Stash report and some finishes!

Oops--a couple days late, again! Maybe it's because I have to report I bought a couple yards of fabric. My Friday night quilt group does an annual block exchange and we are to give little samples of fabric we'd like our blocks made from. We found this is the best way to exchange blocks. They still are allowed to add what they want, but in colors I prefer. We are too varied of a group, in fabric tastes, quilt styles, etc. to do a 'blind' exchange. Well, my colors have been sort of predicatible and so I thought I'd throw them for a loop! :) I'm asking for aqua and red blocks. I love that combination, but don't have a lot of it in my stash. So, I bought 4--1/2 yard pieces to give them samples and add to my own collection. Man, it's hard to find aqua right now! I've been sort of looking in my travels since this summer and not coming up with a lot. I'm thinking that retro aqua color. I did get some quilt tops quilted and bound this past week--so that was good clearing out some stash.

Stash IN this week--2 yards

Stash USED this week--9 yards

Stash IN YTD--39.25 yards

Stash OUT YTD--301.25

Net TOTAL--262 yards BUSTED!!!

And for some finishes!! The first one is ALLEGRO, a Terry Atkinson pattern. I taught this class last spring and used all the fabric from my stash. I really need to find a better way to photograph quilts. This one has 3 more rows to it.

The next one is called BQ, a pattern by Debbie Bowles. I really wanted a quick and simple quilt to practice some more machine quilting on my HQ16. I thought I'd take the plunge and try a pantograph. Loaded the quilt, got everything set and did the first row. I could do it okay, but wasn't happy about the size of it. It was a bit small and it would quilt it a little too heavy for my tastes. So I spent the next two hours graphing it out to be larger. Then it had too many open gaps, so I filled them in free hand. And after all that, because it was an interlocking pattern, I could only advance the quilt 4-5"! Well, what fun is that? So, I just traced the pantograph with my finger to 'lock in the design' somewhat in my brain and just free hand quilted it. It 'reminds' you of the design, but really isn't close at all. But that's okay, it doesn't look too bad. I love all the pantos that Mary does, but for some reason they don't look good on mine. I think because I had a mid-arm vs. a long arm, my designs are smaller and I'm not as happy with them. So, I guess free hand is going to have to be it. I see lots of doodling in the future!! LOL