Does anyone remember when the marble game mancala was huge? I remember my little sister teaching me how to play about 10 years ago.  It is a genius of a game and I'm sure it has numerous variations. 

Little E and I play it a lot.  The box it came in was getting a little battered.  When Nin sent me a lovely bundle of floral fabrics, I knew just what it was going to be.  A little sewing and some time later, we now have a double sided bag for the board, which also fits the little marble bag inside.  Brilliance! We are new ready to play on the go as well.

I thought I knew my mother's sewing stash inside and out.  It turns out I was wrong.  When mum saw the winter coat that I made earlier this season, she mentioned something about pink tweed.  My mother doesn't wear pink tweed, never has, probably never will.  On the other hand, Great Aunt Evelyn would have worn pink tweed.  She would have worn it with a flourish.

Mum passed me a scant metre of the pink tweed she has secreted away from my Great Aunt's collection of fabrics.  After some redrafting, a ruched collar and a very Jackie O 3/4 sleeve, this jacket was ready to go.

Some might call the shorter sleeves thrifty.  Perhaps a cuff would have helped to make this look a little more deliberate.  As the blossoms are on the trees at the moment, I'm calling it inter-seasonal.

Miss H picked the purplish buttons out of my button tin. The lining is a pink and purple watercolour print satin from the same Great Aunt.  While you can't see it in these photos, given that I have 5 metres of it, I'm sure it will make another appearance at some point.  I love that this coat is made entirely from carefully saved items that have been waiting patiently to find their use.

My sewing space has been taunting me. There are so many projects lined up across the couch that I’ve forgotten when I was last able to sit on it. I have even indulged in offsite storage. My Mother’s spare room is overflowing with boxes of fabric I have run out of room for. Recently, she has threatened to spring clean. It was when she mentioned making a pyre that I knew it was time act.

Sometimes I have no idea where to start. My inner geek is wondering if I should be making a spreadsheet of costs incurred, cost to complete and time to complete before checking the important criteria - desire to complete. There are the children’s skivvies cut and ready to sew for winter wardrobes, the reclaimed tapestries waiting to be loved again and numerous unfinished projects. Then there are bounteous piles of fabric pulled from my collection simply because I have an idea. My inner geek wants to get them sorted, my bossier hoarder is resisting for fear that this means I have to give up on something.

In the mean time I am casting around for projects that I have started and already have all the materials needed to finish. This sampler cushion meets that bill.


The sampler pattern is from Jenny Hart’s Embroidered Effects. It was started earlier this year. The log cabin blocks are part of a wonder bundle from Joanna and I received the embroidered buttons are from Lorna in our swap earlier this year. Everything else I just had on hand – a cushion inner with a dated cover, half a metre of cotton duck (thrifted) to stabilise the pieces and a meagre fat quarter of blue hazelnut fabric.


It turns out my Mother was talking about making a pile rather than a pyre. My mental image of forlorn projects throwing themselves on a burning heap has been dashed. While the urgency is gone, I still need to get some things sorted. The spreadsheet is starting to sound almost reasonable*.


If you listening carefully you can hear my dearest chuckling in the background and mumbling something along the lines of "You SO would do a spreadsheet"

That little dress a few weeks ago started something. After finishing it I felt entirely justified in returning to the store and buying a quilt’s worth. There were none of the pinks from the range so I have improvised here a bit. You can find even more stash adoration over at 1/4 inch

The fabric is now cut into strips as I put together a scrappy hedgerow quilt using these instructions and the remnants from the dress. I already have something planned for the remnants of the quilt too.

I’ve fallen for this lovely Park Slope fabric. The navy blue print simply whispered “little girl’s pinafore” to me and I had to leave the shop with some. I toyed with the idea of making a quilt but in reality, the dress was all I could reliably finish at the moment.

This thrifted Tri-ang bike has recently been rechristened scoot bike. At first it was for sitting on and being pushed. Now, she can scoot to her heart’s content. She has even perfected the scoot dance move. It consists of holding your hands up, like they are on the handle bars, and scooting with one leg.

The pattern is the Ollie + S pop-over dress from April’s Sew Hip magazine. The pattern was superbly quick to make. I was able to cut the dress out using only half of the printed fabric requirement. This leaves me with some extra to make a quilt, but that will have to be next weeks Sunday stash.

edit: I have just found a link to the dress pattern via whip up. How cool is that?

Sometimes the simplest things can be the most fun. Little E can get into the fabric drawers and loves it. Fat quarters are waved in the air, up high and down low, to music. Long strips are wrapped up and admired as scarves in front of the mirror. More recently, layers of “blankets” have been found laid over sleeping toys. Sometimes it drives me to frustration, but it is nice to see my stash admired and reinvented.


