Baring it All

I very much enjoy Fiona's Sunday Stash whenever I've gorged on pretties made a well-considered, project-related purchase but that only provides the tiniest glimpse and I've never bared it all. Well, Sarah of Sarah Quilts has a fun link party to do just that and it came timely as well. My stash nook suffered from a lot of pulling and cramming lately and it was high time to sit down and do some sorting.

Cute anecdote: My husband came home whilst I was still in the middle of this process sitting on the sofa surrounded by boxes, fabric, scraps and bags. He gave me a look, a smile and a properly gollum-y "My PRECIOUS!", dispappeared for a moment to put away his shoes and came back saying "Is sitting on the couch!" Yep, I melted a little. No word about me having too much fabric, either - could it be that he's given up come around?

Well, here are my two boxes of fabric sorted by colour. I will always keep these even though I will sometimes make specific project boxes.

And here's a box full of kidlet and baby friendly fabric as well as two small boxes for solids (minus the black and white I'm currently working with).

My precious Australian handprinted fabrics as well as thicker and more coarse fabrics to the left, Echo scraps (so precious, they've got to have their own place) and fabrics which haven't been washed yet on the right.

To the left my scrap box and bags. I purged quite a lot of less useful scraps yesterday. You know them, those tiny pieces that you tell yourself could be useful but end up not being touched ever. To the right my box with stray blocks like an unfinished Dresden, my leftover HSTs from my Emerald challenge quilt top, my finished hexies..

Not to be forgotten, my fashion fabrics, some bed linen, funky 80s GDR fabric from my mother-in-law.

And last but not least: Interfacing, felt, wool.

*Obviously not pictured: Batting, fiberfill, more interfacing, my growing stash of patterns, books, BurdaStyle magazines, sewing basket, notions, more knitting needles, ...

Turns out it looks like a lot less fabric when it's all neatly packed away. Well, umm, to be honest, there's still a couple of plastic bags underneath my desk with old scraps and fabrics given to me by friends or their mothers. So, yeah, it might be a little more once I take a moment to sort and purge that chaos. Another day.

Oh, another plus of keeping your stash organised? It is much easier for friends to spot fabric they like! These have been pulled for a bunch of little monster gifts. (Check out RevoluzZza's tutorial if you don't know it yet. You can find monsters - and a kitten - I've made before in my Flickr stream.)

Happy sewing and don't forget to take a look at the other stash confessions!

Hand Quilted Fish & HSTs = This Close to a Finish

So I've finished hand quilting the stars in each Fish & HST block...

...which leaves the back looking like this. Finally time for some backing!

Once I ditched my idea of paper piecing N's birth date, weight and height (yes, it definitely would have been a great detail but I didn't feel it in the end) I settled on this gorgeous Summersville print from my stash. I'd secured 1.5 yards shortly after it came out for a future child of mine but really couldn't resist using it here. It fits so perfectly and who else should you splurge some of your most treasured fabric on? Roughly half a yard is left anyway. So there.

I've even started machine quilting the small and big octagons. As soon as these are done I will quilt the small fish squares and then it should be ready for binding. Phew, I'm this close to finishing what has been in the making for a long time and, believe it or not, I'm still falling in love more deeply. With my nephew as well. No worries.

Well, here's the unchanged stats although both the baby and the anniversary quilt are making awesome progress.

Finishes - 0

Ongoing Projects - 5
Anniversary quilt
Fish & HSTs
square baby quilt
Red Riding - quilting is making progress
cushion cover for the husband

Stalled Projects - 3
Grecian Waters/Emerald HST quilt - finished the top! - stalled until deadline projects have been dealt with
EPP hexies
EPP parallelograms/stars - once more stalled

Planning Stage - 2
Summer dress 2 - Darling Ranges
Skirt

Happy sewing!

Sunday Stash

Whoa, has it really been a week and a half since I last blogged? That was an unplanned absence on my part but here I am resurfacing just in time for Sunday Stash. My intern ended on Friday - so weird to say goodbye to the colleagues! - and whilst I wrapped up all my tasks in the daytime I spent most of my late afternoons and evenings meeting the sis and nephew as well as scouring job portals, writing cover letters and taking new photographs to be included in my job applications. Let's see where life takes me next.

Down project completion road is a serious short term goal and not incredibly unlikely, either. Need evidence? Yesterday a much anticipated parcel from the UK arrived.

My sister helped me to pick a colour for the solid stripes down the sides of my anniversary quilt. Thanks for everybody's input on my horizontal / vertical dilemma! I think I can officially let the cat out of the bag and announce that I decided to stick with horizontal layout. Back onto the solid - I had considered going down the light aqua or grey route which are both dominant in the quilt but my sister gave me the excellent piece of advice to go with the less prominent navy.

She had some really good reasons to sway me in an instant.

1) It'll look more interesting and dramatic to pick up the less prominent colour.

2) It'll add a masculine touch to the overall more subdued look which will appeal to my husband.

What a clever sis, eh? She should take up sewing or something. Well, a couple for days later I'm about to chop up 7 metres of dark navy Klona cotton.

During the ordering process this Jeni Baker print easily sneaked into my shopping basket and is the real stash acquisition. I don't have an immediate project for it but it'll make an excellent baby quilt back if I ever get to make one for a girl. It's 3:1 in my really close circle of friends from uni and family so far. I'm curious to know what the the next two expecting sets of friends are cooking and how it will impact this statistic.

Now, hop on over to Fiona and take a look at everyone else's pretties. I know I will.

Happy sewing!