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.......