No Devil's Playground, and a New Year's Resolution

Idle Hands?  I don't think so!

Hi, everyone!   As usual, it's been a while since my last post.  But that's because I've been quilting! 

I've got three finishes (two were minis), a lap quilt sandwiched and ready for quilting, the fireplace quilt laid out, and a sewing project cut and ready to stitch.

This mini-quilt (just about 14" square) was so much fun to make!  It was inspired by Carole at My Carolina Home (p.s., she also has some great recipes).  The fabric all came from my stash: baby quilt, wedding quilt, Civil War block swap, you name it.  It was so fast and easy, I made another one for my daughter (that counts as two finishes, right?)  Now I'm hooked on these little quilts -- I plan to make one for every season.

My New Year's Resolution

It's been many years since I embarked on the fireplace quilt.  I'd enthusiastically cut hundreds of pieces, including the squares that would become half-square triangles (HSTs).  As soon as I started sewing the HSTs, I realized that I hadn't made the squares larger to yield HSTs the same size as the full squares.  ARRGH!  I was so disappointed that I just threw everything in a bin and didn't look at it for a long time.  I finally decided just to use the HSTs and trim down the square units as I went along. Guess I'll need to add an extra border!

A few weeks ago I cleared off the double bed in my sewing room (my design wall is too small) and laid out all the pieces.  It wasn't an easy task, but after several days everything was in place.  Then I picked them up, row by row, and set them aside.  My New Year's resolution for 2017 is to get this quilt finished before next Christmas.  We'll see.

Waiting in the Wings

Last summer I found some wonderful fat quarters at Delphine's, my favorite quilt shop in Gaylord, Michigan.  I bought some yardage from the same fabric line, but didn't get any farther than that.  Now everything's cut and ready to become placemats.   Sorry that the colors didn't come out to well.  The "yellow" in the fabrics on either end is really a bright "safety green."

I couldn't resist this set of beautiful ombre fabrics when they were on sale from Connecting Threads.   The collection was a bit disappointing, in that it included 2 full yards of a rather ugly neutral.  I hear Bonnie Hunter's voice in my ear, "If it's still ugly, you didn't cut it small enough."  The ombres are fat quarters.

One side

The other side

I have no idea what I'm going to do with these.  Anyone have any ideas?  I'm thinking landscape quilt, but that might be an overly-ambitious project for anytime soon, what with everything else that's going on.

The fabric seems to be very nice quality.  And look at these registration dots -- 17 different colors on this one!!

My daughter is doing some serious redecorating of her home.  I promised that I'd make her some Roman shades for her bedroom and the front door.  While she was looking for fabrics, she found two that she loved, but not for shades.  So now I'm on the hook for some pillows too!

How fun is this selvedge?!

Did I mention that there are also two babies on the way.  One will get a quilt, one will get an embroidery.  Which reminds me, the quilt that was just finished?  I'll show that to you next week, after it arrives at its new home.  Until then!