Sunday Stashbusting Report!

Well I've been quite the stashbuster the last couple weeks. I finished all of my Christmas gifts (on time) without buying any quilting cottons (I did have to buy some polar fleece to make scarves but I don't count that because it wasn't adding anything to the quilty stash). Here's what I've accomplished:

• Finished 2 bucket totes (used 4 yards of stash)


• Finished a fabric wallet (used 1/2 a yard and some scraps)


• Finished a scoop purse (used a yard of stash)


• Finished step 2 of the mystery on quiltville (used approx. 1 yard of stash)


• Cut out a mystery that will begin on New Year's Eve (cut approx 6 yards of stash)


• Bought no quilty fabrics!

Here are my goals for the coming week:

• Finish steps 3 & 4 of the quiltville mystery


• Finsh the NYE mystery top


• Finish my addition to 2 round robins


• Avoid buying fabric

Here are pictures of step 2 of the quiltville mystery as well as the fabrics I chose for the NYE mystery.

And a gratuitous picture of 2 of my kitty cats. Here is Anabelle snoozing with her arm around her mother, Sneak.

Santa was good to me :)

Well hubby knows that for the last few weeks I have been having an ongoing battle with my Toshiba laptop. It is almost 2 years old and keeps closing windows for no apparent reason. So after I got my bonus from work he knew exactly what to get me :)

A new Sony Vaio laptop and it's PINK!!!!! Gotta love this man!! So now I am in the process of moving all of my files over and reloading my programs. But so far I just love it!!

And hubby made out very well this year too. I got him a 37" HD LCD TV. We are really enjoying it :)

I sure hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! All of the handmade gifts I gave were very well received and appreciated. That always makes me feel great!!

The Last of the Gifts......

Here's the last of the gifts I made for the Christmas of 2007. All of the gifts that I made this year were very well received and I just need to remember to start earlier next year LOL.

I sure hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas!!! I certainly did and I will post pictures of what hubby and I got each other tomorrow.

And a Gift for my Mommy!

In case you didn't guess, my mother is a die hard red hatter with serious Hattitude! She has been asking me to make her a smaller purse than I normally make. So here is her Christmas gift this year. I love this purse and I can see myself making more of these in the future :)

More Gift Making....

I have 2 more gifts finished and I'm nearing the home stretch.


I embroidered a fleece blanket for my nail tech's daughter. She likes to dress like a princess so I think she will like this new blankie. I'll drop it off at the shop tomorrow.

















And here's the bucket tote I made for my mother in law. I'm also making her a matching wallet.

Scarves, Scarves Everywhere!

Well the fleece scarves are finished :) I embroidered the kanji symbol for friend and the english translation onto 9 fleece scarves for my daughter's friends today. My daughter and her friends are very into Japanese anime so this is a perfect gift for them. I even got the 14 year old's seal of approval. She is sooo excited!!

This was an easy project as well as inexpensive. 3 1/2 yards of polar fleece was all it took to make all 9 of the scarves. The Fringe Cut ruler was a great addition to my ruler collection as it made cutting the fringe fast and easy.

All I have left to do for Christmas is embroider 3 more fleece blankets, make 2 purses and wallets to match the purses and finish 3 Christmas stockings. With 4 days left until Christmas I should be able to get it all done. Wish me luck!

Gifts for the Gals That Make My House Look Good!

And I can't forget my cleaning ladies. We have gals that come every Thursday and clean the main living areas of our house. They don't do the bedrooms or my sewing room but they take care of all the other rooms for us. Here's what I made for them. Each is getting a package with 4 handmade coasters. I used this pattern and they were soooo easy. I think I'll be making more of these for gifts next year!! I moodified the pattern slightly in order to use some charm squares that I already had from Moda's "Roman Holiday" line. The pattern calls for 4.5" squares so my coasters are a little bigger but I really don't know that I would want them to be any smaller than they are. The pattern is very forgiving!

Tomorrow I'll be making fleece scarves for my daughter's friends. I just have to make a quick trip to JoAnn's in the morning for some supplies and then I'll be making 7 embroidered scarves.

Gifts for the Gals that Try to Make Me Look Good!

Mom and I had a salon date this afternoon so I had to finish up the gifts for the gals we see there. Here's what I made for them this year.....

