Odds and Ends

Well, I had grand plans for quilting my Red Herring quilt top today. It's all basted and rolled up, ready to go. Just waiting on design inspiration to strike (suggestions very welcome!!). Oh yes, and better weather and less whingey kids. Weather is miserable, so are the kids, hence so am I.

So instead of one big project to share on this cold, wet, horrid Monday (public holiday as it is - thanks for having a birthday Your Royal Highness :) ), I have a few little ones from the past few weeks.

Let’s start with some Bee blocks. This first one is for Kate who is going to have a beautiful star quilt by the end in different colours with a grey background. It’ll look so fab I think! The block is Ribbon Star and you can find the tutorial at Freshly Pieced. Easy to follow, but this block is fiddly and time consuming – around the 3 hour mark. So worth it though!

The other Bee block I’ve made for June is for Elaine. She’s making a gorgeous rainbow quilt using 2.5” squares like this one by Oh Fransson. I have to say, it’s the first time I’ve sewn with small pieces like this and I was a bit pleased that my seams almost all lined up. Nesting the seams when ironing really makes it a breeze! And I guess I should give some credit to the 1/4” foot I recently discovered that came with my sewing machine. That I bought over a year ago. I really should investigate what the rest of the feet are for.

I also whipped up some fabric covered diaries the other week for a friend of mine. These are fun to make and nice quick projects.
This used up the last of my Aviary 2 fabric, as I also made some potholders out of it for that same friend for her birthday.
This was the first time I’ve sewn with insulation batting type stuff (whatever it’s called!). Rookie mistake – cutting it with the rotary cutter on my board. I am still picking fluff out of my poor, abused cutting board. Btw there’s a great tutorial for oven mitts here. I didn’t use the template from there though, just traced around an oven mitt I already had and that worked nicely :)
And last for show and tell today, I made a bag to go with the Random Rainbows quilt for when it’s donated to Angels for the Forgotten. I had one block left from the bee and thought this one would work perfectly for the matching bag.

All this makes me look far more productive than I actually have been. It’s more a case of saving up these little projects and shoving them all happily together into one post. Besides, who doesn’t like looking at pictures?
Well wish me luck on deciding on some kind of quilting plan for the Red Herrings. I’d like to have that finished so I can start something new. I don’t cope well with lots of WiPs!