A tiny weekend project

My husband hosted a BBQ for his work buddies at our place this past Saturday. It was good motivation for me to finally clean up the built-in sideboard in the dining room. Usually it's just filled with all sorts of junk - art supplies for the kid, magazines, you name it. After I got it all cleared out, I took the glass top off for a really good double-sided cleaning. And then the brilliant idea struck me - I could put some fabric under that glass to brighten things up!

A quick trip to up the stash, and I found this beautiful large-scale Valori Wells print. It's just perfect for spring. It's hard to tell from my crappy photo, but it looks awesome under the glass, almost like a painting. Now I'll be keeping my eye out for other seasonal fabrics to use throughout the year...

I'm just thrilled to have actually done SOMETHING to the house. We moved in more than a year ago, and have barely made any changes (aside from just throwing up some pictures that first week). I suck at decorating and am paralyzed by indecision, while my husband would be happy with completely blank white walls everywhere. So really, this is a big deal. :-)

project linus #4

I am on a roll now! Hopefully I can get this one finished soon, so I can feel like I'm caught up. For a few days anyway. :-) I was inspired by this quilt on the Craft Nectar blog, and thought I'd try to whip up something similar using my over-abundant supply of 6" novelty squares. It doesn't look nearly as hip as theirs, but I like it anyway. I think next time I'll add at least one more row, to make it more rectangular than square-ish. I was also too scared to do a 3/4" stripe (so tiny!), so I did mine 1.5". I'm planning to do just straight lines for the quilting, parallel to the stripes, maybe 1" apart or so.

And here's the back... I read somewhere a while back about using 10.5" squares to piece together backs, and the idea has been percolating in my brain ever since. [I wish I could give credit to the person who blogged about this, but I just searched for 30 minutes and can't find it! If anyone knows - please let me know!] I love the mathematical simplicity - you just measure your top, round up to the nearest 10 on each side, and divide by 10 to know how many squares you need. I love that I can continue to use my supply of novelty fabrics (of which I have a ton!), especially the ones that have extra large or extra small motifs. And I love that I don't have to worry about finding a backing that matches the front, or having enough backing on hand, or having to think about how to piece the back to make it wide enough. And I think it's kinda cool that it becomes a sort of two-for-one quilt, with a back that's almost as fun as the front.

loot report - thread bonanza!

The loot was scarce this weekend! I went to several sales, and left emptyhanded at almost every one of them. But I did find one estate sale that made the outing worthwhile. For $12, I scored a bunch of thread, plus a bit of fabric and some other notions...

Here's all the newer threads (on plastic spools). There was also one spool of elastic thread, and a few spools of upholstery/button thread.

There were also a lot of older threads on wooden spools. There was even one spool of silk (the pink near the top), and one I think is silk (the orange).

And there were these weird wooden things, which I've never seen before. Does anyone know if they have an official name? For now, I'm calling them "leftover thread keepers".

And a bunch of spools of Star Mercerized cotton thread. Most of them are quite well used, but that's still quite a bit left, considering they are the 1200 yd size. Oh, and one lonely little spool of Gutermann...

Finally, some huge cones of red, and one ginormous spool of gray. I left one spool of the cotton for comparison. I've never seen spools of thread that big before! The basket in the back is what held half of the thread; the rest was in a shoebox.

And here's the fabric. Nothing too noteworthy, but I do like the polka dot one! I think I might be able to pass the two pinks on to someone who makes "Quilt for a Cure" quilts.

I also picked up this piece because it has an interesting slubby texture. I wish it had a content label, as I'm not one of those people who can tell by the feel. But I love that the tag is still attached - 2 1/8 yards (on sale, 1/2 off!) for $1.69!

And just a few notions. I wanted to brag that I actually exercised some restraint - there was a LOT of loose ricrac and lace and trim all wadded up in drawers and boxes, and I passed it up. Good for me!

And lastly, I got this cool basket (also still with its original tag from JCPenney). I have a thing for ticking! I should have thrown something inside for scale - it's about 1' high and 1.5' across. I have no idea what I'll do with it, though I think it might look sweet filled with quilts. :-)

Not a bad haul for $12!

Project Linus #3!

Yay, I'm done with my third Project Linus quilt! So now I'm back to being only one month behind. :-) Here's the front - it's sort of a coin quilt, but with full 6" blocks. So, um, not a coin quilt at all...

And the back - a colorful kitty print.

As I described in an earlier post, I used a sort of baste-as-you-go technique that Des of Quilt Taffy described, and I shamelessly copied her quilting ideas too (random lines plus stippling).

