I think I’m getting myself together after my week long Sew Slump.  I worked a bit on quilting Easy Street and will do another section today.  I’m still up in the air on free motion quilting other parts as I think I’ve come up with a nice design for the purple centers.  I’m going to have to practice it a bit and if I can extend it further than the 5 center squares then I may actually do it.

I started working on Block 2 of Raining Cats and Dogs last night.  I pulled the block and rather than put together the background first I’m working on the top piece separately first which does not necessarily require being pieced together first.  So I’ve got that all put together – traced on and ready to start appliqueing during the following week.

I also pulled out Rainbow Garden and all I have left to finish September is the embroidery/embellishment part of it so I’ll be working on that to post for BOM Away Monday. 🙂

And depending on time and whether I feel up to it I may start working on Block 3 of Hampton Ridge.  I’m being very ambitious today.  But in regards to my stash report…

I do not think I’ve got a huge stash.  I’ve only got 3 bins full of fabric.  🙂  Not like the rooms of fabric some of ya’ll have.  But I don’t want to add if I can help it.  I know how out of control I can get and I do not have a lot of room.  3 bins is as much as I could have while living with my momma.  So with Celtic Solstice coming up soon I went through and pulled as much as I could from the stash.  I had a lot of blues, a bit of background and a bit of yellow.  But nothing for green or orange.  So I made a trip to The Intrepid Thread in Milpitas and purchased half yardages of greens, oranges, 1 blue and 1 white fabric  I really liked.  In total, I added 6 yards.  But I didn’t get all the fabric I need so I may head out to Eddie’s Quilting Bee.  I just want to go back to the instructions and figure out how much of each color I need to have so I have more of a plan than buying blindly.

It was my first trip to Intrepid Thread but I heard about it at my last guild retreat lite in September.  I’ve been wanting to go but they are not open on Sundays.  Most quilt shops are not open on Sundays – and for some reason that’s the day I find myself wanting to go fabric shopping.  Probably because most of my family stuff happens on Saturday or I’m recovering from the previous week and need to lie low.  So Sundays come and I want to go shopping and I know Eddie’s is open so I head there.  There is another shop closer to me that is open on Sundays also but they only have batiks on hand so unless I’m wanting batiks I usually don’t head over there. I know there are more shops over in Berkeley and San Francisco.  One day I’ll plan a trip to hit up the shops.  I know that the East Bay MQG’s website has a page that shows all the local shops.  I’m not sure how up to date it is but that would be the first place I’d look to start my mini personal shop hop.  🙂 If I don’t complete my yardage needs for Celtic Solstice today at Eddie’s I may need to do that hop sooner than I thought.

Next weekend is another Guild Retreat Lite and I was able to secure a spot for myself.  I plan on working on some of those BOMs – a little on the Rainbow Garden (which is now 3 months behind), Hampton Ridge – I’ve got 2 more blocks to finish up for October, and maybe – if I’m feeling ambitious – Lucky Star, which if you’ve been following this blog may recall only needs the other half done. 🙂 Maybe I’ll start with Lucky Star to just finish it off. Or maybe I’ll do none of those and finally get some headway on Missing Ivy.  Who know what I will feel like.  The great thing is that it’s a Retreat Lite so I’m heading home each night and I just organized my stuff last weekend so it will be relatively easy pulling whatever I feel like working on together.

~gotta go quilt…

Stash count: **I started counting 5/23/13…

Used this week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 32 yards
Added this Weeks: 6 yards
Added Year to Date: 159.25 yards
Net Added for 2013: 127.25 yards

see more stash reports at Patchwork Times.

Melanie