February BOM finish

I finished these blocks for Sew Incredibly Crazy's block-of-the-month called In Our Garden. They're so fun and whimsical - I can't wait to do more!

Friday Night With Friends

I joined FNWF for the first time last week. I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to do, like a blog post (I thought it was a linky!)  Anyway, I got these blocks sewn together from an Aurifil BOM program of last year!

A few of my blocks differ from the quilt along, but I'm really happy with how this turned out. I have to especially thank Connie who blogs at Freemotion by the River for coming up with this great sashing idea and graciously allowing me to copy it. 

Now I need to get quilting!

Quick Runner

My mom has a birthday in April and she hinted told me that she would like a spring table runner. Here's the thing about my mom - she doesn't sew. At. All. She doesn't understand it and has no interest in it, other than the finished product. As far as she's concerned a one fabric mug rug takes as long to make as a king-size, hand-stitched postage stamp quilt!

That's a bit of a problem when she wants a large quilt. She doesn't think anything of asking me to whip out a quilt for her bed or for a church fund-raiser or even for one of her friends. In her mind the hard part is choosing which fabrics go together.

The upside is when she wants something small like a table runner -  I can use great fabrics in colors that she loves and she'll think it was a very complicated project.

So.....I made her this quick bargello-ish table runner for her birthday. It took all of about 2 hours start to finish. I think the straight-line quilting took longer than anything else.

It actually turned out prettier than I expected and now I kind of want to make one for myself!

Small Blog Meet

I recently came across a wonderful blog called Lily's Quilts. The blogger, Lynne, has a linkup for sharing your current projects and another for bloggers with less than 50 followers to post their projects and, hopefully, gain more followers. What a thoughtful and generous blogger!

Here are a couple of recent projects I've completed:

I made a new doggie leash for my dad. If it wasn't such a cute fabric, I wouldn't bother posting it. It was only about a 10-minute project. I made it a little shorter than a normal leash because it'll attach to one of those split leashes used to walk two dogs.

A couple of weeks ago I made these little springtime handbags for my granddaughters:

And my favorite recent finish was this Sew Together bag made for my daughter:

Now I'm off to link up with Small Blog Meet and find a few small blogs to follow. If you're reading this post, I'd be thrilled if you would follow my blog!

A First Quarter Finish Along Finish!

I had quite a list of quilts to finish for the first quarter of this year. Today is the last day of the quarter and I only got one of the projects from my list done. But, that's okay - it's better than zero! And I know I'll do better next quarter. I just needed to get into the swing of things  ;)

Anyway, I had two of these rail fence quilts cut out. I finished this one:

 Here's hoping to get a whole bunch done next quarter!

For the pantry

We recently bought a new house. I love it more and more the longer we're here. However, it has pretty high ceilings. That includes the pantry, so there's quite a bit of empty space between the top shelf and the ceiling. For some dumb reason, that bothers me. The whole house needs some serious decorator help and I'm bugged by high space in the pantry - go figure!

Anyway, I've decided to make some little wall hangings for in there. I want fun and whimsical and something I can make from scraps. So I messed around with some applique and free-motion, scribble-type stitching and came up with this:

However, I'm not 100% thrilled with it. I wonder if I should've made individual pictures. I'm going to try a couple other ideas, like some fruit or maybe an uneven layer cake.

The lighting in there is awful.  Hey! I'm pretty sure that's the problem with my cooking!

 Anyway, here's how they looked before any stitching:

And here's how it looks from outside the pantry, looking in:

The picture just happens to be near the "snack section" - there really is real food in there too!

Well, that's embarrassing!

My daughter and her two little girls (ages 1-1/2 and 4) came over to visit for a little bit last night. They often bring a toy - or six - with them to play with. But what really jumped out at me, was they were sharing (sort of) an old diaper clutch that I had made for my daughter before her first was born, and using it as a purse! One would set it down and then the other would pick it up and put the wrist strap over her shoulder and carry it around the house.

How could they not have purses?!???!! For Christmas, I made my 1-year-old grandson a little messenger bag with a dinosaur print so he would have something to gather worms and bugs and such. But how did the girls not get little hand bags?

Anyway, today I made a couple of quick purses, using this tutorial from Make It & Love It.

I made one a little bigger than the other and lined the small one with orange fabric and the larger one with light purple so they would each know which one is theirs.

They came together quickly and turned out pretty cute, I think.

And here are a couple of pictures of Rigo with his little messenger bag. He obviously needs to be well hydrated before he heads out on his big adventure!

That was probably the only time it would ever have been safe for my daughter to stick her hand in that bag!!