potholders

I'm having one of those terribly unproductive days... I really should be working, and I have a big task for work that needs to be done. But the tree people, who were supposed to come next week (nicely timed for when I'd be out of town), decided to show up this morning. So instead of concentrating on coding, I've been doing chores and trying to not go crazy listening to chainsaws and wood chippers and leaf blowers (my least favorite sounds EVER). They finished up not too long ago, and I had about an hour of peace. And then the yard people showed up, with their lawn mowers and MORE leaf blowers. Seriously. Happy Earth Day, have some noise pollution! I know I shouldn't complain - we hired the folks after all! But this just wasn't the productive day I was envisioning this morning!

So, as long as I'm not getting any work done, let me show off a little potholder project I whipped up recently...

This here is a little pile of what I think of as "sheet selvages". They are the bottom hems that aren't really useful for much. I used to throw them away, but then I wondered if I might be able to use them for something. So, I started saving them. During my boring weekly meetings, I trim them by cutting right along the stitching. It's only somewhat quicker than seam-ripping, but a whole lot less messy!

I cut 9" squares of muslin and Insul-Brite, layered them, and then sewed strips on as if they were selvages - the folded edge goes on top, the cut edge gets covered up by the next strip, which is top-stitched down.

I made two like this, trimmed them up, put them back-to-back (rotated one by 90 degrees, not that it really matters), serged the edges and bound it like a quilt. Instead of starting in the middle of one side, I started at a corner, and then made a loop and tucked the binding in at end.

And there you go, one potholder! Cute!

And I'm happy to report that the yard people are done. Thank goodness! Now maybe I can get an hour of work done!

two vintage sheet giveaways...

For all you vintage sheet fans - there are two fun giveaways you should check out.

Rachel at my tiny robot heart is giving away this huge envelope of scraps.



And Emily at Creative Chicks is giving away two sets of scraps.



Go and enter!

purge party

First, a confession - I totally wimped out on the Fabric Stash Purge Party. I went as far as going through my stash of "old" fabrics (the non-quilting ones), and I culled out a whole bin of fabric to sell. But then I just ran out of time and energy, and could not see myself driving into Seattle three days in a row (Friday to drop off the stuff, Saturday to shop, Sunday to pick up anything that didn't sell). So, I'll just save the bin until October, and try again!

But I did go on Saturday, and dragged along my friend Ahava. Last time I only snapped a couple pics on my way out the door, but this time I asked and they were okay with pictures, so here's a full report...

First, there was one long row of all quilting cottons, everything from baggies of scraps to FQs to yards and more. The prices varied from about $1/yard to $4/yard. I didn't see much designer stuff, or any highly collectible fabrics, but I'm also not really an expert on that!



The other rows of fabrics were more cottons and vintage, then fashion fabrics (knits, woolens, synthetics, etc.). There were sections for holiday fabrics, fleece, flannel, home dec, batting, and bolts. At the very back were several sewing machines and sergers.





In the back, there were tables full of yarns, trims, beads, scrapbooking supplies...



and books, patterns, threads, and every other crafting product under the sun!



We were there at about 10:30, I think (they opened at 10), and it was not as busy as I thought it would be on the first day. I'd say the quilting cotton row was most popular, but it was not too crowded to shop, and everyone was well-behaved. ;-)

Here's my tiny bit of loot - $5 for 3 yards of pretty novelty prints. It was supposed to be 4 yards, as that top print was marked as 2 yards but was really only 1 (grrr....).

Oh, and I'm splitting this lovely piece of Kaffe Fassett with Ahava (6 yards for $18!). She posed with it to make it seem like that's the only purchase she made, but there were a few more items stacked at her feet! ;-)

what I've been working on...

I am so behind in blogging (along with so many other things, unfortunately!). I have 5 posts in draft form, and what feels like a gazillion projects in process! Here's just a sampling of what I've been working this past week or so...

First of all, I'm happy to report that my stash sale was a huge success! I went from this...



down to this!



I sold about 22 sets (mostly singles, but a couple doubles, and one triple!), which is about 450 FQs, or at least 120 yards of fabric. I'm happy, and my husband is *really* happy!! Thank you so much to everyone who bought a set! And special thanks to Michelle at craftydill and Angie at Dear Spring Green, who took some pretty pictures of their loot and blogged about it - I love that!! I'm excited that this worked out, and actually look forward to rebuilding my stash and doing it all over again! :-)

A side effect of all that stash management was getting my stacks of 6" squares all organized too. I cut squares for all the new prints I'd recently acquired, and sorted them by color (greens, blues/purples, yellows, orange/browns, pinks, and multicolors). Pretty!



I had a private swap of squares to put together (more on that in a later post), and wanted to make sure I had one of each. Can you guess how many are in the stack??



I think it was somewhere around 220! Holy cow!

And speaking of 6" squares... I have also been spending some time working through my novelty stash with my friend Quynh. She wants to make an I-Spy quilt for her sister's kids, so she's trading me her slave labor (ironing and cutting) for a set of squares. It's making me really want to get back on some more Project Linus quilts, but I simply must finish up some of my current projects before I can start anything new. But when I'm ready, it will be so nice to go straight to my now ginormous stash of novelty squares! It's hard to tell from the photo, but this stack is like 8" high!



Finally, I'm making progress on this quilt that I started back in January. Sadly, I recently found out that another friend of mine has had her breast cancer return (again. ug.). I'll be seeing this friend in a couple weeks, so I'm going to try to finish this one up for her, and make a second version for the other friend I originally intended this one for.

The more I work on it, the more I love it. It's so buttery soft and cozy. I hope it brings my friend some comfort and pleasure. And while I'm thinking about it - does anyone have any suggestions for what to write on the label? I can always just wimp out and stick to the facts, but does anyone have any suggestions for a quote or saying? Something kind or comforting or hopeful, or about friendship?