Recent Fabric Purchases / Beauties Pageant 54

If my nan were still alive, I’m afraid she would think that she failed me. My nan was a hardcore shopper. She loved the mall, loved spending money, loved buying things for her granddaughters. I kept up with her and her shopping habits through high school, but I’m not much of a shopper anymore. My middle-age self is much more fiscally conservative than my 16-year-old self was, and purchasing clothes or jewelry or stuff for my house doesn’t bring me joy. The exception, of course, is fabric.

Buying fabric is fun, like really fun. The thing is, I have a decent-size fabric stash already, and it’s hard to justify buying manufacturers’ new releases when I already own enough material to make many quilts.

Despite that, I was able to rationalize some minor fabric purchases lately. They were enough to satisfy my desire to bring new fabric home without having to add storage for my burgeoning stash.

First I headed to a discount store about an hour from my house for fabric for backs. At 3 dollars a yard, the prints below, from Joel Dewberry and Whistler Studios, were hard to pass by. I bet I’ll have them all used up in the six months. (BTW, I have a system for stashing fabric for and piecing backs. Read about it here.)

A second fabric-buying excursion happened during my guild’s latest quilt retreat. One of the nearby stores is pretty big. There were many temptations. I escaped with buying a little pile of what the store calls “bits,” or fat sixteenths, for 50 cents a piece. I’m compiling scraps to make April Rosethal’s Overcast pattern, from Lucky Spool’s Scraps, Inc. Vol. 1 (see her original here). My collection of bits, pictured at the top of the post, will supplement what I’ve already cut and keep that project nice and scrappy.

What is your stashing philosophy? Do you, like me, try to use up what you have on hand? (I have suggestions on that front if you’re open to them. Read them here.)

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Choosing Sanity This Christmas / Beauties Pageant 53

About this time every year, I make the same resolution: Christmas prep is going to be a sane event for me. I vow to limit the number of handmade gifts I will give to family and friends. I decide to buy presents for my kids’ teachers instead of sewing something. I remember that some of my best holiday sewing happens in January, when I’m still riding the Christmas-spirit high without the pressure of a December 25th deadline.

Then sometime, usually by mid-November, all that wisdom flies out the door and I’m making 13 drawstring pouches or 27 quilted tissue holders!

But not this year. I have a three-pronged resolution for 2019. Will you help keep me accountable?

1. I am not going to touch the Christmas fabric I bought at last year’s post-holiday sales. It can wait until 2020.

Return to Winter’s Lane by Kate and Birdie

Vintage Holiday by Bonnie and Camille

Juniper Berry by Basic Grey

2. I will make a wall hanging or two (but definitely not 13!) using Sterling Sewn’s new Log Cabin Home for the Holidays pattern. I am thinking one will be for me and any others for those who deserve special recognition come Christmastime.

I got to pattern-test the new holiday-themed blocks from Sterling Sewn. They’re crazy cute!

3. I will make some lovely presents for friends, but I’ll use the gift-giving opportunities called Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day to distribute them. A February or May deadline is much more doable.

This block just needs 29 friends to make a quilt top!

If you have fallen victim to the allure of holiday sewing in the past, the From Bolt to Beauty readers can keep you on track! Share your own resolutions in the comments below.

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• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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Another Retreat, Please / Beauties Pageant 52

Last weekend, I traveled to Cape Cod with my guild for our annual fall retreat. It was so darn good. I didn’t have tons of time to prep new projects, so I grabbed what I had in the works already, figuring I’d get done what I could get done.

I completed an as-yet-unrevealed project and pieced its back, I sewed two tops for baby quilts, I made good headway on a QuiltCon submission, and I finished up some bee blocks for a charity quilt. Honestly, I was so productive that I thought I might run out of things to do, and if I had gone for three nights instead of two, I think I would have!

A highlight of the weekend was when we presented Ahoy Sailor to the retreat coordinator at the inn where we stay and sew. I pieced the quilt for this project, and guild mates contributed to the quilting, binding, and labeling. The recipient was very touched. Watching people accept handmade quilts I have contributed to will never get old. : )

I have already written about the fabric pull for this project, as well as piecing it. But here she is in all of her quilted and bound glory, against the backdrop of the Cape Cod shoreline ...

Beautiful, right?

I have very few scraps from this project because I used the big chunks I had on the pieced back ...

I am often at a loss about how to quilt a project. When I was asking my guild mates to consider quilting this particular one, however, I knew the quilting design had to complement the subject matter, and I knew it could be done successfully with a walking foot, a darning foot, or a longarm. Anything that created a sense of waves across the width of the quilt would work. A longarmer volunteered to quilt this, and she chose a zigzag with a little personality. Perfect!

Do you attend quilt retreats? If so, what are your favorite parts of weekends away with quilty friends?

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and Favorite Finish ...

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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No Time to Talk! / Beauties Pageant 51

Dear readers, I am writing this at 11 o’clock the night before my guild’s fall quilt retreat on Cape Cod. All my sewing stuff is in my car, ready to go, but I still have so much to do ... like pack my bag and make some food and do a dozen other un-fun, un-quilty things. There’s no time to write or take pics, so I’ll direct you to the search box on the right. Type in “retreat,” and you’ll discover what I have to say about going on retreat.

If you can’t be bothered to do that (and who am I to judge? this barely qualifies as a blog post!), check out two of my favorites ...

• Preparing for my first quilt retreat, or Transformation Complete: I’ve Become My Mother

• The retreat where I declare me and my friends quilting bad asses, or What Happens on Retreat Stays on Retreat?

Now what this post needs is some pictures. Add your latest finishes to this week’s linky!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter