Fabric Comes and Goes

So when I moved last August, I vowed not to buy anymore fabric unless I ABSOLUTELY needed it. Someday when I have a settled home I will be allowed to buy more, but since I'm young and rather transitory, moving sweater box after sweater box of fabric every year or two just gets old.

Starting NOW I am really not going to buy anymore fabric. But since last August I can't really say I'm stuck to my resolution. Here's all the fabric I've bought in the last few months, which just keeps piling up on this chair since I have nowhere else to put it...



Ummm...oops.

Well a crafty friend of mine had a birthday last week, and I suspect that she is getting into quilting (or maybe I just WANT her to get into quilting, heh heh...) so I decided to make her a gift package of fabric culled from my stash. It seems like a good way to thin the ranks in my stash as well as spread the quilty love - now I just hope she likes it! Here's what she's getting:



I'm also including "Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift" since it has really good instructions and lots of great basic patterns, and is beautiful.

In the meantime, since I'm still not allowed to start anything new, this UFO crawled out of the closet:



I cut all the pieces in 2005 (or even longer ago??) made three blocks, and then put it away to marinate. The center squares are from Block Party Studios - they are all cut off center. Yet another one of those times when you get out a project that's been sitting for awhile and find yourself wondering, "What on earth was I thinking?!?"

Assembling

As I may have mentioned (did I??) I'm trying really hard to focus on getting works-in-progress finished into tops and tops finished into quilts before starting completely NEW projects, which is, of course, what I REALLLY want to do ;)

So this is my latest "assembly" project - I've got everything ready to go for the top (pretty much) I just need to get it sewn together! In the end it will essentially look like this, but there is a 4" outer border in the lighter blue that is in some of the blocks - I hope four inches will be enough of a border, but the quilt is already getting rather large for its intended purpose. It's going to be a gift for some dear friends and I think they will probably use it as a "couch" quilt. They are moving into a new house this weekend, so I wish it was done NOW so it could be a housewarming gift - but maybe by Christmas!!



This was totally a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants design, but overall I like the way it's coming out...

Friendship Star Exchange

So I'm participating in the "Friends Around the World" friendship star block exchange with the International Friendship Quilters (http://www.friendshipquilters.com). The blocks are easy to make, and I like the idea of having a quilt made of blocks from all of over the world. I forgot to take a picture of the first one I sent, but here is my second send (pink & green) and the first that I received (the blue). The blue block came to me from Rena in Australia - it's lovely, ¿verdad que si?



I guess there is some funny comic book page making program on our new I-book and my dad made this page b/c those were the only pictures on the computer. It's hi-larious...



I'm plugging away on the quilting of the Batik Cats - I got at least 2/3 of it done in Phoenix, and maybe 3/4. And since getting home I'm almost done - yeah!

WIPs

OK, so I'm focused on finishing!! Finishing! Finishing WIPs into tops and tops into quilts. I've got to finish what I've started so that I can start more w/o feeling too guilty about it!

I leave for Phoenix tomorrow morning which means a week w/o a sewing machine, but I will make the most of it by doing hand work. This top has been basted and will go along for hand quilting:



It was originally being saved for a special occaision, but I want to finish things, so I'm going to go ahead and finish it.

I'll also take along a few of these to work on:



I started that project specifically to take to my last training conference in Atlanta, and it's a really fun one (the project not ATL, bleh). I've only worked on it a little since then, so if I get bored of hand quilting I can work on those. This is my third week-long training conferene away from home, and I'm always torn between being a complete hermit at these conferences and trying to be social. The social part seems to take an especially large amount of work in this particular setting...ppl come from all different backgrounds, have all different interests and budgets, and so on... It's easier to just put on your pjs and chill out with needle work and a movie, but then you start to feel kind of like a blob...

Quilting/Crafting blog

I'm going to try having a quilting/crafting blog...just mainly for myself. If it goes the way of Siempre Gozoso (my basically defunct Spanish language blog) then so be it...