In progress.......

 Why in the world do some photos taken with my phone turn out sideways when uploaded to the blog??? It looked fine on my computer so I was sure it would be fine here.  Anyhow, just turn your head to the right to see it the correct way. 

Anyhow, this is what I've been working on the past couple of days - a small wallhanging. I bought this pattern and the fabric for it probably around 10 years ago. After making the sheep wallhanging kit that had been hanging around for years I decided to do another project that's been taking up shelf space.  This was really fun. All the fabrics were fused to the white background using fusible web. The black lines are fusible bias binding that comes on a roll, I had 2 sizes - 1/8" and 1/4".  Next up is machine quilting but it will have to wait until I buy some spray quilt adhesive, so I don't have to put pins in it...........and I need to start packing up much of the house in preparation for new floors and painting. Not looking forward to packing up stuff and emptying closets but it will look so nice once it's all done. We're doing everything except the master bedroom and bathroom at this time......holding off on those as we're going to gut that bathroom and totally redo it. 

This and that..........

The other day I decided to put a towel warp on for some Valentine towels. It's hard to get away from production weaving but then I also won't spend the time warping for just a couple towels.  I compromised and put on enough warp for 8 towels.  I'll keep a couple for myself and eventually gift the others.  Of course, I probably won't put them out to use in February as I have to pack up much of the house in order to have new flooring installed and painting............will be living in a disaster zone for a while. 

A friend gifted me with a mini-charm pack of already cut squares, 2 1/2" square.  She also gave me some fat quarters. Yesterday I had planned on weaving but ended up going down the rabbit hold playing with the 42 little squares. 

I ended up making a tote bag.  I mean, everyone can use another tote bag especially when we have to bring our own bags to shop with. If I'm buying fabric or clothing I don't want to put them in the same bags I use for groceries.  I used all 42 squares on the front of the tote, one of the fat quarters to frame the squares..........

 .........one fat quarter for the back and then 2 fat quarters for the lining.  I just happened to have some brown webbing for the straps in my stash.

So on to fabric shopping - in my local fabric store all the ladies I've encountered that work there wear those little clear masks that sit out in front of the chin & mouth.  I mean, what's with that???  What good do they do???  And they cut fabric so slow when all I want to do is get out of there. Good thing I rarely go in that store.....I wonder how many others rarely shop there these days because of this.  I want to support local businesses but not compromise my health doing so.  And it's not just that local store - we found the flooring store staff and customers weren't wearing masks, same at the door store and many other stores in town. We rarely go in stores but the past few weeks we've needed to and are shocked. We do have an indoor mask mandate. Our region has low vaccination rates because people refuse to get vaccinated, they also don't want to wear masks.........so the rest of us pay.  I'm growing very weary and very irritated at how inconsiderate others are. And I'll stop at that because I could go on.......and on...........

ASG Challenge

Back in the fall my neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild decided to do a challenge. It's so hard to meet only via zoom so this would give us all something to work toward together. We each put fabric of any kind and whatever else in a brown bag, all were delivered to my door, then all came to pick a bag up once I had them all. I took the bag that was left. We each were to put at least 2 yards of fabric in our bag and no pieces less than 10" x 10". Our finished items are to be shown at our February zoom meeting........which we had hoped by then we might be meeting in person but not looking promising. 

Here is what I got in my brown bag. Three pieces of fabric, a small piece of burlap, label ribbon, 2 kinds of lace trim and 4 buttons.  I was to use at least 50% of what I received and could add up to 25% of my own fabric. I had thoughts of a small art quilt wall hanging including photos of the coast but went another way.......I kept the idea of photos.

 Just an hour ago I finished my project, a tote bag.  The only thing added from my own stash was the fabric pieces made to go through the printer for my photos and peltex to stiffen the bottom of the bag.  I used up over 75% of the fabric I was given - the bubble fabric is the inside lining. I used both lace trims. I used the burlap. I added a little tab of the ribbon that said 'handmade with love'. The only thing I didn't use were the 4 white buttons. I hand embroidered 'Bandon' 'By the Sea' on the burlap, not the easiest thing to do. This will be a great tote bag to use while on the coast, especially since here in Oregon we have to bring our own bag or pay for a bag. It will be perfect for shopping trips to the quilt shops!!! 

