Saturday Stash: A Cautionary Tale

Online buying is safe, easy, and well . . . easy.

Know what this is? It's a photo of a fat quarter bundle of the entire Lizzie House "Catnap" collection, newly available. Placed "on hold" as soon as I saw it advertised.

And this? Yes, it's a second bundle of the same line.

Now, I love love love Lizzie House fabrics. Enough to buy two bundles of the same collection? Not really. I  forgot I'd placed it "on reserve," and when I saw the collection at another online shop, I pounced. Imagine my surprise when two! bundles arrived, a day apart. 

To their credit, Pink Castle Fabrics agreed to take one bundle in return. But they charge a 10% restock fee, and of course, I'd have to pay the return shipping. All that plus the original shipping cost would wind up being more than $20. So I'm keeping both, maybe someday it will be one of those $250 per fat quarter fabrics and I can buy a plane ticket to Hawai'i!

And this? 

This is what happens when a quilter decides she want to make this quilt:

from this book:

and realizes she owns almost no "low volume" prints. So she buys a fat quarter of nearly every low volume print in every quilt shop she visits during an all-day road trip to pick up a quilt from Wolf Creek Quilting.

Safe, easy, and . . . . dangerous!

BTW, just wait 'til you see what I have to give away next weekend for the "Grow Your Blog" hop!
From the desk of your

What's Wrong With This Picture

Has this ever happened to you? You get a quilt top all finished, pressed, hung to photograph -- and notice "hey, something is wrong."

No, it's not that the top edge is missing -- that's folded over the deck railing so I could take the photo.

It's the flying geese in the outside border. The background and colored prints are reversed! I can't believe I got the quilt top completely finished without noticing this mistake!

Sigh.

This is the 2012 Fat Quarter Shop "Designer Mystery BOM" quilt. It's made from Bonnie & Camille's "Vintage Modern" fabric, a collection I loved so much I bought the entire fat quarter bundle. And made four extra blocks so the quilt would be big enough for my queen sized-bed.

Guess it's not really finished, huh?

Linking up to TGIFF, hosted this week by Julie at That's Sew Julie.

As well as "Can I Get a Whoop Whoop" at Confessions of a Fabric Addict:

And with Richard and Tanya at Link-a-Finish Friday:

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"Designer Mystery" is my first UFO finish for 2014 -- I promise I'll have those flying geese flying by February 1. Are you working on your UFO #7?


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WIP Wednesday: Wiley Way

It's time for the first WIP Wednesday 2014 -- something completely new, I even had to buy fabric (gasp) for it!

I'm sure I shared before that I make a quilt for each of my Mother's great-grandchildren when they turn 12 The next "turning-12" is a big Chicago Bears fan, so his quilt is navy blue and orange.

The pattern is from two Colorado designers, Sassafras Lane Designs. Their designs are named for various streets where they have lived over the years. Wiley Way has a distinctly modern bent, which I thought perfect for Max.

I love this design! It looks tricky, but it's actually really simple!

I'm using various oranges from my stash. The background is Northcott Colorworks Premium Solids in Navy from Ruth's Stitchery. They carry the entire line of this lovely, higherqualitythanKonaCotton fabric.

I'm surprised at how fast it is going together -- I just bought the background fabric on Monday. It would be finished if I hadn't alternated working on this with working on my January UFO project, the 2012 Designer Mystery quilt from Fat Quarter Shop. [Really, I cannot do the 2014 Mystery BOM, I don't have room on my BOMs Away board. I cannot do the 2014 Mystery BOM, I don't have room on my BOMs Away board. I cannot do the 2014 Mystery BOM, I don't have room on my BOMs Away board.]

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

I'm driving to Denver this morning to pick up my "Main Street" quilt from the Wiley Designer and long-armer, Kristy. I am so excited!

From the desk of your

BOMs Away in 2014

I'm such a sucker for Blocks of the Month I tell myself, "It's only ONE block, you can do that!" Then I wind up with eight sets of blocks and no quilts. And another seven BOMs for the new year!

I will say my "BOM Board" helps keep me motivated to finish each block every month. I love making that check mark!

Last week, I posted a photo of my "BOMs Away!" board on Facebook with the bottom line empty. A Scrap Squad buddy teased me that I had room for one more BOM -- so I added "Hats for Sailors." Now when I'm tempted to take up yet another Block of the Month program, I can remind myself "there is no room for it on the board!"

The only carryover program from last year is Jackie Robinson's "3D Sampler." It's an incredible program, and Jackie's directions are excellent. But each little block finishes at 4", so the pieces are tiny tiny tiny!

This is the third "Patchwork Party" program I've joined. This year, all the pieces are laser cut. So the blocks go together in minutes!

Sonya at Ruth's Stitchery is hosting a "First Thursday" mystery this year. It's one of those "if you finish your blocks and bring them back, the next month is free" programs. So it's important that one remembers why she went into the shop on the First Thursday and doesn't wander around then leave without picking up the next month's block.  Ahem.

The Wednesday morning block party at Ruth's is working on this Stephanie Prescott design in 2014. Anna Marie at Quilter's Stash in Windsor made their sample and reports the biggest challenge is deciding what fabrics go where.

