Recent Work

I'm afraid I've neglected my blog recently, but it's mainly because I've been so busy sewing!  So this blog post will be "short and sweet" so I can get back to my sewing.  #notaddictedtoquilting

Here are a few of the things I've been working on.

While watching Giants games in the living room with MisterStitches I've been cutting out aprons for TwoFish Baking Company.  Here Cassie is inspecting them.

On Saturday I started a new quilting project, one involving the "fabric confetti" method.  The whole quilt won't be confetti; I'll be adding some appliquéd shapes too.

Finished up this cute little Christmas tree ornament for my quilt guild's fundraiser sale on Thanksgiving weekend.  Isn't it cute!!??!

Added some appliqué flowers to my green denim jacket.  I guess I should do a whole blog post about that jacket, to show you all the treasures it holds.  

Here is a closer photo of the embroidered flowers.  I found a new way to embroider a flower on Pinterest:  the two red flowers.  I think they look a little like roses.

 I finished quilting a spiral on this quilt for our quilt guild's challenge show in October.  I found a great entry on Pinterest that gave very detailed instructions on quilting a spiral, and it was very, very  helpful.

And I finished crocheting another baby afghan.

Christmas Ornaments, Already!?!

Yes, I'm making Christmas ornaments.  I'm working on some embroidered ones (like I've made in previous years, like these), and also made a couple little spool ornaments.  

I love wooden spools!

For these ornaments, I simply used a blue sparkly fabric to cover the spools.  (No real explanation or how-to needed for this, I think.  Simply turned under edges and glued to the spool.)

Then I looked at the ends, and they looked rather ugly.  There were no labels, but unattractive glue residue.  I didn't really want to bother with painting, but I wanted those ends covered.  So I grabbed a silver sharpie and that did the trick in no time.  

Then I glued plastic snowflakes (bought for use in making cards, which I've done) on the ends, before finally adding some silver ribbon for a hanger.

As you can see, I made one in the horizontal direction, and one vertical.  I'm pretty sure I'll be making some more, in other Christmas-y colors.

What Have I Been Doing?

Yes, I know it's the middle of summer, but I seem to find myself making Christmas ornaments almost all year long!  Partly because my guild has a fund-raising booth at a summertime art festival in August, so we need things like this to sell in the booth.

Here are some close-up samples.

Most of the designs are from patterns I have purchased.  But I made up some of the designs myself.

An easy way was to "print" a word having to do with Christmas.

I drew this Christmas tree pattern.

Here is another of my word ornaments.

I had an amusing conversation with MisterStitches recently about these ornaments.  I told him that I don't think I can ever stop making these ornaments.  If I find that I have some of the small muslin rectangles left over, then I have to cut some more colored strips to make borders.  If I have border strips left over, then I need to cut some more muslin rectangles.  MisterStitches said, "Why don't you just throw the leftover pieces away?"  Now, isn't that a silly thing to say!  And I told him so!!  "I can't just throw fabric away."

He just doesn't seem to get it.

Spring Training 2016

MisterStitches and I took our (seems to be) annual road trip to Scottsdale, Arizona for Giants spring training.  We had a great drive down, listening to Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith.  You may have seen the old Alfred Hitchcock movie by the same name.  The movie was based on this book.  

The next day I took a jeep trip to the Sonora desert, a little ways outside of Scottsdale.  That was fun!  Hot and dusty, as one would expect.  I learned a lot about cacti and desert animals and desert life.

And of course, we went to baseball games.  We were able to go onfield before one game and watch the Giants take batting practice.  It was really cool to be on the field, so close to the players.

Brandon Crawford (on the right) is one of my favorite players, in addition to being one of the cutest!  Joe Panik isn't too bad either!

MissesStitches and Hunter Strickland.

I got to have my photo taken with Hunter Strickland, one of the relief pitchers.

MissesStitches and Mac Williamson

After the next game we got to go on the field again, and I had my photo taken with Mac Williamson.    He also autographed my baseball hat.  Pretty nice guy.

With all this time in the car, I was able to get some hand-sewing done.  I hand-sewed the binding on my president's quilt, a good job done.

I can only show you a glimpse of this project, as it is for our guild challenge show in May, and I'll show you the whole thing then.  I was doing needle turn appliqué on this piece.

And here are a few Christmas ornaments that I made.  While at home, I did the pre-work of sewing two circles together.  Then in the car I sewed the openings shut, and folded up the sides to form these ornaments.