Stash use report for March

This should be the beginning of Spring, and the shops are full of daffodils in yellow pots. They can cope about -10C /+14F, and I planted some to replace the faded Callunas of last Autumn. After their first day we had some new snow again, and then two nights with -15C/+5F. About half of my flowers have frozen to death, but many have survived. I hope the nights will be warmer from now on.

One more birthday present, a rusty brown and red shawl knitted by my sister Maija. I'm wearing it now around my neck with my winter coat, but it will be lovely in Summer on my shoulders too. Kiitos, Maija!

As you can see in the picture, there is quite a lot of snow on the ground and it will take weeks before the first Snowdrops raise their heads through the last snow.

My stash seems to be growing, but there is a perfectly good explanation: My favourite fabric shop will close in the Summer when the owner lady retires, and she started selling everything 30 % off the normal price from the 1st of April. I was looking for some white flannel for baby quilt backings, and as she didn't have any, she sold me some in red, and gave me the special price in advance. As the cotton prices are expected to go up, it is only rational to buy now.

This is the pieced backing of my 9-patch quilt, with some 9-patches in different sizes just for fun. I had to piece the backing as I couldn't buy new fabric for it, to meet Anne Marie's challege rules.

I wondered how stupid a quilter can be. You see, I straightened the edges for the binding and cut exactly at the points of the red sashings, thinking the white points will be sharp anyway. And then I machine stitched the binding on, and spent three nights hand sewing the three edges before I was too annoyed with the cut-off red points.

So the stupid quilter unpicked the binding, ironed it again , cut a bit from all 4 sides of the quilt and started sewing the binding back on. It is almost done now, so I can count the backing and binding to my March fabric use.

This is something else I did in March, after Melanie sent me the adorable book on Celtic, Viking and Anglo-Saxon Embroidery by Jan Messent.  The book is about ancient embroidery and the new use of the stitches and pictures by the author. Beautiful, inspiring pictures of her work. Melanie had sent me some plant-dyed threads earlier, and some perlé threads a year ago, so I thought I would use them to make her a small picture of the Kalevala Jewelry bird I sent her for her birthday. I added some antique silk threads from my Great Auntie Saima. My design and stitches reveal that this is my very first attempt, but I had great fun while making it, and Melanie understands all the hidden meanings important for both of us.

A few weeks ago we had a visitor from Belgium in our sewing class, and to give her a feel of quilting I helped her sew one QAYG block from my strings for the Oz Comfort Quilts. I made one too, and hope to get at sewing some more for a new delivery later this month. Counting all these projects together I have used 4.5 m of fabrics from my stash in March, but also bought 5.5 m new fabris. Increase: 1 m. I need to finish lots of projects in April to make the figures look better!