Stilettos - but not shoes

I saw a bunch of these online - sewing stilettos made from turkey laces and beads.  The perfect tool to keep your fingers out from under the needle when sewing.

I bought a package of turkey laces - not easy to find this time of year - and then dug through the beads I had. The tricky thing was finding beads with the correct size hole.  My choices were limited, but I think they turned out pretty cute. I may make more of them.

Hand stitching only . . .

This was not a very productive weekend in terms of sewing. Saturday was busy with laundry, some cleaning, and then a road trip to visit the grandbabies.  Sunday should have been productive because I was home alone and could have spent the whole day at my sewing machine. But it didn't happen.  Other than doing handwork I just could not get motivated to work on anything else. 

I have a couple of ideas in mind for the final product for these English Paper Pieced hexies. Right now I'm thinking they would make a good doll quilt.

But for the first step I'm stitching them to 5" dark brown squares. And I have 6 of them done.  They are all hand stitched - each individual over card stock hexie templates, then handstitched together, and finally hand stitched onto the brown square. The last thing I did was carefully cut away the backing and pull out the paper.

Random sewing has struck again!

For most of this year I've done a fair job of focusing on getting some UFOs and WIPs finished . . . at least to the point of having them ready to quilt.

But the past couple of weeks I've strayed again to the land of random sewing. I can't seem to just pick a project and work on it for any length of tme.  Over the weekend I worked on blocks for 3 different projects. I am hoping that the guild's UFO Challenge will get me back on track in October.

This week I've picked up my zip lock bag of tiny hexies - and this is the result. I have NO IDEA what I plan to do with them yet however. 

These are too small to make a whole quilt as the hexies themselves are 1 inch.  If I had used Christmas fabrics these would make good ornaments.  Any ideas for me? 

Magnolia block

I think it looks more like a rose bud myself . . . but whatever you call this it's cute.  This is block 6 of our Saturday Sampler. 

Sunday was definitely a "block" day for me. We had brunch, cooked by my husband and then he left for a golf tournament and I headed to my sewing room.  I made this block, then made 4 more 1930's elephants blocks (2 lavendar and 2 green) to add to the 2 yellow ones.  And I made 2 more heartstring blocks.  That is a total of 7 blocks for the afternoon. 

Last but not least I made a cute label and attached it to the wildlife quilt.  All in all a productive afternoon.

Wildlife quilt is finished

Another finish to check off my list, as I finally finished the binding today.  This lap quilt was made by setting blocks from a panel into a drop shadow. I added a narrow black folded border around each block because they seemed to need some black to frame them. The drop shadows are each different and are from the same batiks I used in the picket fence side borders.  Then the top and bottom have wide borders from a really unique swirled fabric that looks like water.  The colors are really rich.  

A new UFO challenge

Our quilt guild is going to start another UFO challenge in October.  Those who are participating will need to bring a list of UFOs. Then as we finish them we get to mark them off the list. If we don't finish any then we pay a penalty.  I'm working on my list.  In spite of the UFOs that I've finished in the last year I still have a huge list.  And a few items on it are really old.

The best thing about doing this . . . I feel more normal because I'm seeing how long everyone else's lists are too.

Where did this week go?

Thursday already?  Where did this week go? 

I had promised more pictures from the quilt show, but I forgot to take my camera back in on Sunday so there are not any more to show. Bummer!!

In between time spent at the quilt show over the weekend I did get a little sewing done.  One of the things I did was make 2 elephant blocks using a 1930's reproduction fabric from my stash.  I plan to make more out of some of the other colors I have collected - lavendar, blue, pink, green, etc.  I think they will be really cute in the 30's fabrics.

Another WIP - but there is a plan for these. They were a request so I don't feel guilty about starting something new in this case.