Sunday, July 12, 2015

New Piggy Bank Challenge

Today starts the New Piggy Bank Challenge

Val's Quilting Studio

My goal this year is to double the amount that I managed to save last year.
This is a pic of my jar before counting what I had last year.

 
You can find my total here.
 
I did manage to get it spent. I went with a friend yesterday for our own little shop hop for the Row by Row Experience. We bought the kits for the rows, so we managed to lighten our wallets some.
 
Next year I will probably do the same if the Row by Row is going on at this time. It's that or buy a vintage machine.
 
You can read all about this challenge HERE.
 
 
Til later,
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Piggy Bank Challenge Final

                                                               Val's Quilting Studio

Well a year has come and gone and it's time to fess up about how much I managed to save up in my piggy bank jar.







After counting everything, I ended up with $79.00 in bills and $83.37 in coins for a grand total of $162.37. So I guess I'm not a millionaire yet :-(. But that's okay. This is what I call my "found" money, which means I can spend it any way I want. When I first joined at the beginning of this, I thought I would maybe use the money for a vintage machine to add to the collection. Actually, I'm not going to do that now. I will be doing a little traveling shortly and I think I will use this to add to the Row by Row Hop that is going on right now. I already have Quilt Shops marked on my travels.

To see everyone else's reports, stop by Val's Quilting Studio. Why not sign up for this next year's challenge while you're at it. You can sign up for it starting Sunday, July 12th. I know I will be doing it again. I'm going to try to better my goal next year and see if I can get closer to that million mark :-).

Til later.
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary

P.S. If you want to learn more or get info on the Row by Row click HERE.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Retreat Report and Progress

Well, I survived going to Retreat at the Summit. I have gone to this for the last 8 years give or take.
We had a wonderful time spent with great friends (although, sometime you could call it a family).
There was much laughter and craziness going on. I think my favorite laugh was when one of the ladies  was asking a question on how to tie off her stitches and someone said to just backtack with her reverse, to which she replied, "I don't have a reverse on my machine."  (She had a Featherweight.) We all just sort of stopped and looked at her and then someone told her she did indeed have a reverse. In her defense, I believe she hadn't owned it for very long and wasn't familiar with it. But, we all had a good laugh.
The food was fabulous as usual, but I think that's true of any meal you don't have to cook :-). The weather was pretty warm, but we did have AC so it wasn't so bad.
I took a lot of stuff to work on for inventory for shows seeing as how the last 2 shows sort of cleaned us out. I did get a chance to work on 2 tops.


I didn't get the last border on this one. I'll take care of that in the next week.

This one I did get finished as far as the top. Just need to quilt it now.

One of the UFO's that I have been working on is now completely done.


Once a week my BQB (Best Quilting Buddy) comes over and we work on UFO"s. Right after I finished the top, Bonnie Hunter put out a call for quilts. This is one of her blocks from Quiltmaker's Addicted to Scraps column and she is going to be making some videos for Quiltmaker and needs quilts for the filming. I wrote her and said I could have this ready if she need it and she wrote back that she could indeed use it. So it will be going to the Quiltmaker's offices shortly.

This week BQB came over and I worked on a new UFO.

I had 8 blocks made and then it got put aside.  Time to finish this. It has aged enough! I finished the last 4 blocks, made the sashings and got the top put together and add the borders. Now it goes in the quilting pile. I also got the backing pieced and binding made and ready to be put on. I think I did pretty good.

I also got 3 client quilts done. Yay!!

Guess that's it for now.
Til later
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary