... I love handiwork! I love how portable it is, and I love the fact that I can both be productive and spend the day on the couch watching TV.
To make my handiwork a bit more portable, I made this little needle book. I'd been wanting to make one for a while. At the November Austin Modern Quilt Guild meeting, I saw one that our secretary, Mitzi, had made, and I knew I had to make one for myself!
How cute is that? I seriously couldn't stop looking at it after I finished it. I can't take credit for the design, though. I adapted it from an embroidery design I found after searching "free embroidery pattern" on Flickr. I got some super-cheap pieces of felt, some coordinating embroidery floss and black perle cotton from Jo-Ann's and went to town.
It holds a bunch of needles as well as some embroidery floss, and my needle grabber sticks in there pretty well, too.
I'm linking this post up with Fabric Tuesday. Hop on over to the Quilt Story blog to check out some other fabric crafty goodness.
I'm just popping in with a sneak peek of a little gift I'm working on.
I completely missed the Blogger's Quilt Festival, but sometimes life happens. (I didn't even have time to write up a post about an already gifted, photographed quilt!)
I'll be back with more crafty goodness (and hopefully some good non-crafty news) later this week!
I have been procrastinating lately. I haven't touched the Geese and Coins quilt since my last post. I've just about given up on having it done for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I would have to have it done, photographed, and posted by Friday.
To distract myself by the lack of things I've accomplished lately, I have a lovely assortment of bee blocks coming my way! October was my month the Bee in my Bonnet virtual quilting bee. I sent out some jummy Robert Kaufman Christmas-themed fabric, and pretty much asked my fellow bee members to go to town. Here's what I've seen so far:
Amazing, right? My bee members graciously allowed me to post their photos, please click the links above to see each photo in its full glory on Flickr.
I'm going to add a 2" red or green border to each block. Here's a sketch I made last month before I shipped off my fabric:
Just as I was about to publish this post, Julie H. posted this beauty to Flickr:
I haven't made my own block for this quilt yet. Actually, I haven't decided if I'm going to or not. Julie F. made two blocks, so I may make one myself for the front and work the extra block into the back, or I may not make a block.
I'm thinking of doing fairly simple, sparse quilting on this one so I can have it ready to snuggle under after Thanksgiving, and so I still have time to work on Christmas gifts.
I finally got the body of the quilt top assembled. Now I just have to make the borders. This thing is huge! So huge, in fact, that I couldn't take a picture of the whole thing. It's going to finish at about 64" x 80" (that's more than 5 feet wide and 6½ feet tall).
Now those are some teeny geese! I'm thinking of replacing some of the 2" squares in the border with these little two-geese units I made with some of my "waste" from the big geese. I have a bunch of these half-square triangles (two for every goose... 340!) that I'm hoping to make into some quilted throw pillows.
ps: If you have any advice on how I should quilt this thing, please share :)
Are y'all getting tired of hearing about my adventures in flying geese blocks yet? I hope not, cause I've got some more for ya. At least this time I have something other than stacks of fabric to show!
I was up early this morning and got some sewing done. Actually, I was up late. To be even more precise, I'm still up late. Insomnia won last night, and I didn't sleep a wink — not for lack of trying. So please forgive this overly perky, stream-of-consciousness sporadic post. I'm running on Red Bull fumes at this point.
Since I just happened to be taking photos while the sun was still up (doesn't happen often!), I tried taking them outside. But they tried to fly away. So here's a picture from my ironing board, shoddy point-and-shoot flash and all:
I wish I had more to show for my all-nighter, but I ran out of thread! I sewed up three columns of geese, each one measuring about 68 inches. (They're taller than I am!) I probably could have gotten part of another column pieced, but I'm completely addicted to chain-piecing and I can't stop mid-chain to run out and buy thread. So three it is.
The good news is the columns are coming together rather quickly. I have two more columns of geese and four columns of coins. Oh, and the ridiculous border I decided to make out of 2-inch squares. I was pressing seams thinking "I can totally have this ready for the Bloggers Quilt Festival," when I remembered the border. Then I burned my wrist on the iron. I'm hoping the border comes together surprisingly quickly like the columns have been so far.
This is totally unrelated, but few people I know in real life would truly appreciate this awesome table. I was out having a beer with my roommate and just had to take a picture of this. (By the way, Don Draper drinks High Life. I finally watched the season finale during my sleepless night.) I can't wait to sketch something on graph paper! I think this needs to become something Christmasy...
ps: This post is linked up with Fabric Tuesday at the Quilt Story blog. If you like fabric, check it out!
