Good Fortune, Introduction - Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday.
I am thankful for friends and family.
I am thankful that I have the leisure and wherewithal to pursue my interest in quilting.
I am thankful for Bonnie Hunter's inspirational mystery quilt-alongs.

Today is the kickoff of Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune! mystery quilt. (Link to it here: Good Fortune!) 
I am so excited to be starting this quilt. I have eagerly anticipated it for several months. This is my fourth straight year starting one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts on the day after Thanksgiving. Her generosity in giving such a gift to the quilting community is so uplifting and refreshing.

On Halloween Bonnie revealed the colors for this year's quilt. I was on a long trip and wasn't able to visit any quilt stores until this week. This afternoon I went to the Quilt Zone and was shocked to find an empty storefront with a "For Lease" sign in the window. What happened? When? I will miss this gem of a quilt shop.

I was also shocked to see that I haven't added to this blog in 11 months. I have spent a lot of time traveling this year. I guess that is why I have been feeling such a strong pull towards quilting lately.

A little more about Good Fortune! Bonnie drew on her recent trip to China for the the color palette for the quilt. It works for me! I just got back from a trip to China and other parts of Asia where these colors are prevalent. Here is a photo we took in the Philippines of goldfish in a feeding frenzy. This brings to mind the oranges Bonnie chose.

And here are my fabrics

To the golden oranges Bonnie added red, green, and blue. These colors are everywhere in Asia.
In Taiwan . . .

 In Okinawa (Japan) . . .

 and in Korea . . .

This traditional Korean dress is called a hanbok

 And here are my fabrics

To be honest, these colors are a little outside of my comfort zone. I suppose that's why I didn't have any of them in my admittedly tiny stash. (But it's so much fun to shop for them!) Bonnie always gets me to extend my horizons.

And then we have the neutrals. The one on the far right has a little bit of gold sparkle.

This time I am going to try something new (for me). I am going to PRE-WASH all of the fabric. I got a lot of these fabrics at Jo-Ann's. They had a big sale on fat quarters this week: 79 cents each! Wow! But I am worried that they may shrink or run, so all of it is going in the wash. I hope they don't unravel too much.

Lessons learned:

• I need a larger stash

On Ringo Lake, Part One - Wading In

I am so excited that Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery quilt has started! I have looked forward to this for months. The mystery quilt is called On Ringo Lake and you can link to it here.

A few weeks ago Bonnie released the colors for this year's mystery quilt. I LOVE these colors.

I shopped hard for theses fabrics. It was not easy to find fabrics I like. I was looking for smallish prints. I saw many prints that were quite large and I personally don't like to use them in a quilt with a lot of small pieces. I will probably have to go back and buy more of the prints I bought on my first circuit of shopping, but I can't remember which store some of these fabrics came from.

This was also the first time I had some fabric in my stash that I could use. Yippee! I have progressed towards being a bona fide quilter.

The first clue requires us to make some nine-patches. They turned out to be harder than I expected. I carefully followed Bonnie's very detailed, very clear cutting instructions, and I think I did a good job. I sewed strips together to make strips of three. But by the time I started sewing the strips-of-three together, I was beginning to have problems. They didn't match up at the edges and sometimes the center corners were off.

I ripped out a LOT of seams. I began to realize that I needed to press as carefully as I was cutting, and I needed to pin very carefully, too. These pieces are so small that the alignment can be thrown out of whack very easily.

Finally:

I made yesterday a Sewing Day and invited some friends over. I love having someone to discuss the intricacies of various quilting projects with. The sharing, the exchange of ideas, the feedback - it's a wonderful way to sew. It's also more fun and interesting to experiment when others are around.

Susan tested fabric samples to see if they would bleed. Once burned, twice shy.

Lessons learned:

• Press seams very carefully to flatten out the fold. It can make a big difference.
• Pin carefully to make sure nested seams are aligned.
• Sewing with friends is great fun.

Spring-ish Cleaning

I have been traveling - A LOT - so I haven't done much (any) quilting.

What I am going to write about today is not quilting, but it is something that is part of every quilter's life: Getting Organized. I am in the process of cleaning out our basement (and some other places that collect "stuff"), and when I got to some shelves that held fabric and yarn and UFO's, I knew what I had to do.

I worked for an hour or so at at time over several days. Every time I though I was done I would find another box or bag or pile. Now I am done. At least, I feel done. I want to be done.

So. Here are some photos.

For the Garage Sale

I put all my small scraps in a couple of gallon bags. Somebody will want these - I hope. They are going to be $1 per bag. I am also "letting go of" a stack of 8" squares I bought in Hawaii (at Hilo Hattie's). They are really mostly white and I don't think I'll ever do anything with them. $1. And I have two packages of 4" square samples from Benartex. I don't like them that much. Somebody will like them. $1 each.

