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Little Things

I said in my first post that I was terribly negligent about blogging... lol

I've been working on a bunch of little things, most for Flickr swaps.  First up, I joined the Fab Little Random Treasure Swap (FLiRTS).  I decided to go for the "easy" list since I didn't want to overwhelm myself.  My partner likes bright rainbow colors, so I decided on Pinwheels

These are the beginning of some hot pads.  The criteria says that they are supposed to be minimally pieced, but I wanted to try something new, and I hope that my partner will forgive my off-point piecing since they're not supposed to really be pieced anyway.

This is what I came up with -- two 8" potholders complete with insulbright batting, and 8 coasters.  They are backed in a cute Robert Kaufman rainbow polkadot print that I got in a scrap-pack from Hawthorne threads (I'm totally addicted to their scrap packs!).

Here are the coasters, I think they look so cute :)  They're definitely not perfect, but I'm happy with how the set turned out.

I also joined the Newbee Quilters group over at Threadbias.  The Queen of the bee this month asked for a churn dash block.  It was super fun to whip up and came together pretty quickly

Since I was using a print with a lot of white space, I decided to invert the pattern and use the solid for the inside for more pop.  I hope the Queen likes it :)

I'm really terrible at taking "in process" pictures, mostly because I do a lot of my sewing at night and the light in my house is terrible.  The next project on my cutting table is the xplus quilt that I talked about in a previous post.  I ordered 16 prints from Pat Bravo's Indie line, and a bunch of black and white prints.  I'm excited to get started :)

Happy May Day

After 3 cloudy, rainy days, it's beautiful and sunny out and promises to stay that way for the next 5 days.  I'm planning to go out to the garden after work and weed (the weeds loved the rain more than the plants I want growing there!)

Last week was a pretty busy week, but I still managed to get some sewing done for Flickr swaps this past weekend.  I'm excited to be able to finally participate in some swaps, it's somewhat difficult to get into swaps over at Flickr if you are new-ish to the sewing community.  The first swap, that is due to be mailed next week is a Friendship Bag swap.  It is a secret swap, so you don't know who is creating for you.  Unfortunately my partner has been a little quiet in the group, so  hopefully she likes what I have made her.

I looked at my partner's photostrem and chose a pallet based on some of her mosaics for other swaps.  Most of the fabrics are from scrap packs I bought at Hawthorne threads.  The only "stash" fabrics are the bottom right (Denyse Schmidt, Chicopee), and bottom left (Tula Pink, Parisville).  I also went to Joann and bought some natural linen to use for the bottom and handles.  The lining is a beige DS Quilts print from Joann that matches the linen (sorry I don't have a good picture of the inside)

Here is the finished bag, it measures about 8.5" wide and about 6" high.  It sewed up very quickly and was easy even for me as a beginner.  The tutorial is from Rachel Griffith at P.S. I quilt.  Now I just need to get some goodies to put in it and mail it on it's way.  I actually used the bag to carry supplies for the other project I completed this weekend...

A Hexie coffee cozy!

This one is for the Rapid and Tiny Zakka Swap (RaTZ).  I love how this turned out so much I'm going to have a hard time mailing it off to my partner when the time comes.  I was a little intimidated by the hexagon paper piecing when I saw it on other blogs, but it is super easy.  I followed a tutorial from the quarterinchmark.  Since it's handsewing I took it along with us to the mall and stitched my hexies together while Ryan was at Sears buying tools.

I'm also participating in a few other swaps -- a Fabric Basket swap, which I will start this weekend, and a swap called FLiRTS where you choose 5 items from one of three difficulty levels and then your partner makes you something on this list.  Here is my mosaic for my partner to use as inspiration :)  I'm really hoping for a thread catcher since my dining room table is full of stray threads and I have to toss the tablecloth in the dryer every couple of days just to get them all cleaned up.

1. scissor pouch, sewing kit and apple pin cushion  2. Pincushion  3. Log Cabin Pincushion  4. thread catcher  5. Tea Pouches  6. coasters  7. vintage fabric coasters  8. coasters for sarah  9. pockets with tea

What types of projects are you working on?  I'm thinking I probably won't get much sewing done with the weather forecast being so nice this week.   Do you grow a garden?  If so, what are you growing?  So far I have peas, lettuce, beets, arugala, chard, spinach and carrots coming up.  Two more weeks and I can get all my summer veggies planted.