More scrappiness going on here.  Yesterday during the #Presidents Day Sew In, I pulled some backing yardage and scraps to make a couple of small donation quilts.  (And no, there’s no visible difference in my string bins.  Sigh.)

I see one block out of place, do you?  See any others?

These are 7.5″ blocks, and I don’t have a 7.5″ ruler.  I do have this nifty Creative Grids Squaring Up and Fussy Cutting Ruler.  I went online to see how to use it, and also found out that I have the prehistoric version.  The new ones are printed with a bar code to view on your phone and go directly to the YouTube instructions.  Huh.

This turned out not to be the tool I wanted for trimming 54 blocks, so I used a little tape on my 9.5″ ruler to make my own, and they trimmed up pretty quickly.

Heading back up to turn that block…

A nice big finish this week and no new fabric!  Scrappy Stars used 13.5 yards, my first finish in two weeks.

This week:  + 0 yards,  – 13.5  yards
This year: + 38 yards,  – 37.75 yards
Net destashed added in 2017:  .25 yards
Look at that!  Only a quarter yard down!

Hope you’re using your stash!

I’m linking up to the Stash Report at Patchwork Times. 

Yesterday I finished binding Scrappy Stars Around the Corner!  It turned out great, and I’ll post about it soon.

Today I started work on Clue 2 of Surrounded by Scraps, Charlotte’s mystery quilt for this year.  The ironic thing is, yes, it’s another #bigheavyquilt, and I suppose you’ll get to hear me complain again when it comes time to quilt it.  Oh, well.  I want it for our bed.

HollyAnne from String and Story passed along a recipe for homemade spray baste.  This is the first I’ve heard of it.  It’s said to work well, and sounds easy to make.  One reason given for making it is the high cost of commercial spray baste.  I think folks who are feeling this must be using way too much.  You know I finish a lot of quilts, but I swear I only go through about two cans a year.  I use June Taylor, and I whiff it ever so lightly over each layer.  I use so little, I’ve wondered before if the quilt were just being held together by good intentions!  But, no, when I need to peel back a layer for some reason, it’s always nicely stuck.  I started a new can on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 5), so let’s keep track of how many quilts I get from it.  Remind me!

Also, here’s the Quilters’ Alliance Contest and Auction.  The theme is “Voices”, and the quilts are just 16″ square.  I did this a few years ago.

Hope you’re making lots of progress on your projects!

I’ve spent the last few days slogging away on the quilting of Scrappy Stars Around the Corner.  It is BIG and heavy, especially when rolled diagonally as it is now.  I’m almost done with the straight line walking foot quilting, and then I’ll finish up with some free motion.  Three bobbins so far.

This is my set up for quilting.  Sewing table, wood cabinet, ironing board (with slippery boxes), chair to catch the end.  I’ve removed the chair for the walking foot quilting, because it was causing everything to back up.  I’ll put it back for free motion.

Hope you’re making progress!  So many people are sick.  Stay warm (Northern Hemisphere folks!) and stay healthy!

First, the evidence (sort of in order, but not perfectly) that I did accomplish some things this year:

So, a lot more than it felt like!  I felt like I was swimming upstream most of the year, but it’s nice to see it all laid out like this.

It was a year of new hair and new knees, and the loss of two family members.  Sometimes it was all I could do to keep up with the house and garden, let alone sewing.  It was a year when I really appreciated the blogging community, and the Twilters (Facebook and Twitter), and Twitter in general.  It was a …memorable… election year.  We’ll get through this together.  And we’ll sew a lot.

This month:

December Goals

1. Revamp fireplace screen cover.  Yes!  Not including a picture because it looks much the same, but it is much improved, fits better, has much more quilting.
2. Work on Scrappy Stars Around the Corner.  No.  I did not get to this.
3. Make donation pillow cases.  Yes!  I made twelve.
4. Make December blocks for Kat (?)  Yes!  Well, no, I didn’t need to make any, because it turned out that it was a Nov./Dec. challenge, and I had sent mine in November.
5. Pull scraps for Charlotte’s new mystery quilt.  No, but I decided on my background color, a raspberry solid.

Bonus:  I made two Maple Leaf quilts for donation.

This year:

1.  I will complete the large UFO quilt under my cutting table.  It reminds me constantly that I abandoned it, so it takes up mental space.  It also hogs most of the space under my cutting table, and is visual clutter in the room.  First, I need to spread it out and come up with a better quilting plan than I had before.  Then I need to mark, baste, and trim the batting on the back for faux trapunto.  Then I can quilt it, etc.  No, I did not do this.  I just wasn’t feeling it.  I did get an idea about cutting it down, since I hate how large it turned out.
2. I will give my studio a good cleaning.  It needs dusting, a little scrubbing, and the elimination of lots of extra stuff that has accumulated there.  I also need to donate pillow cases and the baby quilts that haven’t sold.  Yes!  I did all those things.  And hung a picture.
3. I want to try to take another fifty yards out of my stash.  This won’t be easy, because in the past four years I’ve gotten rid of 350 yards.  There’s still some ugly less appealing fabric that I want to use up and partially replace with fresh stuff.  One area that I can reduce is the scraps.  I will continue to use them for quilts and donation blocks.  I’m cutting soon for this year’s Scrapitude quilt, and Alycia and Kat have monthly blog drives for scrap blocks for good causes (Kat is taking January off).  Yes!  I just barely made it, but I did.  And that’s without finishing Scrappy Stars Around the Corner!

A pretty good month and a pretty good year, sewing-wise.  In the next few days I’ll decide on goals for 2017 and post them here.  It really does help organize things for me and helps me remember them!

I’ve enjoyed reading your year-end posts.  Happy New Year to all of you!  Stay safe and healthy!  See you next year!