Bonus Project: Market Bag

I had a bunch of squares I had incorrectly cut for an earlier project and when I spied a handmade market bag on Pinterest, I had an "ah ha" moment and rushed upstairs to make this bag.

I lined it with a second fabric, from my stash shelves, but the rest of the project is built entirely from my scrap bin. This also uses up another 2 yards for my pledge.

February Stashbusting Project

Cation Design and EmSew announced the plan for the February stashbusting challenge. In February, I am supposed to sew for a loved one. Again, I was just thinking about starting a project for Jeff, so this totally works for me! He wants me to try making a quilt with triangles so I can see how difficult they are to work with. He's designing another quilt pattern (separate from the one below) with triangles and wants to make sure I won't go buggy working with odd triangular shapes.

So, as practice for the bigger event, I'm going to make this small quilt. It's called "Space Crystal, Too" and appears in the quilt book ABC 3-D, Tumbling Blocks and More by Marci Baker. This project is supposed to use about another 5 yards.

Space Crystal, Too

I've already got the fabrics picked out and I'm ready to start. Wish me luck!

January Stashbusting Report

I finished both sides of a double-sided lap quilt. It's long and skinny because I'm trying to make it long enough to cover both my husband and I while sitting on the couch with a dog between us. It's roughly half the size of a twin-size quilt, but since it's double-sided, it's an equivalent number of squares.

Front of Quilt

Back of Quilt

These are ready now to get quilted up. I'll send it out to be quilted as soon as I finish my next quilt (in February).

This pattern is called "Sunny Lanes" and is from Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth.

This project used just under 9 yards of quilting cottons total—close to half of it came out of my scrap tub. Nothing new was purchased for this project.

Joining the 2013 Stash Busting Challenge

Tonight I ran across a blog, Cation Designs, who started (with Em Sew Crazy) an ultimate sewing challenge of 2013! Given my current oversupply of fabric, this is something I want and need to do, so I've decided to join the group. To start, I'm supposed to publish my pledge:

I, Sharon, commit to reducing my stash fabric by at least 30 yards in 2013. I also commit to not buying any new fabrics or notions—except those explicitly needed to finish a current project—until the end of the year.

I'd actually like to commit to use more yards, but I'm not sure once the weather turns nice how much time I'll have in my sewing room. I'll try to use 60 yards, which is 5 yards a month, but I don't want to commit to that much. Also, I'm supposed to show a picture of my stash. This is most of my quilting cotton yardage.

There are some more big chunks—purchased for quilt backings—hanging in the closet. And some small cut squares and fat quarters in tubs. And a large scrap tub that I've made a dent in this month.

By accident, I managed to do the assigned project for January, which was to "Sew up those remnants left over from another project, use up some of those tiny scraps that you've been saving...as long as it's less than a yard of fabric, it counts!" Check!

I'm also going to try and figure out a stash counter for the sidebar. I'm down at least 5 yards already with my latest project and it will soon be 10.

Jeff persuaded me to make the lap quilt double-sided so I'll be making a second panel, basically the same, for the backing. I will need to put larger borders on it for the machine quilting, but most of the excess will ultimately be cut off when I finish the binding.

I spent today cutting out all the pieces so I could get right to work tomorrow. I actually had to cut into some non-scrap fabrics to get some more variety in the fabric selection.