LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

You might have noticed that i haven't posted for a bit but i have been a busy gal...if you quilt then you know you have leftover fabric and odd blocks from other projects well i am not different lol....i was getting too many little bags in my clothes basket of blocks so i started looking through them and found several that would make good small items for giving 'just because'...so i started working on them a couple weeks ago and came up with a lot of goodies....too many for one picture....

I never seem to have trouble giving potholders away or the little mug rugs...so i end up making a lot of them...I still have more in the works but my machine is giving some trouble so not too eager to keep going on them at the moment till i get it back in good condition...its easier on my nerves lol....It hasn't taken down the amount of bags in that clothes basket though i still have way too many in there...

Today its supply day so gotta get out of the house for that and maybe a late lunch....have to see what happens....more later....

COUNTRY LOOK TABLE TOPPER FROM 1 SCRAP STRIP

I made this little table topper last week out of a 3 inch strip i had that i got from a scrap bag a lady brought to the quilt meeting last month...it made 7 little pinwheels and was so pretty i couldnt see burying it in the middle of a quilt so i had to make something to show them off...i just kept building the block then laid it out and this is what i came up with using all but one block...I had a stencil i wanted to try out hand quilting before i put it on a big quilt, the verdict is out on it so far....I took the topper to my daughters mothers day hoping she would like it...these are the colors she likes....She Did!...she is pretty picky about what she wants so not always easy to please her lol...

My stencil order came so now i have new ones to play with...more sizes which will be helpful...i see one already that i plan to use very soon...

Today i made a couple mug rugs, the binding to sew down tonight while watching tv...my machine was acting up terrible but i finally got it going ok...but i made a few mistakes  here and there till i got it to work...it seems it wants the thread to be in the spindle on top of machine not the horizontal one...now maybe i wont have trouble for awhile....hope not i have a lot i want to do and dont need the stress....well its time to get back at it so till next time....more later.....

PINWHEELS & PATCHES READY FOR BORDERS

I have this quilt top put together this far as of yesterday...to the left of the picture are the reds i might want to use...all have to be washed and ironed from the stack of new fabric...and i am waiting on 1 more red in an order which i think i will use...for the first narrow border....the background fabric will be the last big border....it will be plain enough for good hand quilting to show up....Not sure when i will get to it to quilt...i have a big project coming to do that might take me all summer....more on this later....

The last time i straighted up my leftover stacks i made a few potholders from leftover blocks and borders from the stacks and strips ....i have a few more odd blocks i should do that with....not enough of them to put in a quilt or a runner...good way to use them up...i also made a couple mug rugs just using some of the strips i had laying on the table not really matching up anything....i will be giving them to a friend later in the week....sometimes putting things together at random works better than hours of planning....as did these mug rugs....

I irratated my bad leg using the leg lever on my sewing machine so much so yesterday i was out of commission giving into the pain and just resting....i think i slep most of the day and yes most of the night....i didn't know i was so tired....i should be caught up for awhile i would think....today my leg still hurts but i have to make a trip to the store for some groceries have to's....hope it goes well....more later.....

QUILTER CACHE INSPIRED RUNNER

In the midst of all the other sewing i have been doing i found time to make a new runner....

It was inspired by Quilters Cache...i dont know why i went there, lord knows i have enough ideas to work out of my head but its always nice to find a new idea, right??...lol....its not entirely like the one they had pictured but similar....and i think their blocks were bigger in the center and i wanted triangles around the pinwheel...that is light yellow sashes around the pinwheel and a funky color green triangles...glad that one is used up...i still wonder why i bought it....that will need machine quilting this week sometime...

its such a very dreary day today i think the rest of the day will be spent putting blocks in therows of the gfg quilts and see if i can get a row done on each of them....got leftovers for supper so no cooking this evening, good time to just keep on sewing and forget the weather...now if the tv will co-operate and have something decent to watch while doing this lol....

by the time i get all that done i will probably have some sore fingers so maybe the rest of the week i can get caught up on the machine quilting...hope so.....more later...

GETTING A LOT DONE THIS WEEK

Yes i am getting a lot of sewing done this week...from the 'old' bags of projects in my basket to the new one that i am going to show you today....

this quilt started because i wanted something more to show off the strings instead of just putting the strings side by side...so i thought maybe stars on the outside of them would be good....then i decided it needed more color than the rust so opted for the green in the white space....this quilt makes me think southwest u.s. or mexico....it is bright in person...my laptop doesn't show colors very well i dont think....there is a bright rust and a brighter green in the picture than shown....

i double stitched to make the triangles for the flying geese so i now have a lot of rust triangle squares and green ones too from the leftovers to make something more....

that makes very little waste in this quilt...the ends of the strips were about the only waste i had....as you can tell i started making pinwheels from the green ones so far just not sure where its going yet lol....

i have just 3 small   UFO quilts left to quilt and maybe will get 2 of them done today then the rest of the ufos will be bigger ones to work on....got to lay out another large batt to be ready as i want to put one of the larger quilts in the frame to hand quilt a diagonal feather design down throughout the quilt....

i made my new challenge item for my sewing group but cant show till they are all shown so that is out but i did finish a ufo topper and the little mini squares quilt i showed in last post ....did all this yesterday....so i hope today is just as productive.....more later....

FINISHED RUNNERS PLUS

Well here are 2 pictures of runners i finished....i am so disappointed....they are batiks and they photograph bad....in an earlier post i posted one of them and these didn't turn out any better...in person they are fine....i guess that is what counts but they wont look very good in the book i keep pics of my projects in

They are about 12 x30 inches,

the bottom one a little smaller....but i got a lot of practice with my machine quilting on them....

More practice is coming....i have i hope the last of the smaller quilts with courthouse steps to quilt....i could have finished it while back when i mentioned it, as i had a back ready but changed my mind and ordered fabric i saw for the back...

The fabric at the top is the back and the lower one is the quilt....I think it will look great with the variety of color the quilt has....so i am going to work on it sometime over the week end unless i get side tracked....

I made a bunch of labels for my quilts while i was waiting for the new quilting foot to come to replace the one that broke....and now  i have all but 3 sewn in the quilts....guess i should have made more of them....i have a bunch of partial filled bobbins that would be good to use up ready to wind for full bobbins and new quilting....

I took this picture through the storm door of the back porch and yard....we dodged a big snowstorm that was headed to the midwest thursday over night....we only got less than 2 inches....i was glad so i didn't have to shovel snow....we need the moisture and have gotten a lot of rain this winter instead of snow that should help....its blowing and dreary looking today so i suppose the snow could blow...but it looks like we got some ice on top of it .....

well going to sew this afternoon after i figure out what kind of a meal i will have later...maybe something simple so i can sew more....lord knows i need to sew 24 hours a day as many projects i have going at the moment....more pics about them are coming in more posts lol....but for now gotta run.....more later....