Weekend = End of Week

Made it to the end of the week and I did make forward progress on some things. I love it when I can see the progress at the end of the week. Weekends I usually only do some hand work in between all the chores and errands.

 Remember these balls of fabric "yarn" from the other day? Well I have to say that those crocheted up pretty fast. Even I was surprised how fast.

And they made this cute little semi-oval rug for my honey to land his feet on in the mornings. It will really matter next winter.

I hand stitched the binding on this little sweetie one afternoon. I didn't get a picture after the clips were off, but trust me, it's cute and is hanging up already.

 Then I whipped up this little set for Miss N. Thimbleanna had a cute dress on her blog for FinallyAGirl and when I saw the pigs I squealed and rushed to get some. Anna has an Etsy shop and sells this sweet piggie fabric. I had the perfect pink buttons too.

 And of course it needed shorts to go with the top. I only bought a yard of the pig fabric, so I looked through my stash and found the perfect pink, just by chance. I appliqued the little pig on the back of the waistband on the outside to show where the back is, and I love how cute it looks.

So here is the whole outfit. The top is the Geranium Dress from Made By Rae. The pattern offers a shorter look for a cut top. I cannot wait to see this on her. Going to try and mail it out this next week.
Have a great weekend. Talk to you soon.

New Makes

I do sometimes make other stuff, besides quilts. I like to share them too. I have now made enough different kinds of bags and pouches that I feel like I have the basics down. That said, I decided when I needed a specific bag for a specific use, I decided to make it up on my own, using the knowledge I gained from using patterns others had written. I noticed a big improvement from the last time I tried this.

And this bag was the result of all that. I knew how to make the base of the bag, and quilt it. I knew how to make the lining and insert it. I knew that I had to attach the handles before adding the lining and sewing the two sides together. I struggled a little with putting the flap on, but only because of the bulk of the whole thing. That is the one thing that keeps me from making too many bags. The bulk is so hard to sew. But I am very pleased with how this one turned out.

In an effort to tame all my 1" strings finally, I made the balls of cloth "yarn" and crocheted this little baby. It's a little misshapen. I was going for oval, but still I love it. I got the directions at Crazy Mom Quilts. Amanda Jean knits and crochets these great rag rugs. I have done two previous rugs, which are holding up quite well. Those were rectangles. This was my first attempt at an oval. I just needed a small one on my side of the bed. I started with red, then low volume, mostly white and cream, then all the pink I had. I have decided I like separating the colors like that, instead of doing a mish mash of colors. Blues and greys and black and white will be my next one for my husband's side of the bed. That should use up almost all my strips! Yay!

The last thing I am working on is the Kingfisher Stitch Along quilt. I have the hexie flowers done and they are appliqued onto the diamonds. The next step will be to attach the rows to one another and then the borders. I have gone quite quickly so far, but the process will be slowing down now. I am letting the quilt talk to me about what it needs for border fabric.

One of the borders has EPP triangles on it. I still need to make those, but until the border is figured out, I don't know what fabric or fabrics to use for them. As I said, I am letting the quilt lead me at this point. This has been a very enjoyable process so far, since I never thought I would ever want to learn EPP.
Talk to you soon.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Sounds like the title of an essay for school, doesn't it?  We spent a week at the beach and it was glorious. My sister came from California and my brother came from Vermont. The whole week was heavenly. Lots of sitting on the beach and watching the waves, some swimming and lots of talking and catching up. I also had a little time to work on a project that I set up just for this purpose. It was quick and easy and I finished it on the drive home.

 Here is my crocheted rag rug. I used the one inch strips of lots of scraps and the tutorial from Crazy Mom. It was very simple. Just chain stitches followed by lots of single crochet stitches. The cat thinks it's okay.

 I love how the colors came together. Very random, but it looks good. My sister really liked it and enjoyed watching its progress.

 And we were all surprised at how soft it feels under bare feet. I certainly did not expect that.

Just a few close ups so you can see the stitches. I highly recommend this project. In fact, I can predict with certainty that this is not the last one of these I will make.

Summertime and the Living is Busy

I know things are supposed to slow down in the summer, but really, do they? I don't have kids at home any more and I am still very busy with work and projects and planning vacations. I know those who still have little ones at home are busy now that school is out. There are camps and swim lessons and trips to take and family to visit. When I was a kid, we had maybe one week or so where we took a trip, but other than that, summer was very unstructured and loose. I miss those days.

So in the land of projects, here is some (not all) of what I have going on:

 I cut out all the rest of the pieces for my Belle Waves quilt. I am about a yard short on the Kona white, so I will pick some up later this week.

 I changed the arrangement of the blocks to one I like better. I am putting all the squared elements blocks in a row and then the essentials block in a row and alternating them. I just realized this morning that the two partial blocks on top need to be switched out for essentials, so I will do that too.

 These are really making my heart sing! The fabrics are so very soft and the colors so joyful to me.

 Then, I got the fabric for the boys' quilt backs. I was able to take advantage of a Kona sale at Fort Worth Fabrics and bought 4 yards of these two. I love the blue. The yellow was originally going to be Kona Curry, but they didn't have that so I bought a brighter yellow, which I think will be just fine. For now they sit for a few days while I wait for the thread to arrive. I ordered some 40 weight Aurifil from Hawthorne Threads to do the quilting with. I want to test out other weights of threads. I am also looking for a project to use an even heavier weight thread for quilting.

And lastly, for today, I have made these. These are two balls of string scrap "yarn" to make a crochet rag rug like Crazy Mom made. The tutorial can be found here. This is going to be my beach project. I need a hand work project to take with me to the beach in August. For my rag rug I will need 3 balls of this that each weigh one pound. One of these is done and one need a few more ounces to weigh in at a pound. I am using my kitchen scale to weigh them. I can't wait to get started crocheting on this! Have a great week and I will see you back here soon.