E raided my homespun drawer last week. While picking up the pieces, I had to admire the murky blues and yellows. She might be onto something there. The pile is now next to the ironing board, earmarked for me to turn it into something else entirely.

I’ve decided to jump in on the Sunday Stash Bandwagon. It’s so wonderful to be celebrating the stash. While it’s not your usual quilting fabric I thought I’d celebrate my latest felted acquisitions before they jump into the washing machine.

I stumbled upon the fairisle (knitter s, you can correct me if I’m wrong) jersey just over a week ago. At the time I didn’t have much to co-ordinate with it. However, on Tuesday while looking for some black jerseys, I found the other two to go with it.

Don’t you just love the label? Just think, I’m recycling the recycled wool.

The invites are out and in June we are of to my Brother in Law's wedding. There is a quilt to be finished and only a few weeks to go, so the stash busting can wait a bit.

To get started I needed 12 pairs of med and dark reds. I had enough dark reds, but needed to stock up on the mediums. Then there is the background fabric so the total damage looks something like this:

This week:

Stash Enhancement – 8.0m
Stash Used – 0
New Fabric Used – 0 m

Totals

Stash Enhancement – 12.5 m Year to Date
Stash Used – 15.35m YTD
New Fabric Used – 3.65m YTD

The busting is not looking to good but I am having fun. After considering a few layout and carefully drawing them up, I've decided that this quilt needs a diary to track it's progress too.

While I haven't been up to anything quilty this week I have still been working my way through the stash. I've been busy re-stocking the baby box and giving stash away.

With seven sets of friends expecting so far this year, it was the perfect time to get stuck into making bibs. Usually I'll make baby gowns for close friends, but they are of little use in the hot Wairarapa summer. I had bought the fabrics about at year ago specifically to set aside for bib making. As you can see, I'm very good at putting things off.

Random Selector Ready To Go

The stash busting went well too. There was a resounding response. 139 comments, I am impressed. This afternoon, as promised, I wound up the random number generator, fed her some marshmallows and she was off. The lucky winner was number 5 – Jelly Bean Soup. Ms Jelly Bean, the parcel will be on it's way to you soon. Thank you to everyone who entered. You've left me with a long list of new blogs to check out.

Random Selector Admiring Her Handiwork
(I am still having issues with blogger cropping the right off my photos, but you can see the whole picture in reader - grrr)

I'm not sure if giving stash away counts but for this week, it will have to. Here's the update for this week:

This week:

Stash Enhancement – 0.7m
Stash Used – 5.5 (well, 4 given away, 1.5 used)
New Fabric Used – 0 m

Totals:

Stash Enhancement – 4.55 m Year to Date
Stash Used – 15.35m YTD
New Fabric Used – 3.65m YTD

Due to the wonders of international time zones, it's giveaway day here a few hours earlier that anywhere else. For the International Stash-Busting Giveaway I have selected four Japanese Style prints. I bought these a few years ago and really like them. Considering that I haven't had any immediate plans to use them for sometime now, its time to find someone who might.


The selvedges are blank so I can't tell you who designed or printed them. I can't even tell you if they are really Japanese or an American interpretation. The patterns are from left to right -

• Shibori style rice grain pattern
• Little wood ducks
• Faruma dolls
• Fans with random hiragana

There is about 1 metre of each and I will be giving it away as one bundle. They are 100% cotton and out of habit I have pre-washed them with delicate detergent. Just leave me a comment below and these lovelies might be heading your way. I will be drawing the winner next Monday. If my school girl Japanese serves me correct "Ganbatte Kudasai".

I'm taking part in the Great International Stashbusting Giveaway. Ginger Monkey putting it all together. You can click on the widget to the right to see how it all works and who else is in on this.

I'm currently trawling through my quilting stash looking for pieces that someone else might like. At this stage I'm thinking either reds or novelty prints. I'll have to decide before Wednesday, anyway, and as I'm not the most prompt of bloggers, I'll keep it open for a few days.

I've never made a pink quilt before. I'm not sure if this could be considered a pink quilt either. It's more of a red, orange, yellow quilt. The colour scheme was definitely inspired by Kathy Mack's Bento Box quilt.

After practicing my stippling, in a neutral colour, on If it's a Boy, I branched out. This time I've used an orange/yellow variegated thread. It was all plain sailing once I managed to get the threads to behave. Having the sewing surface at the correct height and using gloves makes a world of difference too.

I had been put off stippling years ago. Just stitching in the ditch left me with aching shoulders. I couldn't imagine wanting to stipple. I took the opportunity to practice on these smaller quilts. While I am still a beginner at this, I think the key is ergonomics. My next challenge is to try this on a single bed sized quilt.