The biggest problem I had was with some puckers underneath, on the top section (quilting from the bottom up). Probably using a nicer batting would have prevented this, but I've got a monster 50 yard bolt of polyester batting to work my way through!! So, I think I should have taken the time to pin around the edges. But still, it's not so bad - just 3 little pleats, and they are pretty hard to spot in that busy fabric. Can you see a couple here?

I made my binding a little bit wider this time (2.75", double-fold), because I wanted to make sure that none of the top-stitching accidentally showed on the underside of the binding. That was hard to describe - I'm sure you other quilters know what I mean! I like how that worked - I think I'll try to remember to do that for all the ones I do by machine.

loot report, part 2

This post from V & Co was fresh in my mind when I saw a big pile of embroidery hoops at Saturday's rummage sale. Be in Red had the same idea too. At 25 cents each, I snapped them all up (including 3 smaller ones not shown here). Now I just need to pick out some favorite fabrics, and find someone with an artistic eye to help me hang them up in my sewing room!

I found this set of cubes at a garage sale for $2. I already have another set of 3 in white, of slightly different sizes. Someday I will paint them all the same color, and back them with pretty fabric or scrapbooking paper, and hang them on a wall to store trinkets of some sort. Maybe hung low in my daughter's room, to hold her little treasures? Or maybe somewhere else in the house to hold a collection of little photos? (I could have sworn that I'd seen this idea on a blog, but my dozens of searches are turning up nothing - if anyone has a link, please let me know!)

Finally, I had a nice experience at an estate sale on Sunday. I almost passed it by, since I was with my daughter (toddlers and estates sales don't mix well - usually no toys to entertain them, too many people in small spaces and, worst of all, too many breakables!). But, it was the last day of a 3 day sale, and it was right on our way, so we stopped. On the way in, through the garage, I noticed a sign that said "Anything in the garage is free!". Nice! I made a note to check it out on the way back. I looked around inside, and only found this piece of fabric (about 1.5 yds), which I thought I could use for kids' quilts. I asked how much it was, and the lady said "Eh, it's free - I was about to put it in the garage." Wasn't that nice?

Back out in the garage, I spied this luggage holder thingie (I'm sure it has a proper name, but heck if I know what it is!). The last time my mom came to visit, she mentioned that I really needed to get one of these for the spare bedroom. So, there you go, mom!

I wish now that I'd gone back in to give them at least a couple bucks. But I guess it all evens out - I paid $2 for a shirt at a church benefit sale, only to notice later that it had a couple serious holes in the front - doh!

loot report, part 1

I had some fun finds this weekend! First off, can you guess what this is?



Looks like a big bread maker, right? That's what I first thought, but I'm so glad I bent down to take a closer look. It's an ice maker! One of my best friends, Suzette, is just the kind of person who can actually use one of these - she has a huge posse of friends and family, and organizes huge parties, camping trips, retreats, you name it. She mentioned years ago wanting to buy something like this for her Aunt & Uncle's place in Maine (as a thank you for letting her family stay there every year), and so I immediately thought of her. I took a gamble, and bought it for $10. Looking it up online, it looks to be about $250 new. If it works, it's going to be great addition to Suzette's party arsenal! It makes me SO happy to find something for someone else - like ten times better than finding something cool for myself!

At the same rummage sale, I bought a tote bag full of plastic eggs for 50 cents. Now, plastic eggs aren't at all hard to find at garage sales or thrift stores, but I just hadn't ever thought to pick any up (my kid just turned 3 - we hadn't needed any before now!). I was a little annoyed to find myself buying them new from the store this past Easter, so I decided to stock up on a few more. When I got home, I decided I should open them up and wash them out. And I'm glad I did - I found a couple still full of some pretty nasty looking candy (those went straight into the trash). And when I was just about done, a got a fun surprise - do you see that dollar bill poking up in the back? Yep, I net 50 cents on this deal!! Sweet!

And, more sheets, of course. I found this lovely pink one at Goodwill. It's only a twin, and fitted (which I try to avoid), but I already had this pattern in two other colors (shown below), so I had to get it. It was half off, too - score!

And lastly, some more thriftstore linens. The print on the right is quite large, but I still had to have it (ricrac!). The pink rose print is a little sparse, but it's 100% cotton, and I think it will match well with another set of thrifted linens I have (subject of a future post). And while I don't totally love the colors of the pillowcases on the left, I love the pattern and they were in great shape. Maybe they'll become tote bags or pillows some day...

zigzag top, completed

I got the top completed on Friday, yahoo! I used a lot of starch on the edges when I ironed it, and I'm planning to "stay stitch" (is there a quilty term for that?) around the edge before I chop the points off, in the hopes that it will help to keep things from stretching. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing?

I bought some Soft & White batting this weekend, so I'll soon be ready to go. Just need to find the time... and the courage. :-) I'm planning to just do straight quilting on it (following the zigzags), so it shouldn't be too hard.