Sunday Stash Report and Ocra Bay Update

This week I was a good girl and didn't acquire any more fabrics, but I didn't finish anything to count either.  My stats remain the same at:

Used this Week: 0 metres

Used year to Date: 15 metres

Added this Week: 

Added Year to Date: 7.6 metres
Net Used for 2012: -7.4 metres

I hope to have a big finish next week, as I wrap up my Orca Bay mystery quilt.

We had our first real snowfall this weekend and I took advantage of the freed-up time (from a meeting that was cancelled) to finish sewing the pieces of Orca Bay.  I had to finish the "birds" and then sew them to the red string blocks.  Imagine my surprise when I had too many birds left.  I recounted my red strings and I was 32 short!  I'm not sure how that happened - I must of been interrupted when I was cutting the paper bases.

Anyways, I got them finished this morning and after a visit from my grandson and his parents (dad came over to help me put new blinds up in the living room), I played with the layout on my living room floor, the only place big enough to do it.  Even so, I still misjudged its size and had to push furniture out of the way. As I was laying out the blocks, I was sort-of paying attention to the blocks to ensure no two fabrics are beside each other and I was amazed at the final result!  I didn't have to move a single piece - Bonnie is so right when she says it will all work together - the eye blends the colours together so beautifully.

Did anyone else have pieces left over?  I had two of these left, this one and a black version that I made a mistake on:

I couldn't leave them on the floor though.  If I left them out to go back and forth to the sewing machine, Daisy (my dog) would steal the pieces and hide them in her crate!  She stole one right from the bucket I had put them in to bring them upstairs before I even got started but left them alone while I was working on them.

Don't the pieces look wonderful piled in there?  I've done a pretty close estimate of the number of pieces I have sewn at 4,352.  I have another 420 to add when I put the border on. 

I'm going to try webbing the top Bonnie-Hunter fashion so I've stacked the blocks in columns and rows.  If I'm successful I'm going to do a more detailed tutorial because I'm still a little confused on how it works.

I'm finally making good use of these Fons & Porters pins I bought a few years ago.  I have modified them by adding numbers to the back:

I'm using the U (up) pins to make the tops of the columns and the column number; and R (Right or Row) to mark the row number as I stack.

Here's the beginning - wish me luck!

And just because, here are some updated pictures of the grandbabies.

Zoey helped me take down the Christmas decorations (well, played with the tissue).  I just love her Pebbles hairdo.

And Alex tried to make show angels today.  It was a little hard because there was ice on top of the snow.  We had everything yesterday, from snow to freezing rain to weird little mini-snowballs - I thought it was hail but it was funny puff-balls of snow.  There was even a funnel cloud spotted in Vancouver.  Today was beautiful and sunny, but more snow is on the way.

PS: Have you discovered the "Just Take 2" quilt-along yet?  Check out my previous post, about 3 paragraphs down for more infor. I've done the first 4 of 6 blocks, and 5 more were released today.  I did mine in aqua and white, but I not sure if I want to do a whole quilt in it.  It just doesn't have the punch of red & white, but that's another topic for a different day.