Now that another project is finished, it's time for a quick stash update:

This week:
Stash Enhancement – 0m (4.65 m Year to Date)
Stash Used – 1.5 (6.85m YTD)
New Fabric Used – 1m (3.65m YTD)

Totals
Stash Enhancement – 4.65 m Year to Date
Stash Used – 6.85m YTD
New Fabric Used – 3.65m YTD

As we don't know the baby's gender, I thought I would get started with an “If it's a Boy” quilt. The blue drawer was pulled out and I got to cutting and stippling.

The pattern is “String Quilt with Sashing and Corner Squares” from Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts. After selecting about 15 different prints, I took two strips, between 1” and 2” from each and started to sew. The strips came together to make enough for the front and a few for the back. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the offcuts so any piece more than an inch wide was rescued to complete the stripe on the back, leaving 4 orphans blocks for later projects.


I adore the works of Gwen Marston. I have taken “Liberated Quiltmaking” out of the library an uncountable number of times and am still kicking myself for not buying a copy while it was still in print.

I have been adding up the fabric used to date. There are some grey areas in the accounting. Do I count it if it has been cut into to pieces but not used yet? What about small remnants? I have decided to count fabric as being used only when the project is completed. As I have just finished my first projects for the year, here is my first report:

Stash Enhancement – 4.65 m
Stash Used – 5.35m
New Fabric Used – 2.65m

While I am not planning to use exorbitant amounts of fabric this year, I am hoping to use fabric that I have already, more often than fabric that I have just bought. With this in mind, I feel that I am currently on target. This leaves me with a clear conscience to begin cutting into the pink fabric for the “If it's a Girl Quilt”.

I'm beginning to nibble away at my stash of 1930's fabrics to put this together. It wasn't until I counted up that I realised just how out of hand the stash had become. Fortunatley these were just the fabrics to cut into on a hot summer's day.

My stash of 1930's prints began innocently enough with these two. They appealed to my joint weaknesses for crockery and fabric. I hadn't bought myself to do a count up until yesterday. It appears that there are now about 50 different prints, of various sizes, just begging to be used up.

The colours and prints in this particular quilt remind me of summer shorty pajamas, cool and breezy. If only there were a little more of that today. It has been sweltering hot here, and not cooling down until well into the evening.

It's only a few days until the New Year and I have been thinking about embarking on a year of stash reduction. It's a great way to make space for new acquisitions and an incentive to get creative about the use of what is already there.

Feeling sure that there must be some rules for this sort of thing, I googled it. I found a site complete with competitions and registration. It sounded a bit too organised for me and I can't for the life of me find the site again. There are stash busting tips for knitters too.

I wanted to know if backing fabric and boarders count. Can I still buy fabric for making gifts? Then I found this pledge. It sounds like me.

If anyone is keen to join me on the stash busting, let me know. You don't even need to be a quilter, just a crafter with some hoarding habits to break.

Note: I've had the set of catalog drawers for a while but only just finished the labels for each drawer.

The seeing stars top is finished and so is my attempt to thriftily piece together the back. The weather is finally good enough to take the quilt outside and so here they are.

I'm pleased with the quilt. Thank-you so much to those who helped with my dilemma about the setting blocks a few weeks ago. I've looked at a few of the other finished tops on flickr and I am impressed by them all.

I got a little carried away on the backing. The silhouette of the clothes line in the photo was an accident, but maybe I could work with this. I was going to just sew together the cream fabrics in my stash into strips and keep going until I ended up with a square. Then I decided to use up all the remnants from the front too. It grew from there. Soon I was cutting bits already sewn together to add more colour. My dearest managed to watch most of Die Hard 4 in the “just 20 minutes” while I pieced the stripy section.

I have been reading about stash busting and I love the idea of just opening up the pink drawer and using every last bit there. In reality I would be more inclined to open the drawer, see that my pinks were a bit blah and feel justified in getting some more. Sometimes, I have all the resolve of a piece of cooked spaghetti.

Along with the stash busting ideas, I am trying to set a crafting budget. I really does get a bit scary when I add it all up. So I'm trying to stick to $15 a week. I have been very ordered in the first 4 weeks. I need to buy a jelly roll for the class so that was 4 weeks of saving. Then I got to the class, read the instructions and to make the quilt really big, I needed 2 rolls. So, then it was no more fabric for 4 further weeks.

The following day we found ourselves in Palmerston North. There is a chain fabric store there that gets remaindered quilting fabric. While the other branches have some remaindered fabric, this one has the most. So I had to get this:

In all honesty I had been eying up this fabric for a while at full price (3 x the reduced price) and I would have regretted not getting it. In fact, I would have done more than regret it, I would have dragged my whole family to the store on subsequent trips and lamented the fabric I didn't buy, loudly.

So now it's no more fabric until August 18. This might be a little tough but I'm sure I can do it because, really, I would have regretted not buying the fabric more.

note: That doesn't count the sewing books I picked up and the wool I just had to have yesterday.