Socks finally ready for feet.........

 These socks are finally ready to be worn.  I started these sometime last winter from a skein of sock yarn gifted to me by a friend..........then they got set aside as with many things this past year.  I pulled them out recently and finished them up.  Now I've got a pair of brown socks, which I needed.  On to the next pair to go on the needles - bright cheery colors. 

3 posts in 6 days

 Oh my gosh - 3 posts in 6 days. This is unheard of in my life this past year. I'm trying very hard to get my life as close to normal as it can possibly be. 

Here is the quilt I started working on the other day. The center square is a printed panel, the rest is pieced. It's 30" x 40". It's really not wonky shaped, that was the way I hung it on the pretend design board and the angle I was at taking the photo.  I've found some fun sheep fabric in my stash to use for the backing, it's all ready to go as is the batting. I don't like doing the actual quilting but for something this size that may hang on my studio wall or be gifted as a baby quilt (if I ever know anyone having a baby) I can manage to do simple quilting on my machine. 

I've now pulled out another wallhanging quilt with seashells that I think I bought 9 or 10 years ago. I may start that after I get this one quilted..........or who knows, maybe I'll get inspired to weave first. 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. I finished up gifts a bit ago but now I need to go deliver them all.  It was so much easier when I was seeing friends at guild meetings and my spinning group but I'm still not attending either in my effort to stay safe. 

Piecing the bits & bobs......

 

I'm having trouble getting motivated to start on a new project in spite of the very long list of projects I have to choose from. A couple weeks ago I saw this quilt kit on the shelf, it was bought a number of years ago as a pure impulse buy because the sheep and fabrics were just so danged cute.  It's a wallhanging or baby blanket size. I don't know yet if I'll have enough wall space in the loom room or sewing room and I don't know of anyone having a baby so it may be put aside for a future gift or it may be donated. In the meantime it's the perfect project for me, no designing or thinking required just cut the fabric and sew according to the directions. 

The last month or so I've been spinning and finally spun up my 12 Days of Christmas fiber from Inglenook Fibers from last year. Rather than spin it all as one project I've spun them separately. I used 5 of the 12 fibers for the above skein, it flows from light to dark. There's a picture of a braid that was a companion roving so I plied with that and then spun the extra skein of just companion roving. I haven't measured the yardage yet to know what it will grow up to be. 

And then with 6 of the 12 fibers I spun this skein and plied it with a companion roving and spun the remainder of the companion roving to make another small skein. Once again, I haven't counted up the yardage so not sure what it become.  If you were paying attention you would say, wait a minute, she only spun 11 of the 12, yep, that's right, there was one that just didn't fit in with either grouping so it will get added to a blending board project someday in the future.  I didn't sign up for the 12 Days of Christmas spin-a-long for this year, figured since it took me a year to spin these I'd skip this year.

This and that......

Yes, been gone from my blog for quite a while again. I mean, what do I have to say, not much done around here unless I count the major time sucker of working on my cousin's house (he passed away this past January).  It has just gone on the market, hoping someone wants to buy it because it's almost brand new again and is move in ready.  And no, I didn't do all the work by myself, my hubby did the bulk of it. Hoping this frees up more time in 2022 to spend on being creative. 

Just in the past 2 months I started spinning again occasionally in the evenings.  I spun up this luscious silk/yak blend.  It hasn't been washed yet and I haven't counted up the yards so have no clue what it will grow up to be. Right now I just keep petting it as I walk by.  It was a little hard on my arthritic hands to spin as it was so slippery. What has happened with that anyhow, arthritis has been gradually affecting my hands the past couple of years, feel like I'm moving toward getting old - yikes. I have some other skeins to share in my next post that were spun recently. 

