Project-ing

On the plus side, I finished daughter's Halloween table runner....all 83 inches of it. Of course it's not labeled, if I had to wait for me to get around to making a label, Halloween would be over. I'll get it back after the holiday. It was a simple project, I just cut out a bunch of random width strips from half yards of fabrics (you could use FQs, as I wound up with a FQ leftover from each, since I cut my WOF in half). I sewed them together narrow in the center out to widest. When finished, I cut three 2"  strips off of the sides of my 72" long strip set. I added the black border and then I sewed the strips I had cut to that, being careful not to match them up to the center. I call this my FAUX BINDING. (Genius move on my part). Once I had the top together I just laid the back down right sides together,  laid the batting on top, sewed it together, leaving an opening for turning, and wah-lah...DONE! (Except for quilting). 'What?! No binding?!' say the quilt police.  It's a table runner, get over it--I did.

After a spendy little jaunt to the local quilt shop,  I was able to cut out everything I need to make a Dresden tree skirt for my daughter. Not that she asked for one, mind you, but there's a few ladies that would like to make one this year, so I'm having them over for a little quilt-in, Since someone needs to lead by example, I needed to make another skirt.

Here's the one I made last year, in a photo from the County Fair. (yes, that would be a Grand Champion ribbon, I'm flaunting....thanks for asking. )

And because one can never make enough trips to the local quilt shop, I'll probably be back there later today to fill in the fabrics I need for the upcoming Bonnie Hunter Grand Illusion Mystery that starts the Friday after Thanksgiving that a couple of my Facebook friends sucked me into.

I'm not a big fan of mystery quilts, but I researched the ones that Bonnie has done over the years and they are simply stunning, and appear to require major work (and obviously a lot of fabric....if you add up her numbers, for the 88" square quilt top alone she's asking you to gather 12-3/4 yards of various fabrics). Because this is a mystery, and I still have trouble committing to something sight unseen, for purposes of cost control, I'm using mostly fabric from my stash, I need to replace the yellow (the one in the photo is for the Jingle flange) and I may replace one of the green and turquoise prints, and add in a black or two.

I changed out Bonnie's suggested pink for a couple of oranges and a salmon-y color. I'm not a fan of bright pink, have none in my stash, and preferred the orange with the green and the turquoise (that top orange fabric will probably be eliminated, but for now it kind of works)

Then, last night,  I took a break from the quilt studio to move into the art studio...not my workroom, but someone else's real art studio--trading fabric for paper. The idea was to create 'pop art' (remember that?)

At the hubs' request, Tucker became the subject matter for this endeavor.  Let's just say that while not quite an epic fail, the results are definitely not 'frame-worthy'.

 

But, on the bright side, I learned a new technique that I could recreate in my own workroom without having to buy a single supply for. (Thanks to the acetate transparency sheets discarded by the hubs' office--which is what I traced onto, using a Sharpie, from the photograph--that I held on to a few of when I gave boxes of them to my quilt guild to use as templates). I might try this at home with some 'people' photographs. A trip to Ikea for some frames, and I could have some pretty cool one of a kind Christmas gifts.  Sure, let me add that to my to-do list.