Fabric Diet: May 2018

Ugh - here it is June 13, and I am just now getting to my May Fabric Diet post.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing what I use vs. what I buy; and each month it's interesting to go back through pictures to see what all I worked on this month. But somehow its super hard to motivate to write the monthly summary blog post. I'm going to do it right here and right now though.

Works in Progress: in May, I continued to work on my blue hexie english-paper pieced project (#myrthsbluehexies). I absolutely love having something to do in front of the TV at night, on road-trips, and during long kids' sports events. I need 35 full hexagon flowers, and numerous partial flowers. I believe that I am currently at about 23 full flowers done (I've done a few more since I took the above picture).  I seem to be able to do about 1 per night.

New Projects: in May I began 1 new quilt using upcycled shirts, shorts and pants that belonged to my cousin who passed away unexpectedly last December.  I sortof knew what I wanted to do for this quilt, and experimented on ways to construct the block. The quilt top below (finished in May) was a result of that experimentation, as was this quilt top. I like both of my experimentation quilt tops, but I wanted the memory quilts to be less wild.  Is that the right word?  Maybe more modern, less  choppy? Since the fabrics were of varied textures, colors, and patterns, I wanted the blocks to be simpler.  So when it came time to begin work on the memory quilt, I used a completely different tactic to construct, and went for a two-fabric look for each block. I am really happy with how it is going so far.  You can  check out #quiltsfromBeau to see more pics.

Traveling Bee Blocks: This month I worked on two  sets of traveling bee blocks. I'm not sure how this worked out (I'm supposed to have 1/month), but I got to work on bright flowers on a low-volume background for my best Canadian friend Jen Johnston (top two pics - my blocks  are on the left), and bright improv houses for Kristin Rauch (again, my two block are on the bottom left).  All of our quilts for this year can be found at: #iwishicouldgotootravelingquiltbee2

Finished Quilts: this month I actually finished 3 quilts!  The postage stamp quilt (top left) is a donation quilt, the one on the right was for a friend, and the bottom Christmas quilt is my traveling bee quilt from 2017 and I absolutely love it.  I would give it a blog post...but I know I won't get to it.  Let me just say here that I am so grateful for the quilty friends who contributed blocks for my quilt and I really can't wait to get it out and snuggle in it all Christmas season.

Fabric Diet Standings
Fabric Purchases: 6.5 yards
Fabric Used in Projects: 9 yards
Net for the Month: -2.5 yards
Net for the Year: 34.75 UP for the year

Small things that I'm celebrating this month:
- I only made one purchase of fabric, and that was to back my chain of diamonds quilt and make some wine bags. Both of those projects are done and fabric has been used up.
- This month I bought less fabric that any other month this year.
- I am down over all for this month (-2.5 yards)
It was a good month! I am happy about all that I accomplished and will try harder to have my June summary post out closer to the very beginning of July.