Since I'll be having a bit more free time (at least assuming so) I pulled out what I got in the ASG (American Sewing Guild) neighborhood group's brown bag challenge.  This is what I got in my bag.  I'm starting to brainstorm on what I can create. Looks kind of beachy, doesn't it? Brainstorming seems hard these days, anyone else experiencing that? I've been having such problems all year focusing on being creative......or maybe it's just focusing in general.....yep, that's it. 

The past few weeks I've been collecting fabrics in grays and teals for a quilt for the guest room trundle bed. I'm going to make it big enough to cover both mattresses when opened up. A few more fabrics and I may be ready to start cutting and sewing. 

I'm hoping to get back to weaving in the near future, like not long after the holidays. I've focused on weaving to sell for over 30 years and now have decided to retire from selling - it's hard to make that transition.......but I'll eventually figure it out. 

Even though I've been in a funk for well over a year due to family issues I'm convinced 2022 is going to be better and am looking forward to spending time in the studio again. 

 

Finally finished..........

I'm not sure exactly when I started my hexxie quilt. Perhaps toward the end of 2019???  I can't remember and don't feel like going back in my blog at the moment to see if I can find the first post about sewing those little hexxies together.  I know I learned how to do them in a free mini-class at the Rogue Valley Piecemakers Quilt show in May of 2019.

So here it is finally finished.  It's afghan size. It's all beachy fabrics in seaglass colors and coral with seahorses in the center of the hexxie flowers.  It's not evident in the photos but the background hexxies are a white on white beachy print. The binding uses all 9 sea glass fabrics.

Here's a close up of the quilting.  I had it quilted by local long arm quilter who did an incredible job. It's not an all over design that was computer driven, it was human driven, flowers in the hexxies, feathers and such in the background. I was blown away by the quilting job. I would love to give the quilter's name out to give credit where it's due but I'm not sure if it's ok to put that on my blog so I won't. I'm very conscious of other's privacy and anyone who has read my blog for a while knows I never put photos of others, mention names unless linking to a website, or even put photos of myself up here. 

I have to say I loved hand-sewing all these hexxies. I can see more english paper piecing in my future although maybe next time a wall piece with different shapes, a more contemporary version of the traditional. 

Spinning

I am finally spinning a bit.  I'm not out of my funk but am working on it. Life can just be too much at times. This is 50/50 Yak/Silk. A little slippery to spin but oh so lovely.  I was gifted this lovely fiber. 

Here's what I've spun so far. It will be approximately fingering weight when plied. It's going to take a while since arthritis in my thumbs is acting up, but then I'm not running a race so I'll just enjoy my short stints at the wheel. 

 

It's pumpkin time......

I'm very excited that my pumpkin wallhanging long arm quilting was done in time for pumpkin time. As soon as I picked it up I sewed the binding and hanging sleeve on. This will eventually look better once we paint the walls a light gray.  I get to enjoy this quilt until it's time for a christmas/holiday quilt which my husband's cousin made for us a few years ago. (This pattern is called Mini Pumpkins by Some Kind of Wonderful - I made mine much bigger than the original pattern)

And here's my pumpkin table runner finished.  This was a manageable size for me to quilt on my sewing machine. The pumpkin wallhanging is on the wall at the end of where this table is. (This pattern is Punkin' Patch Runner by Bonnie K Hunter of Quiltville) 

I have gotten a little more time at the sewing machine to work on some small holiday gifts for family and friends but I can't show those yet.  I'm almost finished with our holiday cards too. 

Pumpkin season

 

I am trying to make a little time each day for myself rather than be consumed by all that is happening in my life.  My mental health is at stake. 

Remember the pumpkin quilt wallhanging top I pieced?  Well, it's still at the long arm quilter who is swamped but she contacted me earlier this week to get my decision on a stitching design for the quilting so I think it will be ready in the near future. I decided I need to work on making a quilted pumpkin table runner. I still have the borders to add to this and then the quilting. I'll be doing the machine quilting myself since it's a small project - either stitch in the ditch or freeform, undecided at this point.  This pattern is by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. I love her scrappy patterns and so enjoy reading her blog every day. 

