Quilt Your Stash 2016 - Week One

Hello, hello!

Last week I was flipping through my Instagram when a post by Sherri at A Quilting Life caught my eye: Quilt Your Stash 2016.  Well, hello there, I thought.

Like every other crafter out there, I have a stash and I'm sure like many crafters, using it is a bit of a love/hate scenario - I know I should but often it can be so hard to cut into that beautiful, pristine fabric. However, I've been taking baby steps trying to organise my fabric so that I get better at using it up, especially the leftovers from completed projects.  One of the things that particularly caught my eye about Sherri's post was not just the idea of using pretty fabrics already on hand but the organisational aspect (I've already ear marked the book she recommended, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organzng by Marie Kondo - I blame the OCD in me but whatever).

Anyway, let's cut to the chase.  Earlier this week Sherri posted Week One of her new series.  There were three tasks to complete:

1. Clean off all sewing/quilting surfaces - Done!  Sewing table tidied up and I even put away the box full of scrapbooking supplies that was occupying my sewing machine chair.  Double score!

2. Make a list of works in progress - Done!  I currently have four WIPs and decided to use the form recommended by Sherri from AllPeopleQuilt to record my 2016 quilting plans.

3. Make a list of projects to start this year - Done!  It wasn't easy choosing new projects for the year - so much to choose from, but I'm hoping that I've chosen a fun mix of projects I've been wanting to work on, both big and small.  Ultimately, my goal is to surpass my 2015 list of 6 completed projects.

Here's my 2016 project plan list:

The UFO Challenge has already drawn January's project to complete number - 2.  Looks like I'll be getting starting on my pixelated heart wallhanging and with any luck, I'll get it down both before Valentine's Day and in time for next month's guild show and tell.

Harmonic Convergence

OMG, I finally finished one of my long-overdue UFO projects!  It's amazing to see what you can get done with the right tools for the job (thanks, Janome!).

Back in 2011, some friends and I had a sewing day together and we whipped up these Ricky Tims harmonic convergence wallhanging tops:

Four years on and after a lot of bother replacing border fabric I wasn't happy with, and this project is now complete and ready to hang.

Once again, we are having terrible summer weather so my apologies for the poor lighting - lack of sun does that...  Sigh.  But it still looks great, I say.

Here's a peak at the backing fabric, which co-ordinated with the prints from the top.  You can also see the large meander quilting here.

And here is the rest of the quilting.  You can see that I did in fact brave trace quilting all of those little mugs - there were 60 of them, by the way.  And I did freakishly well going around them, too, might I add (for a beginner).  And that loopy doodle quilting line is still my absolute favourite - too cute!

I even managed to get the hanging sash on the back to look cute with all the little mugs lined up.  That was a total fluke - there just happened to be a perfect size of leftover material cut from the border print that worked out but when the quilting gods hand you something this perfect, you need to take advantage of it, I reckon.

Mmmm, binding...  I love binding.  It's possibly my favourite part of any quilt project, which I should now be able to enjoy more often, since I have a machine that will allow me to completely finish projects.  Yeah!