Stash Busting 2013 - Week 32

It's been a long time since I last posted for a Stash Report.  However, I have recently gotten a finish done, so I can actually count some fabric!  :-)

I finally finished my Lone Star wall hanging.  It ended up being about 62 x 62.  There was a bit of shrinkage to it due to the heavy amount of quilting in the open spaces.

Here's a close-up of one of the sides showing the quilting I did in the open squares and triangles.


I don't have a better picture of the finished feathers with the binding on it, but here's what it looked like before the binding was put on.  Lots of micro stippling all over the quilt to give the more open areas some dimension.


So now that the Lone Star quilt is done, I was able to count the fabric I used for the binding and hanging sleeves for the back.  The quilt will be hung in our foyer.  I also want to put a quilt on the opposite wall to fill out the space.  Here's the design for the next wall hanging:


I've never done a Mariner's compass before and this one will definitely be a bit of a challenge due to its sheer size.  The center block is 36" square and the entire quilt will be approximately 65" square.  Lots of pieces that all have to line up in the end, so it will be a challenge, but in a good way.  :-)

So here's my stash numbers right now... I definitely wanted to post before I add the 20+ yards I'll need for the mariner's compass quilt. ;-)

Added This Week:       0.00 yards
Added Year to Date:    5.86 yards
Used This Week:          1.09 yards
Used Year to Date:       5.98 yards
Net Year to Date:         0.13 yards

Yay!  I'm back in the black!   I have a few smaller projects (placemats) that will be counted towards the stash busting, but nothing huge in the works right now.  I do have a quilt on the frame, too and that will use up about 3 yards of fabric just for the backing.  Once its done being quilted, I'll be able to count that, too.

Check out Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Pictures

Today I took some additional photos of the Lone Star quilt in an attempt to show the quilting a bit more.  The colors are a bit off due the LED lighting above the quilt, but the texture shows up a bit more now.







I do have the following ones that were taken before the quilt was finished, but it shows all the detail and texture differences.....




We haven't quite decided upon how we're going to hang the quilt, but we have some ideas.  I have to add the hanging sleeves to the quilt next before we can really start attempting to hang it on the wall.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

July !!??

How the heck did it get to be July already?!  This year has absolutely flown by so far.  I guess that's what happens when you're always working towards the next weekend or trip.

The past few days we've been home on vacation.  Most of our vacations are spent at home as we really enjoy being around the house and yard.  Its just relaxing for us and its nice to not have to deal with packing for travel and actually traveling.

With the few days off from work, I have been able to get some quilting done as well as taking care of the garden.  Work has been busy and, as typical, all manner of issues have started cropping up as soon as I took the new manager position at work.  Just my luck, right? :-)

I finally finished all the quilting and binding of the Lone Star wall hanging.  It turned out completely awesome!  It hangs straight and is perfectly square.  I was worried at first that it wasn't going to lie flat due to the differences in the amount of quilting in different sections, but once it was washed and dried, it is completely flat.

Here is the finished masterpiece!









The pictures don't really do it justice as its very hard to photograph the texture differences.  It is definitely very spectacular in person.  I should figure out how to get some better pictures with my camera.  I'm considering entering it into some quilt shows, but I haven't figured out which ones yet.  I made the quilt as a wall-hanging for our foyer, so that's its main purpose.  I would like to put it into at least one show to maybe get some comments and see how it does.

That's all for now folks!  I'll be posting some pictures of the garden for later this week.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Progress and Other Things

Its been a little while since I posted on here.  My new position at work has been keeping me pretty busy.  I'm generally at work by 6:45 or 7am and I'm not leaving work until 5:30 or 6pm.  Its been some pretty long days lately, but I'm getting the hang of things a bit more and don't feel quite so overwhelmed by everything.

I have been able to squeeze in an hour or two here and there for quilting, which has been good.  My progress has been slower, but I'm still getting that relaxing time, so its all good.  :-)

I was able to finish up the Bento Box quilt top.  This isn't a great picture of the top...I'll get some more when I start to quilt it.




I've also made some good progress on the Lone Star.  Here is one of the setting triangles completely quilted.  I did a lot of dense filler around the star motif and to highlight the squares outlining it.




In the picture above, you can see the quilting I did in the blue border.  After it was finished, I wished I had done something a little differently as it doesn't really stand out at all.  I am not picking out all that stitching though, so its going to stay as it is.

And here are some close-ups of the corner squares.  It takes me about 2-2.5 hours to do each square due to the amount of dense quilting.  Its not very thought intensive at this point, but just takes a while to fill in everything.




These off-angle shots show the detail a bit more....





The final quilt is going to be very pretty and I can't wait to get it hung up on the wall.  This is a 67 x 67 quilt and will be hung in our 2-story foyer.  Soon I'll have to start planning to put on the opposite wall in the foyer. :-)


Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather.  Here in upstate NY its finally sunny (and no rain) and its supposed to be 85F today.  Its nice to have that sun out after having a month of almost constant rain.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Phew! Busy!

I can't believe its been almost 2 weeks since I last posted.  It seems like life has decided to get in the way of my blogging again.

I have been doing some quilting as well as needlepoint.  Our garden is also starting to flourish.  These pictures are from a little over a week ago, but I wanted to show some of my pretty flowers today. :-)



The pink flower below was towards the end of its blooming cycle.  When it first bloomed, the whole flower was a bright pink (similar to what you see on the edge of the petals).





And the start of my columbine.  It was trying to bloom a while ago, but it just wasn't warm/sunny enough yet.  It is currently blooming and I will show some pictures of it.


We had a crazy amount of rain last week.  Between last Tuesday and Saturday, we had 6.25" of rain.  While we needed the rain, we needed it over a larger period of time and not just a few days.  I'm just hoping we don't have a super-dry summer like we did last year.

With the long weekend this past weekend, DH and I decided to do some furniture shopping on Friday afternoon (we both took a half day off from work).  We ended up going to a local store that deals only Amish-made furniture (mostly from the Ohio area) and we're 99% sure we're going to get some furniture through there.  The prices are very reasonable ($240/ dining chair versus $450/chair at a local furniture store) and they will make everything custom for you.  We only wish we started out at this place instead of ending there. :-)

We also took a drive Saturday morning out to Vermont to check out some antique dealers.  Since it was pouring rain all day, it actually wasn't too bad to go out for the drive.  There weren't as many people out due to the rain and cold temperatures (think pouring rain and no warmer than 45F), so it made the drive and window shopping a bit more enjoyable.  We left the house at about 10am and headed to Bennington, VT.  We then made a few other stops on our way up to Manchester, VT and then drove back home.  We were back by about 5pm.  We didn't find anything that said "buy me now", but it was a good way to spend the day and we enjoyed ourselves.

Hopefully I'll get some quilting mojo back soon.  I think I'm in a bit of a rut as I really need to finish quilting my Lone Star quilt and its taking quite a bit of time.  But then again... I'm only getting 30 minutes here and there to make progress on it.



Hope everyone else enjoyed their Memorial Day and took a few minutes to remember our fallen soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our freedoms!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I realized today as I was starting to write this post that I never actually wrote down what I had wanted to accomplish last week!  Maybe that's a good thing as I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. ;-)

The week was busy and went by quickly, but I was able to do a bit of work in the sewing room.

I posted here about some fabric organization ideas. I've had a few people say they have also tried this and liked them.  These are the boards that I used and are good quality. 

 

And this is what it looks like with some fat quarters wrapped around them.

If you want to get yourself a set, they can be found here:

In other news, its been a busy week and we're getting ready for our trip to Paris next week.  A week from tomorrow, we will be heading out for our flights to Paris, France!  Its going to be a fun trip! :-)

So here's my list for this upcoming week:
1. Organize more fat quarters and leftover fabrics onto boards.
2. Quilt straight lines on Lone Star.
3. Post pictures of needlepoint progress.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Quilting

I've been slowly making progress on the Lone Star quilt.  At this stage, I'm quilting in the ditch again around the Lone Star in the middle of the quilt.  I thought about doing something free-motion, but didn't like any of the options that I had tried.  I really want the center to just stand on its own, so I think stitching in the ditch will highlight that.

I'm using a dark blue variegated thread for the ditch quilting along with a dark blue Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The back of the quilt will look interesting once its done.

The cross-hatched lines from the ditch quilting will really show.  There's also a dark blue border outside the star that will be quilted using the same dark blue threads, so there will be something visually interesting on the back of the quilt, too.

There's a small amount of color bleeding on the back of the quilt from washing out the blue marks, but I think once I give it a good through wash, it should be OK.  I'll put a bunch of color-catchers into the wash with the quilt and it should pull all that excess dye out.  I'll just have to check it VERY carefully before I stick it into the dryer.

I hope everyone has a great Easter!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I know today is Tuesday already and I missed my Monday post. :-(  Work was a bit crazy on Monday as our business recently instituted daily 1/2 meetings to go over scheduled items.  As such, it meant a lot of leg work ahead of time to get updates on everything.

Not a whole lot of sewing happened last week or over the weekend, but a few interesting things.  We went to a wood working show on Sunday in Saratoga Springs, NY.  The pieces of work there were amazing and some were very creative.  Someone had made a chair that was finished except one leg, which was still the original wood with markings on it for the final shape. The arms of the chair held a small hammer and chisel and the "hands" held the tools on the unfinished leg.  Essentially, it was depicting a chair making itself. :-)

Here are two pictures of items from the show.  There was a lot more items there, but I didn't take any real pictures.

