Stripes

I think I mentioned that I've become a bit obsessed with stripes, lately. But I didn't post the evidence.  Here is my current stash of stripes.  A couple of them were already in the stash, but most of these were purchased on my trip to Seattle.  Aren't they luscious?

I had a few spare minutes this morning while in the vicinity of the Salvation Army store so I just had to pop in and browse.  I was thinking of a blog post I saw a few days ago (I'll have to search out the link later) about making a pillow cover from a men's striped shirt.  I didn't intend to make pillow covers, but might change my mind now....  Here are my finds.  20 minutes and $22.50 for seven shirts and a flowered sheet!  (I also promise to work on editing the photos to be more color correct).  Take my word for it that the four purples actually look wonderful together and with the sheet.  So I may or may not use them for the other stripe project, I might just make a big bunch of pillows.  

The pink and the aqua certainly belong in The Stripe Project, whatever that turns out to be.  The machine embroidered white thing - was just "why not?"  I can see pieces of it in something cute with the pink stripe.  

I hope tonight I can find those links again!

More Bumbling Yesterday

 I got a bit of work done yesterday on the improv. playing over at 15 Minutes Play.   I won't repost, but here are a few photos...

Monday morning

The sun came out on Sunday, so gardening and dog walking took priority over sewing.  I'd planned to get at it after dinner, but the motivation was just not there.  I'm realizing it's good to have some busy-work no-brainer tasks set aside for days and times like that.  So I cut out the applique piece for the DJ block.  after doing so, I understood why I should have made the freezer paper template the size of the finished piece, not the piece-plus-hem.  Then the extra edges could have been folded over onto the template.   Oh well.  This simple shape should be ok as it is.   

Bumbling Around.

My "made" fabric, so far.

Since Victoria from Bumble Beans was kind enough to let me join the 15-minutes Play site, I've been feeling a little guilty that I had no time to play.  Guilt is a good motivator.  Friday at noon I came home and engaged in some scrap therapy, making fabric from the bits and pieces in the scrap bin.   Here's what I came up with....  not bad for 45 minutes or so.

So I'm about to get off the computer and onto the sewing machine.  But I'm not sure if I'm working on the scrap therapy, or maybe my latest Dear Jane Block, D-3.  I have been working on making a pattern and printing it onto freezer paper, I think I've got that taken care of now:

so I could get the pieces cut out, and ready to applique later tonight.  This will be my first attempt at needle turn applique, and I'm not very skilled at handwork, to put it mildly, but hey, I've done and learned a LOT of things I never thought I would or could this year, so why not this?

But then I'm dying to jump in and make a Big Little George in the quilt along on Lily's Quilts.  It looked like a fun and scrappy idea, but I have not been able to start, and now the tutorial is done... maybe I can still play, if I start today!

...and Trois

I finally finished my DJ block, but it took a lot longer than I expected.  Lots of very careful sewing and aligning and measuring.  Probably because I didn't use a template or pattern, just measured from the book as I went.  I could never have done it without my new best friend, the Pilot Frixion.  Supposedly it erases from paper with a regular eraser, but for a quilter the handy thing is that it disappears from fabric when ironed.  So you can draw whatever construction lines and guides you want right on the face of your fabric.


I had a few other lessons to learn, as well.  Like don't try to cut the pieces to the exact size you need, overcut, then trim down the seams once you have the thing assembled.  I'm sure this is all wrong according to the experts, but hey, go ahead, send the quilt police after me, I don't care!


I ripped out several seams before figuring out methods of aligning things that worked for me.  Here's the result (although the color's off, it's really a nice teal):

I'm still drawing a complete blank on the Round Robin.  The piece I received has no suggested theme, and the only direction is no hot glue or paper-type items.  It's an interesting dyed fabric with colors from coral to pale yellow.  And three diagonal tucks.   The tucks sort of remind me of striated rock like you see in Utah and Arizona...    or here.

Good thing I have until the June meeting to figure out what to do.  I don't want to make up a theme that others are forced to live with, but without a concept of some sort it's just a bunch of ornaments on a piece of fabric...  sigh.