Tula Blocks and Playing in the Scrap Bin

Bin? Seriously? Multiple bins.

This cabinet is 34" wide, 18" deep. I wish I could tell you this is all my scraps. No. It isn't. So today I played with some Halloween scraps. Voila! Mug rugs were hatched.

I made nine altogether, but this is pretty representative of how they look. So darn cute!

I did my requisite two Tula blocks today. Here are the ones I didn't show before, and today's blocks. (By the way, the theme of the first section is "Crosses".  I'm doing the blocks in order.)

 

 



I think this "2 a day" is going to be successful.  Let me know if you're playing along.

It was an enjoyable day, just playing with fabric. We should all do that more often.

Thanks for stopping by.

Little Stuff

Gosh it's been a long time since I posted! I've gone to California (to attended classes at Empty Spools Seminars in beautiful Pacific Grove), Las Vegas, come home, planned my next few trips ... and not posted a thing.  I had visions of catching up, writing about all I'd done - nah, it's probably not gonna happen. So - I'll just pick up right here.

The Pacific was anything but peacful on this day. Very crashy waves!

Oh, Big Sur - you had me from hello!

I saw this mural on a wall in the Mission District in San Francisco. It screams "quilt" to me.

I've been playing with some small stuff. Here's my piece (not yet quilted) from Sue Benner's class. That class was great! If you like different stuff and have the opportunity, take a class from her.

Here's a bit of my improv piecing done in Rayna Gillman's class. More fun stuff! 

  No, not mug rugs - small art pieces. (OK mug rugs if you want, but why not small art to add just a dot of color to a dull spot on your wall?)

Here are a few more, waiting to be made whole

All of these are from the scrap pile.


I attended a weekend Retreat at Cinnamon's Quilt Shop. We did a quick (and I mean QUICK) make it-take it zip bag. I made these from uphostery samples. For context, the one on top has a 6" zipper.

And that's what I've been up to the last 3 months!  Thanks for stopping by!

Mug Rugs, a top, and an inside

I think all quilters have scrap baskets, and now maybe more of you have Parts Departments, but do you have a Bits Bin? That's where I toss left-over blocks, remains from strip sets, etc. That's also where I went to play yesterday.

First I finished the "inside" of the 5 &10:

It still needs a border, but the inside is together.

I've also finished the Safari top:

This is another done in the stack & cut method by Karla Alexander. I like the way this came out & will have to get a better pic soon.

Then I jumped into the Bits Bin and cute little mug rugs starting taking shape. They're all about 8"x11" - notebook paper size, just about. (More proof here that black-and-white is this quilter's favorite solution!) Everything came out of the Bits Bin.

I had leftover blocks from a color study, so I used one and part of a left over 7 1/2" strip set for this one.

 I had half-square triangles from YEARS ago (Lynn Provencher, do you remember that quilt?) and remains of strip sets from another quilt, so those bits became the second mug rug. As for the green, a little pop of (surprising) color is good for the soul.

 See the 2 little strips of quarter-square triangle units, below? They were made from remains from making larger pieces using connector corners. They are 1" finished, and were perfect as the focal point for a mug rug. I grabbed a little B&W, and another 7 1/2" strip set, and voila - two more done. 

One really fun thing about these is that they're nice and small and give you (me) a nice size to practice machine quilting. There's never enough practice! And always something new to try. Speaking of that, are you familiar with the Free Motion Project blog? Here's the link. GREAT ideas!

Anytime I see interesting quilting, I'll add it to my Pinterest board. Most of it is on my "quilting" board (link to Pinterest over on the right nav bar, for those that aren't Pinterest junkies yet), but one of these days I'll clean up my boards & "machine quilting" will become it's own board. Till then, I have way too much fun just scrolling through all the luscious pics. So many quilts. So little time.

I'm still thinking about what it means to "live completely". I think part of it includes doing those things I don't want to do. Darn the luck.

So that was yesterday. It's late so I better get started on something to post for today! I don't have to cook - still eating leftovers from the cook-a-thon on Wednesday. That applesauce is STILL delicious!

Thanks for stopping by.