They did have a children's "toy factory", which was definitely worth the admission price.  Our niece and her dad came with us and they built a small car as well as a tool box.  After watching our niece hammer a nail in with about 50 strikes, her dad helped out on the next ones so it didn't take quite so long.

 
So here's the list from last week:
1. Finish quilting the outer border on Lone Star.  DONE!  Finally!
2. Quilt the white sections of the center star on Lone Star.  I changed how I'm quilting the center, so its just stitch-in-ditch.  I'll take some photos a little later this week and get them posted.
3. Post pictures of pool table being assembled. DONE!
4. Fold fabrics from winter sampler and put on bookshelf. Not started.

I'm hoping to get back into the groove for quilting.  I haven't had a lot of extra time lately, but I'm hoping with this little break that I'll be more energized into getting the quilting done.  It will be nice once the Lone Star quilt is done and I think all the work will be worth it in the end.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Crafting!

~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I missed a lot of posting last week!  Sorry!

Last week was a bit crazy between work and trying to finish up the coffered ceiling in time for the pool table to be delivered.  I've also been feeling a bit "down" lately, so its been difficult to find time to get into the sewing room.

I have been able to make it to the gym 3 times each week for the past 2 weeks.  To date, I've already lost 4 pounds.  Yay!  I've found my best workout day is actually Friday.  There's something to be said for being done with work, not having to get up the next morning, and hitting the gym for a good strong workout.

I think I'm going to be getting a different kind of workout tomorrow....SNOW!

We're expected to get a pretty significant snow storm for this late in March.  We're actually located around the first "a" in the word "Saratoga Springs" in the picture above.  This puts us in the 6-10" range, but if the storm shifts a bit, we could be in the 5-8" range or in the 10"+ range.  We're up in the hills a little bit, so we may be closer to the 10"+ range.

So the other big thing this past week was that our pool table was delivered on Friday.  There is plenty of room for it in the room, but somehow the room feels smaller now.  I think its just because we've either had nothing in the room or just a small foos-ball table.  It looks really nice and we're definitely putting it through its paces.  :-)

I'm not even going to bother going through my last Monday list, but I have been making some small progress on the Lone Star quilting.  I have 3 of the 4 sides of the outer border quilted and the last side is almost halfway done.  There's still a bunch more quilting to do, but it will be good to be done with the outer border and move onto something else.

So here's the list for the upcoming week:
1. Finish quilting the outer border on Lone Star.
2. Quilt the white sections of the center star on Lone Star.
3. Post pictures of pool table being assembled.
4. Fold fabrics from winter sampler and put on bookshelf.

Hope everyone has a great week!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Quilting

I've been slowly making progress on the Lone Star quilt.  The outer border has the feather completely defined and I'm working on putting in the detail quilting around the edges of it.  It takes a while, but I know it will definitely be worth it in the end. 

Here's what it looks like with just the feather defined.  The feather is there...but its not very pronounced.

And here it is with the detailed, micro-quilting around the feather.  It really stands out now!  I have a few pictures below at different angle to show the texture the micro-quilting adds around the feather.

I love these pictures along the length of the border.  It really shows off the difference between the feather quilting and the detailed stitching.

I have the detailed stitching a little less than halfway done on the outer border.  I haven't been able to get to any quilting this week though.  Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in 15 minutes here or there to help make some progress on it.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  The weather was finally pretty nice here in upstate NY.  We had some sun and the temperatures were above freezing during the day.  It was still cold enough at night that we received a dusting of snow each night, but it was gone within a few hours during the day.

I did get some items done this week, but not as much as I would have liked.  I had some medical tests that I had to have run over the past few days, which ended up making it such that I didn't want to do anything.

Here was the list from last week:
1. Finish quilting the border for Lone Star. I didn't get to finish the quilting, but I have about half of the border done.

2. Post pictures of ceiling progress (we should get all the crown up this week). Done.  Posted about it here.
3. Press and photograph Bento Box pieces. Done.  I'll post some pictures here.

4. Setup Wildflower Fields for quilting. No progress.

I really hope to make some progress on the Lone Star quilting this week.  I'm at a stage where I can sit down and do 15-20 minutes of quilting easily and then be able to stop.  I find that when I am at stages where I can do just a little bit at a time, I am able to make more progress.  During the week its sometimes hard to find an hour or two to do something more complicated.

I have a guild meeting tonight, so that means no quilting will happen tonight.  I also have to make sure I start getting to the gym this week, so that will also take up some time.  We only have one full weekend left to finish the ceiling, so we're down to the wire and need a big push to finish that up.  So this week, my list is going to be shorter than normal.  Only two things on it this week...


1. Finish quilting borders on Lone Star.
2. Post pictures for ceiling progress.

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Note to Self....

.... when quilting, make sure you don't quilt your quilt to itself!  Oops!