I am more than ready for pumpkin season, hoping for an earlier than normal end to fire season this year. Sure wish the east coast could send those flooding rains out west.

MIA no longer???

Yes, I've been MIA from this blog for quite a while. Life has been stress filled. I am still dealing with my cousin's estate and his falling down house, literally falling down.....I feel like there's no end in sight. Also dealing with an aging parent in and out of the hospital/rehab, now living in assisted living but still requiring much of my time. There's a horrible fire season here in the west, the smoke and extreme heat, all summer long, up until this last week......keeping my fingers crossed that we don't return to the 100+ temps but I won't be surprised if they come back.  And then there's covid. I find I can't focus on my art/craft so little has been created that I could share here and certainly no one wants to read about me complaining every single post. Oh......yet another issue, I tripped when out walking and tore my calf muscle, that stopped me from even considering weaving for a couple months. 

As many places in the country covid cases have skyrocketed here. The entire state is back to mandatory mask wearing inside and outside. We never stopped wearing our masks and still hadn't gone many places. Our governor is losing her patience with those of us living in SW Oregon - unfortunately the morons here (most of the population) refuse to get vaccinated or wear masks or social distance. The National Guard has been sent in to help our hospitals where ICU rooms are now doubled up and there's no room for those who have other health issues and have been responsible and been vaccinated. The governor has contracted with private firms to send in medical personnel to help in hospitals and care facilities in our region, hundreds are arriving. And just yesterday our county requested a refrigerated truck for a morgue. I'm not sure what it will take to get the locals to get vaccinated, wear masks and social distance........our county commissioners are certainly of no help in encouraging people to do so, they do just the opposite. So, in the meantime I'm scared and having anxiety attacks.  But enough of this.......

I have actually gotten some towels on the loom, off the loom, then washed and hemmed yesterday.  It's a set of 8 for a September wedding back east. I was inspired by their save the date card which was all in camo outfits/colors.  Above I've used brown weft...........

.....here I used olive weft...........

......here green...........

.....and here a black cotton flake weft. I hope they are loved and used. 

I would love to put on a holiday towel warp but that may not happen. Places where I buy my 8/2 coned yarn for towels are out of so many colors, it's just not available right now as many other things.  I do have some darker reds, greens and off white but am undecided.

 I also wove this yardage in 10/2 perle cotton for our holiday cards. What looked like white poinsettias on the loom no longer look like them after washing. Oh well.........

For over a year I've been thinking about no longer selling my handwovens and other items.  I did slow down on producing to sell, thus slowing down on selling, but it's time to stop completely.  This will happen between now and the end of the year.  There are too many other things I want to weave, sew, quilt, knit, draw, create and if I continue to sell I'll focus on that rather than everything else. Now if other things in my life would fall in line to give me the time to create! 

I don't know how often I'll post to this blog, but when I do have something to share, other than complaints, I will. Now I'm off to do something other than the mundane chores dealing with family issues - I'm going to make a couple batches of what I call my sunshine marmalade and maybe even a peach upside down cake as we were gifted some peaches. 

Pumpkins.......

 The pumpkin piecing is done. It turned out to be around 48" x 66".  Next up is to call the long arm quilter to get it to her for quilting. I'm happy to say it should be hanging on the 'quilt wall' this autumn. Before I start on any other projects at the sewing machine I really need to get my machine in to my  Bernina shop for maintenance, it's way overdue because of covid restrictions........guess they apply to sewing machines too. 

Sideways pumpkins

 Here's my new quilting project although one has to turn their head to see it correctly.  I have this problem when I upload pictures to blogger from my phone but never from my camera so this is a first........and it's irritating.  Anyhow, these are pieced white/gray pumpkins and orange pumpkins on a dark gray print background. I learned something new with this project, how to sew concave and convex shapes to get curves. I'm coming down the homestretch on making the blocks, then it will be time to sew them all together. My goal is to get it to a long arm quilter quickly as she has a 8 week backlog.  My other goal is to hang this on the big wall opposite the dining room table this fall. Right now the barn quilt is hanging there. Another goal is to eventually have 4-5 quilts to exchange out in that spot during the year......that will take a while and I'll be working on other projects before that happens.  

