Lemons or Lemonade?

Not surprisingly, there's another squirrel loose in my sewing room, a yellow one this time. 

All it took was an email from a friend who asked a group of our quilters if we would consider making quilted bookmarks for Christmas bundles that she gives to shut-ins - she needs about 40. Soon the idea of also making mug rugs came up, so naturally, I had to head to the scrap bins to see what I could start. I've also been pinning ideas like mad.

A braid seemed like a quick and easy place to start, and it was. Not sure exactly what size to make my strips (I want the mug rugs to be about 6" x 8") I cut them 2" x 6.5".

And very quickly I had this, which I love. 

If I trimmed and didn't waste any of the edges I would end up with a piece about 7.5". But even though they are scraps, I just can't bring myself to trim them to 6.5" wide and waste some of those corner pieces so that I can have the braid running across the mug, not vertically. Stall.

So, after I slept on it I'm changing gears (squirrels do that a lot). I will cut this strip in half and add borders to each piece to make a set of placemats for the Holly Bazaar. Then, I will cut another shorter set of strips to make mug rugs and get that braid running in the direction that I want. Not exactly what I was planning, but when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!...M

Soggy Stitching

We're home again. Thankfully the heat wave has broken to some extent, and with that change came rain. It's been nothing if not variable - sunny one minute, pouring the next - but the rain is a welcome change. And a little more cross stitch is the perfect way to spend a soggy Sunday.

This time around I decided to start with Santa's house.

Then there was a little landscaping.

And now I'm into roofing. It's fun to see it come together though invariably, as I add new colours, I see where I have occasionally misplaced a stitch. No worries. The pattern is flexible enough at this point that I can fill in as desired and it's close enough for me....M

Counting On Santa To Keep Me Cool

We're on a bit of a holiday this week and we've also been under a massive heat dome, the likes of which we've never seen before, so I have been looking to Santa to help cool things down a bit. 

I'm starting another Good Day, Syre Christmas cross stitch. The one that I made last year was lots of fun but you work it over two threads of linen so at times it's tough to keep your stitches where you need to. For that one, I basted a line through the centre of each axis as a way to help keep me oriented to the pattern, but it still made for lots of counting and recounting.

So, this time I'm basting a grid every 10 stitches apart. It's not the fastest process, again because of the linen, but I've finally finished. Sort of reminded me of Sashiko stitching but more stressful because it is finely woven. Time to start putting a few stitches in and see where that takes me. 

Hope that you are finding ways to stay cool in this heat....M

A Blue & Yellow Lozenge Flimsy

I didn't know what else to call this quilt so I'm calling it Lozenges. Boring, I know, but I recently saw that name used for the block on Pinterest, so that's what I am going with.

To be honest, I had a little lunch bag letdown with this one after it was started, which surprised me because the blue accent fabric is beautiful, almost a deep periwinkle; but it was looking pretty drab down in the sewing cave. That lighting wasn't doing it any favours.

After bringing it up into the natural light everything changed. All of the colours just came to life and once it was pressed I was impressed. So happy because I did enjoy making it and there's nothing worse than finishing a flimsy and all you feel is 'meh'.

I hit a bit of a slow patch trying to figure out the sizes for the border pieces. In the end, I just made more full blocks and then trimmed them half the size of the block plus a seam allowance. So much quicker, and it was a much better finish (you can see how the blue one in the upper right is starting to do it's own thing...

Trimming was a breeze,

and there was much less waste than I had imagined, so that was a bonus.

And, I was thrilled to have just enough blue for a narrow border, similar to my inspiration photo. I did lots of calcs before making the first cut because my piece was only about 16" x 39" and I wanted that border to be as wide as possible. It's cut at 2.75" so it will finish off at 2.25", which will be nice. A border will also help corral all of those bias edges. So, with the exception of a 2" strip, that piece is all used up. 

I took a look through the rest of the fabrics to see if there was enough for a binding and again the remnant gods were shining on me. This one always reminds me of olives for some reason. It was just slightly larger than the blue remnant so I cut the entire thing up into binding to send along to QFS with the flimsy. Another piece leaves the stash.

If I hadn't been fretting over whether or not I had enough of the blue to make this quilt work it would have been a fun quilt to make because it really did come together nicely. Another time I would ensure that I have lots of the main colour. 

I am still thinking that I need to try making a table runner for the Holly Bazaar using this pattern, but with a smaller block, so I will look forward to that....M