I sorted the medium scraps by color and folded them into 6" squares and put stacks of them into quart-size bags. $1 per bag?  I put a bunch of loose pieces of elastic, ribbon, seam binding and so on into another bag. I put some surplus pins, hooks and eyes, jingles bells, and other stuff into another bag. I'm thinking 25¢ per bag, maybe 10¢.



The random scraps are unusual fabrics such as rip-stop nylon, spandex, pleather, minky fabric, etc. They are fairly small pieces, so $1 for the whole stack. I had some fairly large pieces that I will mark as $1 each. Next, a frame for basting a quilt using little plastic things that are similar to the plastic pieces used for price tags. I didn't like it that much. Someone who is not as particular as me and values speed will like it. $1. Finally, a bag of large and medium scraps of Michael Miller's Fairy Frost, as well as some other sparkly fabrics, all color coordinated in blues, whites, and silver, for $2. A bargain!
 

Some yarn. Fifty cents each for the Red Heart, one dollar each for the wool and novelty yarns.
 

Comments on my proposed pricing?

Stuff to Keep

Yay! The rest of my stuff is Organized now!  With a capital "O". And not a moment too soon. I found one kit that I had bought twice. I don't think that will happen again, now that everything I have is in one place.

There are six unfinished quilts in this tub. All are bed size. Also in the bin: all the fabric and instructions that go with each quilt.


On the left, quilt patterns. On the right, at least 12 unfinished small projects or unstarted kits for small projects, plus one almost-finished lap quilt. (On the lap quilt I decided to rip out the machine quilting I had done on about 25% of the quilt because I really didn't do a good job. I need more practice. But some of the stitches ended up being very tiny and it is not an easy job.)
 

There is also a big tub, not shown, half full of fabric I want to keep. Most of it is in large pieces. Last but not least, four unfinished yarn projects, occupying five bags. All are afghans or throws. That's about all I ever knit or crochet.
 

The "Allietare!" project will be left out in my sewing area because I will be working on it now that I am Organized.
 

The Unraveled Traveler
 
And here's a little about my big trip. (If you want to read a lot about it, go to this link: The Traveling Blogcrastinator.)

This is what I worked on on the trip. It's much more portable than quilting. I can't say what it is going to be because it is a surprise.


And here is some Maori-themed fabric I bought in New Zealand. I need to think about how to use it. Any ideas?

Allietare!

I am not going to start any new projects until I finish some of my unfinished ones.
I am not going to start any new projects until I finish some of my unfinished ones.
I am not going to start any new projects until I finish some of my unfinished ones.
 
Well, I was surfing the "quilternet" and I found a project that really intrigued me. I was NOT looking for a new project. It is a mystery quilt-along by Bonnie Hunter called Allietare! Here is a link to it: Allietare Intro

Allietare is Italian for "to gladden, delight, or cheer up. "

I just couldn't stop thinking about this quilt-along and it made me feel glad and cheerful.

I like the idea of a mystery.

I like the idea of working with a color palette that I don't usually use.

I like the idea of using paint chips to shop for fabric.

I like being able to use fabric that I picked out. I like the opportunity to experiment with many different prints.

I like the idea of having something to do when my BOM program ends next week. (I have decided not to continue with the BOM program in 2016.

I like the clear and detailed instructions.

I like the idea of being able to see what others are doing with the same pattern.

I love the idea of taking inspiration from your travels - in this case, Tuscany. (I had recently started to think about this after seeing Nancy's work with hand-dyed yarn inspired by her travels: Fireweed Dye Works).

I love the idea of working on a project that I am very excited about.

You guessed it. I have started Allietare!
  
I didn't find this project until it had been up and running for a week and a half. I hesitated to start for fear of not being able to catch up. But then I read Bonnie Hunter's encouragement to do as much as you can every week and then shift to the new clue even if you haven't finished the old one. That took a lot of (self-imposed)pressure off me. 

The instructions are for a quilt 82" x 96". That's more than I want to commit to, so I am going to make half as many pieces to end up with a half-size quilt. For now I am just going to make half of the half - until I get caught up.
My first step was to go to the hardware store and get the paint chips suggested by Bonnie Hunter. It was fun. I love paint chips. The colors are amazing, and I love the names of the colors. 

The next step was getting some fabric. Some people have a big stash and they can just pull fabric from their stash and start sewing. I have practically no stash, so I get to go to the fabric store. I just happened to have some good coupons for Jo-Ann, so that seemed like a good place to start. 

Here is what I got: 

Some reds and golds

Some blacks, and ONE gray, which will be the constant fabric
(The gray got a little washed out in the camera flash)

Several neutrals

This is going to be so much fun. I am delighted!