I felt the change when the needle hit the extra thickness and then realized I was quilting through too many layers.  Time to rip out those stitches!

Here's the back with the feather finished

And the front (ignore the blue marks).

The next day, I had started to remove some of the basting stitches and washed out a portion of the blue marks.  Here's what the corner of the quilt looks like now:

All those open spaces around the feathers will be filled with micro-stippling.  I have one corner partially done with the micro-stippling and it looks pretty cool.  I'll need to take a picture of it tonight. :-)


Happy Crafting! ~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  Here in Upstate NY, it was a bit of a cold and dreary weekend.  We had snow/sleet off and on all day Saturday.  Sunday evening we had a short burst of snow, but in general it was pretty cold and damp feeling.  At least it was outside, inside we had the fireplace going so it was nice and toasty warm. :-)

I was able to get a few things done last week and even got a bit of quilting done on Saturday.  I was going to go on a "tea" road trip with Yarnkettle, but we decided to post-pone due to the yucky weather on Saturday.

Here's the list from last week:
1. Finish sewing the Bento Box quilt pieces.  Done!  The blocks are sewn, but I need to press them before I do any more pictures.
2. Quilt the marked border for the Lone Star quilt.  Done! I even got a little bit quilted.

3. Post pictures of the ceiling progress.  Done!  Its posted here.
4. Decide upon design to quilt Wildflower Fields.  Done!  I decided to quilt this using a panto called Bayside.

Here's the plan for the upcoming week:
1. Finish quilting the border for Lone Star.
2. Post pictures of ceiling progress (we should get all the crown up this week).
3. Press and photograph Bento Box pieces.
4. Setup Wildflower Fields for quilting.

Hope everyone has a great week!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

Whew!  What a week last week was.  I was definitely glad when the weekend rolled around.  The weekend was a bit of a late start for me though since I didn't leave work on Friday until 6pm.  Nothing like being one the last people in the office on a Friday evening.  Yuck!  At least it was quiet and I got some good work done.

Today is another quiet day in the office.  Presidents' Day is a floating holiday for us, which means that a lot of people take the day off and our hourly staff have it as a holiday.  The office is definitely quiet here today.  With this week being mid-winter break for the schools in the area, the entire week should be a little bit lighter.

Last week was a productive week, even though I spent a lot of time at work.

1. Mark the border quilting for the large outer border on Lone Star.  Done! I started and finished marking on Saturday morning.
2. Post pictures of needlepoint and coffered ceiling progress.  Done!  I posted about it here and here.
3. Post pictures of Bento Box progress.Done!  I posted about it here.
4. Post review of tea maker. :-) Done! Posted here.

I don't have any pictures to share today, but I'm going to be leaving the office a bit early today to make up for last week and I hope to get some quilting done when I get home. I did sew a bit on the Bento Box quilt over the weekend, but no pictures to show for it.  On Sunday, my in-laws came up to help us out with the coffered ceiling, so we made some good progress there, too.

So here's the list for this coming week:
1. Finish sewing the Bento Box quilt pieces.
2. Quilt the marked border for the Lone Star quilt.
3. Post pictures of the ceiling progress.
4. Decide upon design to quilt Wildflower Fields.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-a-List Monday

The past week has been a fairly good week in terms of getting things done.  I made good progress at the beginning of last week, but petered out a bit at the end.  We did have a bit of snow come down on Friday with the N'oreaster that came up the coast and battered NYC and Boston.  Since we're quite a bit inland, we didn't get as much snow as they did.

These first pictures were taken at about 8am on Friday morning.  Just a little dusting on the ground:

It didn't really snow heavily though on Friday morning.  This is what we had by about 2 in the afternoon.

The snow did come down at a good clip during the night though as we woke up to 10" on Saturday morning.

This last picture is from Sunday morning.  The sun on Saturday afternoon melted a little bit of the snow that was left on the sidewalk after shoveling and the sidewalk is now perfectly clean. :-)

It was nice to see everything white again though.

So here was the list from last week:


1. Rinse out blue marks from Lone Star quilt and photograph. All the marks are rinsed out.  When you look at the close up pictures below, it shows all the straight-line stitching.  I plan on doing more custom free-motion quilting in the open areas, but I want to get the other borders done and then come back and fill-in afterwards.

2. Start quilting outside cream border on Lone Star quilt. Not done. :-(  I got lazy.
3. Post photos of needlepoint and coffered ceiling progress. Done...sort of.  I do have photos of both the needlepoint and coffered ceiling, but I'm going to spread them out through a few posts. :-)

So this coming week, I hope to get a few more things done and log a few more posts.
1. Mark the border quilting for the large outer border on Lone Star.
2. Post pictures of needlepoint and coffered ceiling progress.
3. Post pictures of Bento Box progress.
4. Post review of tea maker. :-)

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations