Another day spent Puttering

 This is a finish! Last night I hand-stitched the binding to this quilt.  I had started it some months ago, when I was trying to use up my "taupe" fabrics.  Later on, I used the pattern in the center to make a quilt pattern called "Tic-Tacs", for a store event.  If you have that pattern, this taupe version uses the small block, as opposed to the larger version that I sewed in flannels.
On this quilt, I alternated some pinwheels with plain bordered squares, and added another border of simple half-square triangles.   Sometimes I'm just amazed at how such a simple repeated shape can turn out to be so pretty.

 I spent today at home: tidying up my sewing room, doing some housework, reading, and.of course, stitching.  If you recall, I sewed a kit from Christmas fabrics called "Jovial", ( here) and had some quite large leftovers that I wondered what to with.  I've sewn 6 of them end to end into a long, narrow table runner, since we have a long narrow table.  I'm currently quilting it, using a variegated thread. 

and this shows how I'm getting the lines straight!  However, I notice that i'm also getting a bit of the fabric pulling as I quilt as well.  I wonder if that's because I didn't pin it a whole lot, or because I "enveloped" the table runner.  That is, I sewed the 3 layers together with the right sides of fabric facing each other, leaving an opening, then turned the whole thing inside out.  I did this to avoid having to add 16 feet of binding.

Also yesterday I finished this interesting project:  What is it, you might wonder,

It is a small area rug, crocheted in a "basket weave" stitch, using about 5 strands of yarn.  There is one strand of yellow linen that makes a nice texture.  I washed and dried it in the machines, to try to get it to felt up.  It did quite well, considering that it was crocheted, not knit.  It seems that knitting felts quite a lot more tightly than crocheting, in my experience. 

And finally, today, I did what I have been wanting to do for a little while now, which is to devote a bulletin board to my test swatches of yarn.  I'm hoping that this will help me find what I need when contemplating a new project.  I have sworn off of making sweaters, as they don't seem to fit very well when finished, let alone look very flattering.  I am more focused on small things such as scarves, (which my mother tells me are pointless to knit, because you can buy  a lot of nice ones for very little money), hats,(which up until now seem to turn out a bit larger than intended-- which is why my swatches will be helpful!), fingerless gloves (which on the whole have turned out rather well), and things like rugs, which are pretty experimental.  I'm mulling over the idea of a handbag, or computer bag.  I also have a basket where I put lone mittens, slippers and socks, which for one reason or another seem destined to remain single.  But what do I do with them? 

  press here for the link-up

An Outburst of Energy

Either I had a lot of energy, or was still very inspired by the quilt-show, or both.  Whatever the cause, I spent several hours in the past 2 days just sewing (and crocheting, but that's another story) and making a lot of headway on several projects:
In no particular order,

 1. sewn together the circular "quilt", which now needs a center, and a idea of what to do with it.  Do I sew it into a quilt top? Just quilt and bind it to use as a small tablecloth? Hmm.

 2. Sewn and quilted and written a pattern! for this little baby quilt using some fussy cut forest animals.  I like how it turned out! 

just the top

 It is so amazing how it looks so different when it is quilted and washed from when it is just a top

quilted and washed

 3. I now have a stack of Six! quilts that have the bindings sewn on, just waiting to be hand-stitched. 

 4.  I decided to play with my "Skill-builder" panel.  I have had this for some time, and it is a fabric that has been printed with a number of designs to practice machine-quilting.  There are border ideas, and 8 blocks as well.  There are lines to follow for the quilting, with little numbers to show you where to get started and what direction to go. 

 I found that it is quite interesting to do.  I'm not able to hit the lines, exactly, but I think the idea is to get the feeling for the flow of the design, so that you are able to do it free-motion later.  I think it will be a useful sampler to refer to when I'm a bit stuck for an idea. 

 And finally, I finished the binding on a quilt that was started many years ago!  This Double Irish Chain uses just white and a green print.  The thing that makes it special is that it was hand-quilted by a dear lady who lives in Saskatoon.  She did a beautiful job on the quilting.  It is quite puffy now, since I washed it, and dried it in the dryer, and has a polyester batt in it.  I like the way the quilting shows up so nicely.  The back of the quilt is a solid white fabric. 

That's my show and tell for this morning! Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Circular quilt

 I got a new ruler a few days ago.  It is a 10 degree wedge ruler that can make circles up to 50 inches in diameter!   There is a pattern on the package so I decided to try it out.
First, you sew some strip sets in which the fabrics are a bit staggered, like ones you would make for a big star quilt made up of lots of diamonds.  then you use the ruler to cut out the wedges, 36 in all. 

 You use the 45 degree line placed right over the seam:

 Then you sew them together in pairs, then into 4's, then 8's and so on until it's all one big circle.  It has a hole in the center, so I will need to applique a shape over it.  The other option is to make it a Christmas tree skirt, but I don't want one of those at this time.  Hmm.  It's sort of fun, and I think I want to play with the ruler a bit more!

 When I downloaded the photos onto my computer, I found these ones of a little anole that wandered into the house in Savannah,

 Isn't he cute?  He likes fabric. 

I'm in Saskatoon for a while now, and anoles seem very far away.

the needle and thread Network

 ( I can't quite figure out how to add the logo to click on to take you to the needle and thread Network site, so just use the purple link if you want to go there)

By the way, if you are wondering who won the draw at the store on the weekend, it is Sue in B.C.
We called her right after the quilt show ended, but she had already driven partway to Lloydminster so we mailed her prize to her-- the new book, Another bite of Schnibbles, 2 charm packs and a couple of fat quarters, since the book is on using 5 inch squares,  Hope you like them Sue!

Post-Quilt Show

This is the "morning after".  After the quilt show.  What a great weekend.  I must admit that I do love routine, and so the logistics of an event like this did cause me a bit of stress, but everything went as smoothly as possible, and I ended up enjoying the whole experience.
Monika, and Flo have some great photos on their blogs  my sweet prairie, and  butterfly quilting.
It was a great event.   I was mostly at the shop, and we had a constant stream of people that had either just been to the show, or were just on their way to it.  It was so nice to see so many familiar faces, and to just say hello or to have a short chat.
To me, I think the best effect of such an event is the inspirational aspect.  It is such a huge boost to see all the creativity and excitement that is displayed.  I woke up this morning excited about trying a couple of new techniques, (my new 10 degree wedge ruler, and a new book on thread painting).
I've already placed 2 notions orders as well, online, since we almost totally ran out of batting, and many people were inspired by Veronica's demonstrations of some other rulers.
So to all the people in the Guild who participated in creating such a great event: the quilters who shared their work, the volunteers who set up the physical display and manned the show, and organized the whole thing, and all the rest, a Big Thank You!

Saturday Surprise Block 4

Block 4, Target