really got back into regular quilting and sewing. Much of my stash at the start of 2014 was pretty outdated and I was seeing so many great projects being made from newer, more colorful, bold, beautiful, modern fabrics! So naturally, I had to have some. I certainly spent some time doing some quality fabric shopping last year, but I also worked really hard to create my sewing space, prewash all my fabrics that I hadn't yet prewashed over the years (read as: a lot of fabric) as well as to get it organized, a la Jeni Baker's suggestions in her awesome "Art of Choosing" blog series.

I'm working my way through some old WIPs, sometimes with less than inspiring fabrics compared to my new stuff. Participating in mini quilt swaps on Instagram and a couple quilting bees has allowed me to start dipping into the new stuff, and I've started making piles of some of my newer fabrics so that once I'm allowed to start some new larger projects, I have a palette ready to go. ;-)

I have found in my shopping this year that I am a blender addict. The majority of my purchases this year have been tone-on-tone or white-on-color fabrics. I participated in the Stash Stack Club for a few months (turquoise, citron/lime, orange) which built up my stash in those areas. You'll see my gaps in the rainbow, namely pinks and true greens. I'd also like a few more reds to choose from.

Lots of blues... but many of those are a decade old (originally collected for a bed quilt I was going to make myself when I was single, and never even started) and slightly less than inspiring. I destashed some to a friend recently, but the blues could use some more work.

Neutrals (I clearly lean to greys over browns/tans):

These are holiday prints (Halloween and Hanukkah) and miscellaneous multicolored prints, including novelty:

Once I got the stash all organized it made it so easy for me to pull fabrics for projects, or potential projects in some cases. Yeah, I just like to play with my pretty fabrics. Here are a few of my current piles. I'm building this first pile for some future quilt project. I'm currently crushing on greens/turquoises/teals.

I have a sorely neglected WIP to make my 2.5 year old a cuddle quilt. These batiks will be the fish on her ocean quilt.

And these cute zebras and elephants will become a baby quilt. Still thinking on a pattern choice for them.

Any fabrics that are over a yard I have stored on my mini bolts (cut up foam poster board from the dollar store).

Three of those are slated to be backings on specific projects in my current to do list. A few others I'm intending to make children's clothing with. My son will probably use the turtle or octopuses for the backing on his quilt.

I'll have to show you my precuts and scraps in another post. All in all my stash is in much better shape than it started the year. The gaps that I'm currently shopping are:

  • white on black
  • red blenders
  • low volume (esp text fabrics)
  • non-blenders (stuff with more than one color in it!)

That said, I'm not in particular need of filling those gaps at the moment. I need to knock out some finishes before I start a fun new project. I'll be linking up to #sewmystash2015 on IG led my Leasa as I use some of what you see above throughout the year.

What's in your fabric stash?

Linking up to Sunday Stash with Molli Sparkles.

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I've missed showing you a lot of new fabric in my stash in the past few months, but here's some old stash fabric. In 2005 I participated in a purple charm fabric swap that resulted in The Purple Quilt that I finally finished last year. I have a TON of purple charm squares left, so when I was offered an opportunity to be part of a project-based blog hop, I added one more thing to the to do list and said yes!

Now, since I already used my favorite fabrics on The Purple Quilt, I'm a little less than enthusiastic about the pile that I have left in my stash. So, step one was to sort through the pile and eliminate the ugly fabrics and the really ugly fabrics (no pictures of those). ;-) I ended up easily finding 48 purple charms in my stash and I'll only be buying some solid purple (dark indigo by American Made Brand, the middle one below) as my "neutral" to be able to get started on the blocks.

feature fabrics
auditioning solids for my background fabric

This makes the fourth project that I cut fabric to start during the first week of January. At least amidst all that cutting I even also had my first finish of 2015 yesterday (my Disney Mini for the IG #DisneyMiniSwap2015 that I'll be mailing in the next day or so -- pics to follow).

I'm excited to keep working on this purple project and for the blog hop reveal in March.

Linking up to Sunday Stash with Molli Sparkles.

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I only checked 5 of my 17 (ouch!) goals off my 2014 Q4 Finish Along goal list. I'm still quite pleased as two of those were 8 and 11 years old and one was a twin sized, the largest I've free motion quilted on my domestic machine (with a 7" throat).

So, rolling those forward, reassessing on a few, adding some additional old WIPs, I think this is the whole list... maybe.

  1. Disney Quilt Swap 2015 (background pieced and template printed)
  2. Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap (a couple blocks pieced)
  3. Stellar Wind (the Giant Wonky Star Quilt) (ready to quilt)
  4. Charm Dash quilt using my purple charm squares (pattern by Ms. Midge)
  5. Rainbow Mini Swap (first block complete, see below)
  6. Little Letters in Blues/Greens Quilt (all letters pieced)
  7. Little Letters in Brights Quilt (all letters pieced)
  8. Ocean quilt for The Girl (top pieced, but needs applique done)
  9. 2004 (ugh) Baseball Quilt (some blocks pieced)
  10. Batik SCVQA philanthropy quilt (sandwiched)
  11. Roman Stripez with butterfly backing (some blocks pieced)
  12. Roman Stripez with turtle backing (some blocks pieced)
  13. The Purple Ninja Quilt (fabric selected)
  14. Memory House Vol. 1 Quilt (2 houses complete)
  15. Pirate Quilt (pre-cut fabric selected)
  16. My safari animal baby quilt (piecing has begun)
  17. My son's animal quilt (piecing has begun)
  18. Very Hungry Caterpillar twin sized quilt (fabric and pattern selected)
  19. Hawaiian lap quilt (fabric and pattern selected)
  20. Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along (first 3 sets of blocks done)
  21. Winnie the Pooh Skirt/Shorts for The Girl (fabric selected)
  22. Envelope quilt (a couple blocks pieced)
  23. Monster Quilt (first applique block in progress)
  24. Christmas Mini Quilt (using 4 orphan blocks I somehow acquired)

So, I tried to order these in priority order. Somewhere around #9 this got really hard. My guild is having a UFO swap this month, so maybe I can drop one of these off my list. We'll see.

Here's a glimpse of the last thing to come off of my sewing machine, the first block for my Rainbow Mini Swap (#rainbowminiswap on IG). Linking up to Q1 Finish Along Goals.