Freckled Fox Mug Rug.

This Fancy Forrest Freckled Fox may or may not be part of my quilty gift exchange at the December guild meeting.  For the exchange this year we decided to do wrapped gifts of anything quilty or quilt related.  The exchange will be done by a Yankee Swap, which is always so much fun!

In case you've never heard of a Yankee Swap, here are the rules:

The rules are the same as a White Elephant Gift Exchange.

I'm traveling for 11 days in early December, so I wanted to finish this early.

May your bobbins always be full,

"I Got You, Babe" Soup Bowl Cozies

My quilt guild, the Temecula Valley MQG, decided to exchange soup bowl cozies at our Christmas Party.  I never leave anything to the last minute so I got busy.

First I made the soup bowl cozy for the gift exchange, and I really liked it.  I used bright scraps and patched them together.  There are about a million soup cozy tutorials on the internet, I read over 4 of them, and they were basically the same, except for the monetized blogs, they're pushing "product".

I was really happy with the one I made for the gift exchange, and I decided to make more.  I had a Layer Cake with just 16 pieces in it!  Layer Cakes usually have 42 pieces.

I decided to use it and made 8 more soup cozies.  The fabric has a very retro 70's vibe and reminded me of the Sonny and Cher song, "I Got You, Babe".

Here they are with the "twin" above it.   I have an idea about how I'll use these.  I think a soup cozy paired with a dried soup mix would be a fun gift.

May your bobbins always be full,

Potholder Progress

For the past two days I've been cutting, stitching and trimming the tops of these flag potholders.  I made four of each border, for I total of twelve.  They were a tad time consuming because I mitered the corners, but I think it was worth it.  Tomorrow, I hope to get some of the quilting done; I'll see how it goes.

Enchanted by Michelle Engel Bencsko for Cloud9

In other "news", I haven't been purchasing much fabric.  I started on a "fabric diet", last November and have been using my stash since then.  The only exception, was buying fabric for a commission, which I don't think really counts.  I really don't need any fabric, but when these two lines became available last week, I ordered half yard cuts of each line, from Hawthorne Threads.  I just know I'll find a use for every inch of fabric in these two photos.

Textura by Susy Pilgrim Waters for P & B Textiles

May your bobbins always be full,

Auditioning

I have twelve of these "orphan" flag blogs.  I made them for the first block exchange I've ever participated in.  They were my first attempt, and I wasn't happy with them, for the block exchange.  If you click over to my post about the exchange you'll see everyone's contribution.

I've spent some of my off time from stitching thinking about making these blocks into even more potholders.  I'm thinking they're perfect for a small project.  This morning I auditioned fabric from my stash and came up with these three that I think will work really well.

The fabric on the right is by Sand Gervais, the middle by Sweetwater, and on the right Metro Living by Robert Kaufman.  I think they'll work out fine.

I've been under the weather and haven't touched my sewing machine for 12 days, practically a record, since I started quilting 4+ years ago, unless I was out of town.  Speaking of out of town, Bob and I are leaving on the 20th for a six week vacation.  It's our longest vacation, ever, but we're celebrating our 50th anniversary and thought we'd do it up in style.

Now, for some cutting and stitching.

May your bobbins always be full,

Nine pair

I spent yesterday afternoon, choosing which fabric to use for the back/binding fabric, cutting and pinning everything in place.  Today, I've finished them all off.

There were four, at first.

Then two more, for six!

Four more, and we have ten.

Still more, four more, to be exact.

And they have elephant parts on the back/binding fabric.  I love this fabric!

And these four make a grand total of eighteen potholders, or nine pair.

I couldn't resist using the Momo scissor fabric for the back of the pinkish potholders.

So there you have it, nine more sets of potholders.  I may be finished, but I doubt it!

May your bobbins always be full,

Just making!

Recent conversation at my house:

Bob:  What are you making?
Me:   I don't know.
Bob:  What do you mean, you don't know?
Me:   I started making these squares by using selvages, and they've become addicting.  I've made so many I just might make a quilt out of them, instead of using them for more potholders/hotpads.

That exchange took place on Friday afternoon, I made some more and ended up with a total of eighteen 8.5 inch squares of selvages.  There really isn't enough for a quilt, although I have more saved selvages, and I think I'm done, for now.  So, it's potholders for these squares!

These are so much fun to put together, it was hard to stop!  Now, I'm going to spent today making these into something useful.

May your bobbins always be full,

I've been busy!

I've been busy, making potholders out of scrappy and/or orphan blocks.  I love using up scraps, although my scrap bag never seems to get smaller.  These eleven sets are the first installments of my 2014 Christmas Project.  Bob asked me how many I was going to make, and I told him that I honestly didn't know!

A couple more shots showing the variety of backing/binding fabrics I used.  Everything for these was from my scrap or stash piles.

May your bobbins always be full,

Christmas Project

Last year instead of Christmas cards, I mailed out hotpads and potholders that I'd made from scraps.  I really had fun making them and they were well received.  I thought I'd do a repeat, this year, and have been making and saving some blocks for this project.

This is the first batch I'll be working on.  More to come!

This past week I worked on a secret project.  I was contacted by a friend of one of my etsy purchasers, who also reads this blog and FB page; she asked me to make a "little something" to match what her friend has already purchased, and keep it a secret, so I did.  I hope to share it when the "cat is out of the bag", so to speak.

May your bobbins always be full,

Practice blocks

I'm waiting for the fabric to arrive, so I can start a new quilt.   Today, I thought I'd make some more blocks, just to get in some practice making this block.  I pulled scraps and cut away.  This time I narrowed the sashing to 1", after sewing and pressed the seams open.  I really like this look, better.

What do you think.  Also, does anyone know the name of this block?  If not, I'm open to naming suggestions.

May your bobbins always be full,

Well, this is interesting.

Over the weekend, I had a series of Etsy convos with a potential customer for a commissioned quilt.  A total of 12 convos back and forth.  Every customer is different; this was a couple, the man is the spokesperson, expecting a new addition, a baby girl in April, and they are very focused on the "quilt to be".  They'd decided on a quilt design, based on this photo that was on this blog, in June of last year.

This was taken at City Quilter, my favorite quilt store in NYC, when I was there in May.  They have chosen a fabric line, a border fabric and the binding fabric.  Yesterday they paid the 50% deposit and I ordered the fabric.

Since this is not one of my designs, today I grabbed some 5" squares from my scrap pile and made four sample blocks.  This was a test to see proportion, concentrating on the width of the  sashing strips.

I think I got it right the first time.  These test blocks will go into my stack for my Christmas project for next year.

I make quilts as my creative outlet.  I do custom quilts for the same reason, and to make my customer happy.  Bob and I always shake our heads when someone that we don't know, ask me to make them a custom quilt.  Out of all the quilters in the US, and all the quilters selling on Etsy, how do they choose me?  It's a mystery.  Of the custom quilts I've made I've only "known" one of my customers, she was a former blogger, who I'm still in FB contact with.  The rest have appeared via an Etsy convo.

This quilt will be a bit of a rush, because I need to have it in the mail by the end of March.  I saw my fabulous long arm quilter, yesterday, and came up with a game plan.  Right now, she has seven of my quilts, including another custom quilt, and this one will make eight!

May your bobbins always be full,