Starting 2020 with some stash projects

I have been busy quilting my way through the weird wintery weather here in Northern Ontario. My first guild sew day of the year brought one project forward.

My On Ringo Lake quilt now has blocks! I was so excited, and surprised by the rush of joy I experienced when I finally sewed together a block for this quilt. This was Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt in 2017. I am only working on this right now at my guild sew days. I got 7 blocks sewed together with only 43 to go! LOL! 

On Ringo Lake pattern is now available in Bonnie's store - see more versions in this post.

There's always next month, but next month I may want to keep working on the stash project I'm going to start at my guild Fun Day. 


We are going to be making Pat Sloan's O My Stars quilts. I have been busy cutting 5" squares from my stash and was surprised to find that I could cut from 147 undesignated (AKA stash) fabrics! Who knew!

I did buy a fabric for the stars as they will touch the other fabrics and I wanted to make sure to use a fabric I didn't already have; I will be using some other yardage for borders that I had in my stash. I still have some more precutting to do for this before next month, but I'm happy with where I'm at. I have all my squares cut, pattern bought and printed and all of the yardage put together in one labelled container.

I'm slowly coming to realize that 2020 is going to be a year of using up my stash. Partly because I want to start buying more fabric and want to use up some fabric before I do. And also because so many of these fabrics have been loved for years and waiting patiently to be used! It's time!

So in honor of using up scraps, I found another project and jumped right in! Darlene is making several blocks over the course of the year, but is starting with 10" scrappy bear paw blocks. I couldn't resist!

Here's a link to her facebook page with the instructions

I had some leftove 2 1/2" squares already tucked away together so I started with them. I am looking forward to making one of these blocks each week. (Guess I better get started on THIS week's!)

Time flies when you're planning quilting projects! I have another in progress scrap quilt that I'll share as soon as I take another progress photo.

Is this a year of stash busting for you too? Or maybe just using up scraps?

Tell me what your quilting goals are for 2020 in the comments - maybe we can keep each other on track :)

With Joy,

Sarah V.