This and that..........

We had a great long weekend on the coast other than just running over to check on the cottage and mow the lawn - it was wonderful. We spent time with vaccinated friends who camped over there. We did something we had never done before - rented a polaris rzr to ride the Oregon Dunes. Our friends have done it before and loved it so after 29 years of living in Oregon we finally did it.  Very fun and a bit a lot scary as the dunes are tall and have drop offs that we sped straight down as that was the only choice at that point. There were roll bars, we were helmeted and belted in our 2 person rzr so other than possibly rolling the thing we were safe. 

Speaking of the coast after getting back I decided to make two small wall quilts out of cross stitches that will go perfectly at the beach cottage. I love these sandpipers. I usually frame cross stitch pieces and actually have several sitting here stretched over foam core waiting for me to feel safe enough (covid) to get them framed. 

And here are some funny otters for my otter wall in the hallway over there. I didn't take a picture of the backside but for hanging I did the corner triangles and cut a dowel to fit across the top back.

And a few roses in my yard - they have gone crazy, there are hundreds blooming with hundreds more buds on my 16 rose bushes.  The breeze kept coming up so most of my pix didn't turn out but here are a few. 

I can't remember the name of this one, isn't it interesting how the petals are so close together?  If I weren't so lazy at the moment I'd go outside and check my tag on it.  Many of the bushes were here when we bought this house three years ago so I don't know what they are but this is one I bought to fill in an empty spot. 

This one is interesting too with the white & dark pink but a bit of yellow in the center. 

I cut my rose bushes back quite a bit in February but they're already way taller than me and huge. They obviously love that side of the yard. 

 

Thinking ahead..........

I'm thinking ahead to autumn..........or I could look at it as being far behind from last year.  A friend bought me this pumpkin wallhanging pattern and ruler christmas 2019. I had good intentions of making it to hang up during the fall months but as far as I got was to buy fabric. Yesterday I sat down with the pattern and took out some scrap fabric to try my hand at making one block. I've never sewn curves like this before. I did ok. My pumpkin isn't perfect but it's pretty danged close. The pattern is for a 36" square size but I'm going to make mine around 52"x72". I guessed at how much fabric I need, now I see I need a few more different oranges, I'm good on the neutral pumpkins.  I did not buy enough gray for the background so need to pick up some gray. It's amazing that the pattern as shown is exactly the colors I would have chosen since we have gray in our decor. I may have to resort to ordering fabric online as not all quilt shops are open at this time. But I can start on cutting out the neutral pumpkins in the meantime, but can't sew them until I pick up more background gray fabric as I'm sure I can't match what I have so will need to buy new.........except I'm busy for the next 5 days. My goal is to get this done and hanging by the end of September but who knows.......it's a lot of pumpkin blocks to sew and the current lead time on machine quilting here is 8 weeks. At least I'm starting on it.  

This week I worked on my community sewing that our neighborhood group does as part of the American Sewing Guild. I made a total of 19 tote bags and 10 fleece hats.  For Christmas we fill the tote bags with coloring books, crayons, treats, toothbrushes, toothpaste and a fleece hat for the Head Start kids in our town. Last year we also made them fun masks.
 

Almost time to picnic...........

Last week in the middle of other things I finished sewing together the denim squares for our picnic blanket. It's a generous 76 x 76. Next up is to find a fun and very colorful backing fabric for it. It's so heavy that I won't be putting any batting in-between.  I'm pretty much set on tying it as machine quilting would be a challenge with the thick denim at the seams. I'm very pleased with it!  Soon we'll have to plan a picnic to try it out. As a reminder this is from a Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville Inn pattern - hers is for a throw size, I just added to it to make it bigger. 

Our back deck gets the hot sun until around 3pm so we splurged on a retractable awning. It was installed yesterday and we already love it. Now we can plan on eating breakfast and lunch out there sitting in the shade. 

