Design Wall 10/3/11

Up on my design wall is the first letter crumb block I've made.  Phew!  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Either I'll have to come up with a way to make them that's easier or I'm gonna have to choose a lot less words to put on the border.  Anyone know of a good tutorial for making these?
Off to Duarte so can't google now.

Hop on over to Judy's Patchwork Times and see what other have on their design wall.  You'll see the button on my left sidebar.

Stash Report 10/2/11

Half yard of scraps for crumb along.  A yard and a half for my 2 color quilt blocks.  2 yards culled from my stash for donating to guild thrifty corner.  Nothing in.  I'm kinda surprised I have that much given the past week dearth of quilting, so here are the numbers:
Used/Donated this week: 4 yards
Used/Donated Yr to date: 85.25 yards

Added this wk: 0.0 yards

Total Yr to date Added: -12 yards

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Total Yr to date Used: 73.25 yards

Crawling toward 100 yards.

Now what have you done to lessen your stash?  Go on over to Judy's Patchwork Times and see how others have fared.  Judy has done great!

Favorite Things Friday 9/30/11

One of my favorite things for fabric I find in the laundry aisle at my grocery store.  It is a box of Shout Color Catcher.  These sheets help me control the possible bleeding of color into surrounding fabrics in quilts. Especially reds and batiks!  When I buy new fabric, I take it down to the laundry room and fill a pail with very hot water - just enough to cover the fabric I have to treat.  I then add a tsp/yd of Retayne.  This sets the color so it will stay the color you buy.  I soak the fabric about 20 minutes and then pour the bucket into my washer and wash on the delicate cycle for 4 minutes with mild soap and one of these sheets of Shout.  Then I dry the fabric, iron it and put it into my stash.  I've done this since my third quilting project (many projects ago) to keep colors from migrating into each other and staining my quilt.  And after I finish the quilt, I will wash it one more time with a Shout sheet in the washer.

Now if you have never used these, I'm going to give away a sheet to two lucky commentators who leave a comment  to this blog post, and so they can try this niffty product.

Giveaway closes next thursday and I'll draw 2 winners on next friday.  Good luck! 

ps:  I'm in no way affiliated with Shout - hehe.

Go on over to my left sidebar and click on the Shay's Favorite Things Friday button and see what others are showcasing.