For Karen, our hairdresser (she has this sign hanging above her mirror, the sign says "Put your big girl panties on and deal with it!"):

For Megan, our shampoo girl (she's leaving the shop in a few weeks and moving closer to college):

For Lisa, our nail tech:

They all loved their gifts! It's so nice when gifts are so appreciated.

Mystery Clue #1 Finished!

Well I changed my accent color from green to cranberry and I really really like it. Now I can't wait to move onto Clue #2.

Sunday Stashbusting Report!

Well I had a decent stashbusting week even though I didn't get alot of time in the sewing room between going into the office for meetings and taking my mom to her doctor appointments. Here's what I accomplished:

• Completed a wallet to match the blue and brown bucket tote I made last week. I used scraps from the bucket tote and didn't have to buy anything new for it.


• Cut out steps one and two for the quiltville mystery. The strip sets are sewn for step one and just need to be subcut into the railfence blocks.


• Made 10 fabric postcards for the MQR postcard swap. I used about a yard of scraps for these and didn't have to buy anything new to make them.


• Did not buy any fabric.

Here are my stashbusting goals for the coming week:

• Make 4 more bucket totes for gifts using stash fabrics.


• Make another wallet for a gift using stash fabrics.


• Finish steps one and two of the quiltville mystery.


• Avoid buying any new fabrics.

Here's pictures of the postcards! They are already in the mailbox!

A Surprise for Me!

Well this year I was the hostess for the Stocking Swap on #Quiltchat. I received a surprise package from one of the swappers and we had our opening party today! Here is what Ty sent me:

Here's what I saw when I opened the package:

And here's what was inside of the bag:

And here's what was inside of the stocking:

And here's what was inside the smaller bags:

Thank you so much Ty for thinking of me!!!!!

Gifts for Co-Workers!

I finished and delivered the gifts for my coworkers today. I embroidered store bought plain fleece blankets to match each of their interests. They were a big hit and are very soft and cuddly!! It's nice to at least have a few gifts finished.

And a Matching Wallet!

Well this was about the easiest wallet I have ever made in my life! I got the pattern from this blog tutorial and I cannot believe how fast it went together! I cut and completed this wallet in less than 2 hours using scraps from the tote that I finished yesterday!! I will certainly be making more of these wallets as gifts!!

Weekly Stashbusting Report & A New Mystery!

Another good week for this stashbuster! Here's what I accomplished this week:

• Finished the nametags and busted 2 yards of stash and a nice chunk of batting scraps


• Finished 2 bucket totes (the second is pictured in this post) and busted 4 yards of stash (including scraps) and another nice chunk of batting scraps
  
• Pulled fabrics for Bonnie's from Quiltville's Mystery all from the stash!! (photo of the fabrics in this post)
  
• Did not buy any fabric at all!!!

Here are my goals stashbusting goals for the coming week:

• Cut and piece step one of the mystery
  
• Make a wallet to match the second bucket tote
  
• Make another bucket tote and wallet for a Christmas gift


• Avoid buying fabric!

This is the second bucket tote I made this week. I pulled a FQ pack that I bought at a show this year and turned those pretty fabrics into this lovely bag.

Here are the fabrics I chose to use for Bonnie's new mystery quilt. There are 25 FQs which I have been saving for a special project. I've decided this will be the special project. I'm sure they will look even prettier as a quilt than a roll of FQs. For the "accent" color I'm using this nice medium sage tone on tone that matches some of the darker tones in the FQs and the background is a piece of Kona Cotton in the color Maize. I bought the Kona after I bought the FQ bundle and it will go nicely in this project (I hope).

And here is another gratuitous kitty picture. Here's Tino, he likes to pretend he's my hubby's teddy bear hehehe. BTW, Tino has slightly more fur than hubby, but not much LOL

Some Finished Projects

Well the infamous nametags are finished. Each nametag measured 5.5"x6.5" and there are 15 of them. I actually finished them with time to spare for a change :). I certainly hope the ladies like them and think they are worth the money that I've charged for them.

I also made this Bucket Tote using the tutorial on WelshQuilter's blog. What a fun and easy tote this was to make! I cut, sewed, quilted and finished the tote today and I was evn away all afternoon on errands. So really this project is doable in 1/2 a day and everything (including batting) was leftover from other projects. This first tote is for my mom and is made all from red hat fabrics and coordinating reds and purples. Next I'm going to make one for myself!

So all in all it has been a good couple days on the stashbusting front. Hopefully soon I will start to see a reduction in the stash drawers. LOL