Here's another view of it.  It does have a motor which is great but there is also a pole to do it by hand if the power happened to go out. There is a wind monitor so if the wind picks up and we don't notice it will automatically close it. (this pix was taken later in the afternoon so the deck was starting to get some natural shade on it by then)

 

Picnic blanket in progress

Yes, I haven't been posting and that was pointed out to me today.  My life has been crazy with family stuff so I really don't have much to say/show unless someone wants to hear me complain.........and I don't think anyone wants that. 

The past few days I've gotten a couple hours here and there to start sewing together the recycled blue jean squares for our picnic blanket. Here's what it looked like as of yesterday afternoon, today I've got 5 more rows sewn on. I've got 6 more to go. 

I really love this project - many thanks to Bonnie Hunter of the Quiltville Inn for making it recently and selling the pattern.  Yes, I could have figured it out without a pattern but I always want to support other fiber artists and this is what she does for a living. 

I've decided that I won't even ask a long arm quilter to quilt this for me, it's so thick at the corner seams, it's sure to break needles. I won't be using batting as it's so heavy already, just a backing fabric and binding. I'm going to tie this quilt. I think that will be perfect for a picnic blanket.  Soon the search will be on for the perfect backing fabric - it must be colorful to go with the colorful stripes. 

Hopefully in the not too distant future I will be able to spend more time creating, which means I will then have more to share. 

A housekeeping note - on my blogger dashboard there's a note that if followers use the FollowByEmail option to read my blog that it will be going away in July 2021. So, if you get an email when I post to my blog you will now have to bookmark my blog and be sure to check in on your own to see what I'm doing......there will no longer be those emails. 

 

Blue Jean Picnic Quilt

I've been able to sneak a little time to work on the blue jean picnic quilt. I so wish I had unlimited time right now to knock this project out because it's fun and easy - perfect for me at the moment since I'm having a hard time focusing with everything else going on in my life. I have 145 dark blue 5" squares cut and 144 light/medium blue 5" squares cut. And here are my accent stripe colors - purples, teals, greens, yellows, peach/oranges and reds. Here's a link to the pattern which was written for a throw size.

The light/medium jean squares get cut in half and a 1/2" stripe is added (starting with a 1" stripe of fabric). Here I was working on the purples. After this photo I sewed all the teal stripe squares and have just started on the greens. This will be a heavy quilt so I won't be using batting, just a backing fabric. I'm hoping the blue jeans aren't too thick in the seam areas so it can be long arm quilted by Jordan's but I won't know until I see how thick they are and let Jordan's see how thick they are.  I think it may be too big for me to handle on my own machine for just a simple stitch in the ditch quilting so I may have to resort to tying the quilt if it can't be long arm quilted........which is fine, especially for a picnic blanket. I'm hoping to get some time at the machine today because the next several days are booked so no sewing again for a while. 

 

MIA once again

Life keeps throwing me curve balls, actually it would be better to call them stress balls. I'm not getting much done creatively as I'm spending most of my time dealing with family issues. I won't go into the stress in my life as there's no need to share with the world. I keep thinking things can't get worse but they do. 

I forgot to share these table runners I made for gifts this last year - cute little houses with wonky stars in the middle.  Very fun to make.  I bought the pattern from Missouri Star Quilts and even bought some 5", I think they're called charm packs in the blue/green colorway and the red/green colorway. I just needed to buy background, backing and something for binding. 

I can't seem to focus on much these days so whatever I do it can't take too many brain cells. After seeing Bonnie with the Quiltville Inn make a blue jean throw I decided I needed to buy her pattern to make a bigger version for a big picnic blanket........meaning we will be going on many picnics in the future.  I've been saving blue jeans for years, actually decades, thinking there would be fun projects ahead. I thought I would use a lot more of them than I did cutting out all my 5" squares........oh well, at least it's a start moving those things out of bins in the garage. I'm hoping to get time to work on it here and there over the next few weeks. I'll post pictures as that happens. 