My biggest challenge was deciding which colorway to use. So I bought them both -- decisions are so overrated!

Here is my "just for fun" BOM. It's Lori Holt's "Quilty Fun" and I am using American Jane's "Potluck" fabrics 

The Wednesday evening group is using Marti Michell's  newest set of templates and her book "5 is Fabulous."

But I fell in love with her new fabric line and the quilt made with it: "Bordered Rows." Aren't I lucky that our neighboring shop down the road in Pueblo, Stitcher's Garden, is hosting it as a BOM?

I already have another of PatchAbilities' mini quilt programs in progress, but couldn't  (or didn't!) resist their new one. The quilts finish at 12" X 32" and are perfect as door hangers. Each month's kit includes a metal door hanger "topper."

I read on another blogger's post today that she is including a tab for BOMs at the top of the page. What a good idea! Now you can watch my progress each month -- and I hope, cheer me on!

I have my first BOM UFO quilt from last year put together except the last border. It will be Friday's "TGIFF" post.

From the desk of your

My Year in Temperatures Scarf

Kari guessed what the yarn is for!  It's a scarf depicting the daily temperatures in Colorado Springs!  

I selected a different color for each five degrees of temperature difference. Colorado temps vary from well below zero to triple digit highs over the course of a year -- so it will take a lot of different yarn colors. 

So far this year the temperature has swung from -10F to 61F!  And the New Year is only one week old!

See that yellow row? The high was 61 on Friday. The fuchsia represents "below zero." I based my color choices on the NOAA weather map. 

Because our daily air temperatures often boast a 30 degree difference between low and high, I decided to knit three rows each day. Each row represents the low, mean (average) and high temperature for that day. 

It will be fun to see the colors swing from purples and blues to yellows, orange and red as summer approaches. I'll post more photos of "My Year in Temperatures" as the year progresses. 

Tearing Out My Hair

Srzly, I spent most of yesterday trying to write code for a "grab my button" icon for 12 Finishes in 2014.  The image part works fine, but the code box so 52 Quilts followers can paste the button on their own blogs did NOT! I tried three or four tutorials, but it was only when I started reading the comments on the tutes that I saw many people are having the same problem of an "empty" box on their "grab my button" widget! I promised "something nice" to anyone who would test it for me, and Irene did so. Of course, it didn't work.  I think I'll send her a nice handful of my hair!

All this to say, my good intentions of finishing off the last few BOM blocks and blogging about my ideas for 12 in 2014 UFOs -- didn't happen.

Knitting

I did, however, finish the first "Hats for Sailors" hat of 2014.

I finished it last night while watching the first episode of Downton Abbey Season 4. The yarn is Millamia, 100% Merino washable wool.  The Ravelry group Hats for Sailors is doing a knitalong of Graham  this month  It's a free pattern, so if you're a knitter, please consider joining us and knitting a hat for a US Sailor.

12 in 2014 UFO Challenge

52 Quilts "Finish 12 in 2014" challengers are busily working away on their #7 UFO.  For myself, rather than working on a random UFO, I set myself a different challenge. Remember all those Blocks of the Month I worked on last year? The first Monday of each month was "BOMs-Away" day. And I kept up pretty well (except for that wicked 3D BOM by Jackie Robinson. What a killer!)

This photo is from September. It's too dark to photograph in my sewing room right now, but I swear all except the 3D Sampler are up to date!

I have all those BOM blocks completed, but not sewn together into quilt tops. let alone quilted and bound! SO I've decided my personal challenge this year will be to complete one BOM quilt each month! First up is my favorite, the 2012 Designer Mystery Challenge quilt:

I added some blocks to make the quilt larger. The quilt is blogged here. I love Bonnie and Camille's fabric!

Something Completely Different

Just for fun, let's play a little guessing game. There may be prizes (you know how I love to send things to 52 Quilts followers!)

What project do you think I have in mind for this collection of Cascade 220 yarn?

First correct guess gets the prize -- no, I don't know what it will be. Maybe a handful of my going-to-grey hair?

From the desk of your

About Those UFOs

Before I moan about updating the blog design, let me share two more 13 in 2013 UFO finishes.

Both of these lovelies are from Kerry of Kerry's Quilting. Somehow they got lost in the ether-net when she emailed them to me. And that's a shame, because they are something to see! (Not to mention, it brings the total number of UFO finishes by 52 Quilts followers in 2013 up to 159!)

The first is one of those I-can't-believe-you-finished-the-whole-thing designs from Temecula Quilt Company, "Jamestown Landing." I love this quilt! Go here to see Kerry's kick-off of this project.

Kerry's second submission for the UFO Parade is one I really want to add to my quilting bucket list!  It's "Seven Sisters" by Marti Michell. Kerry reports that she started this one at the Road to California in January 2013 and brought it out of hibernation on Veteran's Day 2013. The perfect Veteran's Day project!

Kerry, I can't wait to see what you do for 12 Finishes in 2014!

I'm trying to add the code so all of you who blog can add the "12 in 2014" button to your own blog. And it's not working! I'm going to publish this post and go back to tearing out my hair -- I hope to publish the new button tomorrow, please come back to see if it works!


From the desk of your