I am literally waiting for the plane....
I have cleaned everything I plan to clean, I have packed everything that I can fit, I have eaten anything that is left in the fridge....I'm ready already!
This morning I knew I would be hanging out in the house...didn't want to wrestle with the snow to go anywhere...so I wandered into my studio....I could start the vests that my son picked out while he was here for the holidays...nah, too much thinking. I could work on a pattern that I want to do when I get back in February...nah...I'll forget whatever I do and have to redo it...I could sort something, but it's really kind of tidy right now...weird...I finally decided to finish a couple of dangling projects that have been staring at me for a long time...a really long time....
I went to a cool workshop with my Mom a while back (like I said, a long time) I hadn't even retired yet!! My sewing guild invited Ann Loveless (see her way cool stuff here) who has won the Grand Rapids ArtPrize twice, to give a talk and a workshop. We learned a technique that she uses for her quilts called 'confetti piecing.' You chop perfectly good fabric into teeny tiny little snips with a rotary cutter, arrange them on a background of batting, cover the whole business with fine mesh and stitch the heck out it. We started with a photo that Ann's husband had taken as inspiration.
Not being much of a quilter, I wasn't sure if I would get the hang of it or like it, but yes and yes! Still not sure when I might do more, but it was fun and a chance to play with my Mom for the day! But like most workshop projects, it got home and sat....all it needed was a border of some kind, so I pulled it out and bordered it.
I used some black piping and green 1 inch twill tape to make the 'frame.' It feels good to have it finished, even if I don't know what to do with it!
OK...now what?....that didn't take as long as I thought (or hoped!) so now what?
Little quilt project number two...this one hasn't been staring at me quite as long. I went to an art quilt group last month with some of my sewing buddies. They were doing a 'green' project.
I hadn't realized that we were actually going to work on something during the meeting so I was woefully unprepared. But being the exceptionally nice folks that they are, they all let me snag a few scraps and I was all set.
The challenge was to use 7 different fabrics all in shades of green and you could use one 'pop' of another color.
On my way to the meeting I almost drove off the highway watching the 'super moon' rising over the horizon in front of me. It was spectacular! So that is what I decided to use as my inspiration for my little quilt piece.
We used fusible stuff to attach the pieces and could stitch them later. When I got the piece out I decided I liked it with the raw edges and carried that idea out to the border, using fusible web to make the asymmetrical folded border.
My tribute to the super moon in shades of green! (I kind of missed the instruction about a 'pop' of another color, but I think the yellow-green circle is kind of 'poppish.')Little quilt two finished!
OK, another 'leftover' project...
Last summer I found a really cute pattern for little tiny tote thingies...not sure what to call them...it is by Lazy Girl Designs . I had done one of their other patterns and wanted to try this one. My son's girlfriend was having a birthday in a few days so I picked out some cute pineapple prints (she likes pineapple motifs) and hurried home to....let them sit there until now! I figure better late than never...it's fun to get birthday presents anytime...right?
The Sweetpea pattern is very clever. You use just one piece of zipper tape to make the closing. The instructions show you how to wiggle the zipper pull onto the folded zipper tape. I added the little tab to help when opening and closing it.
When you make them you start with a square and cut it diagonally and only use one side to make the 'pod.' You also have the other side of the zipper tape! So I used the leftover parts to make a couple of other pods, just for fun...they really are fun to make, and darn cute, too!
So that's it! I don't even have any more UFO's to work on!
It's not very often that my cutting table is completely empty! Weird!
All ready for a whole slew of new projects when I get back in February! 😎
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