I've had many cones of fun spring colored cotton yarns on my work table with plans of a towel warp except I can't get past the planning stage. Maybe I'll be able to focus soon........or not..........

Have been slowing down on weaving to sell.  There are so many other things in life I want to do that have been on my to-do list for years, actually some for decades. Thinking about it and where my weaving career goes from here is unsettling. I need a totally different mindset of not needing to production weave and weaving for myself and gifts.......it's hard. I'd love to eventually focus on weaving for some clothing but hard to move in that direction......maybe once life settles down I'll be able to do that...........

 

Loving twill......

Late last week I did the dreaded photography work on the latest towels off the loom. Some of them are now listed in my etsy shop for sale. Check them out in the handwoven towel section of my SHOP. 

I have really grown to love the simplicity of twills

These all are using a different weft but they are coordinating

I have set aside some for a future wedding gift

I have a table runner warp (for gifts) on the loom now but have only auditioned weft colors so far. Hoping to get back to it in the next few days but the nice weather is continuing this morning and the garden/yard clean up has been calling.  Grapes have been pruned, as well as 2 apple and 2 plum trees, perennials cut back, new growth can already be seen. Two new raised garden beds have been added to the other two - one is already filled with new strawberry plants. It's time to plant snap peas so I must get those in the ground, everything else will wait a bit, still a little too chilly. There is lettuce growing in the 'toy' greenhouse, it will most probably be ready to start picking this week. 

 

More gifts.......

 Here are a handful of gifts I made for this past Christmas.  These are zippered pouches made from food packaging. I saw the idea on a couple of quilter blogs so went with it. I did several varieties of oreos, nutter butters, lorna doones, cheetos, sun chips, licorice, etc. They are the actual packaging layered with quilt batting and backing cotton and then quilted. They have zippers on the top.......didn't get a good picture of those. I found the small bags, those kisses, were very hard to turn right side out as the quilted fabric gets pretty stiff since the outside of the bag also has iron on vinyl to make it, hopefully, last longer. When I started sewing these I was still going to the grocery store in the wee hours of the morning set aside for seniors - I'm sure it was entertaining for others to see me in the cookie and chip aisle trying to decide what to buy based on the size of the bag it would make as many cookie packages were just too small after being cut apart. And yes, we did have to sacrifice and eat all the insides of the packages..........

Hexxies

 

I keep forgetting to post a few photos of gifts I made this year. I made some hexxie ornaments - handstitched hexxies. I then put them into 4" embroidery hoops to display/hang. Since I wanted the backs to look nice I used the same backing fabric on the backside. In hindsight I probably should have bought 3" hoops but I didn't so these are bit larger than I might have wanted. If used as an ornament they need a substantial tree to hang on, but myself I've got one hanging on the wall in a small spot that needed 'something' in my sewing room.  I'll post a couple other gifts on another day.......

On the loom & needles.........

This week I got another towel warp on the loom - I've been weaving bright colors this last year so decided to go with more subdued colors this time and I love them.  Actually the reason why I chose these 3 warp colors was because I had mega cones of each of these 8/2 cottons. Of course I've hardly made a dent in those cones but at least I'm using some of it. The first towels I'm using a pale seafoam green weft and love it. Original plan was to use the 3 colors in the warp for wefts, I may still do that for some of the towels but right now I'm loving weaving this seafoam.  This is a two block twill.......seems I've been loving weaving two block twills this last year too.

And here's what's on the needles. A friend gifted me with this Malabrigo sock yarn over a year ago, I kept it right on my sewing table trying to decide what to use it for. My original thought was a knit shawlette but I just hadn't found the perfect pattern yet.......that I already hadn't knit. Then I decided on socks and I'm so glad I did - I love the way they're turning out. The pattern is called Tidal Wave Socks.  I have knit these before and love the pattern. Here's the link to the pattern on Ravelry.  Just enough to have something to think about while knitting the leg portion but not so much that I can enjoy watching tv in the evening. 

This morning I blocked the cowl I knit a few weeks ago, when it's dry I'll share a picture of that.  Now off to throw the shuttle on that towel warp.........