Idea to Finish Line

Last month when I got out a pack of 5" squares I promised myself I could keep if I made something out of them this summer (I like to keep promises to myself) I spread out all the squares to have a look at the colors and prints. I realized right away they weren't exactly my cup of tea anymore; I've been gravitating toward solids and hand-dyed art cloth for a long time now. I think I bought the pack at a quilt show back in 2008, and the line is probably out of print now -- all the more reason to make something out of it.

This is how an idea comes to life: I play with the fabric, look at it and rearrange it. With the recent flare-up my hands haven't been too steady, so I knew I wanted to keep the cutting to the bare minimum. I also wanted to use as many of the squares as possible in one piece. So I turned everything en pointe, fiddled with the placements and then sewed it together on the machine.

I focused on matching up and sewing the seams as perfectly as I could (and for me, this is as close to perfect as I get.) I then trimmed the sides so I could make it into a table runner.

I weanted to use up more of the store-bought binding I have on hand versus making it myself (again, the hands) so I went with a pretty woodsy green. Sewing the binding on with only the machine is still difficult for me, but I'm slowly getting better at it.

I'll use the runner on our coffee table this fall, but it's fine for year-round use, too. The end result made me happy, and that's the whole point.

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Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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