Petite Pretty Pincushions

I took the selvedges I mentioned in the last post and made… 

See the fussy cut fish on the top ‘thread’??

pincushions! 

Teeny tiny little 3” thread spool pin holders.

Back of “Debbie” - love Laurel Burch!

The pattern is “Quilty Friends Quilt Label Block” by Happy Sew Lucky

which I reduced by 50% (because I’m crazy…)

“Debbie” is made from sales samples ⬆️ ⬇️ somebody gave me… 10? more? years ago.

Both the top and bottom pieces are lined with Pellon SF101 light interfacing for more structure. (Also hoping it keeps the pins from sticking out the underside. Ouch!)

I redid the top of “Reyna” three times - could not get the thread lines to look straight - before throwing in the towel, ripping out the center section and remaking the rest. Annoying but worth it.

They’re stuffed with crushed walnut shells and the smallest bag I could find without paying the ‘craft tax’ was 4 pounds. Anybody want a pincushion or six?? (Craft tax - prices per ounce are significantly higher because it’s smaller amounts for crafters. 😡)

Once stuffed, I glued the last section of seam shut (note for next time: genius idea!) and ladder-stitched it together. Would I make these again? Heck yes - but maybe just a bit bigger. 

More notes for next time: add borders so the spool design is more prominent; leave off the zig-zag bit under the name tag-don’t need it; use 60 weight thread and a size 70 machine needle. 

Gift Sewing

Not a lot going on here. Donovan is visiting for a week while mom and dad go house hunting in S. Carolina (wahhhhhhh 😭), plus my current project is a gift so no pics yet… which all adds up to a big lack of blogging material. 

I’ve been working on organizing my Big Bin of Selvages. I’d asked a few friends to save selvage strips from their quilts for me, planning to cut and sew them into words for… quilt labels? captions on blocks? just for fun? They came through in a big way so I’m sorting and ironing and planning.

The original idea came from posts on Instagram and, like a lot of social media stuff, it looked easier than it is. Things to remember - bigger letters are definitely better. Words with extra space between letters (kerning?) are great. Strips with less than a generous 1/4” of fabric above and below the letters are mostly unusable. Black letters are too common (it’s slowly changing but most selvages have black ink on white fabric) - hoard those colorful letters! Use a glue pen to hold letters in place for sewing. 

A friend said the end product looks like a ransom note. 😂 She’s not wrong!

The Birds Are Back

The holidays threw me off track on the Birdwatchers Project

so Sunday I spent most of the afternoon making the head of January’s Atlantic Puffin (the most complicated part)

10 x 21”

and last night finishing up the rest. Isn’t he handsome?

Next up - either December’s Northern Flicker

or November’s Purple Gallinule. Hoping to have both done before February’s project is released. (And very glad they are small-ish projects, unlike the huge 21 x 33” Green Heron!! Here)

More Winter Wonderland

Remember December’s Winter Wonderland project? (Here)

Teena’s blocks

Teena and I were having so much fun, we decided to continue it on as a block a month project, with the goal of a bigger completed quilt by next Christmas. 

January’s block was Elf Legs by Full Bobbin Designs.  

Love my argyle socks

Great pattern, easy instructions and both blocks turned out super cute.

Next month we may do Frosty, by the same designer… but we’ve got a list of at least 20 blocks we’d like to make so who knows what we’ll feel like when February rolls around. 

Change of Plan

Today was the final checkup from my cataract surgery, hooray!

I didn’t realize they planned to dilate my eyes, which was fine, but required a change of plan for the afternoon.

Since I value my fingers, cutting and sewing fabric got put off till tomorrow 

and I went with hubby and grandson’s favorite plan - fresh baked cinnamon rolls*. Yummmmmmmm. 

* My fav fast and easy recipe: Sally’s Baking Addiction Easy Cinnamon Rolls From Scratch. Not quite as good as my long-time favorite (my opinion; the boys think these are excellent) but Sally’s don’t take a full 8 hours to make either. 

Is This Thing On?

Happy new year! Only a week late… No sewing projects so far this year, I’ve been dealing with iPad photo woes.

Making silly faces

Short version - on 12/26 got a warning that my iPad memory was full ‘cause I have so many pictures… it’s 6 years old, probably due for an upgrade, so bought a new 1 terrabyte iPad… pick it up from the Apple Store, help line is loooooooong, so take it home to do the setup myself. Setup is good but pictures won’t download from iCloud… go back to the Apple Store… spend 4 hours waiting for help… help sucked and basically sent me home to do it myself. 

I’d kept the original iPad offline, thinking if the iCloud transfer failed, I’d still have those as a backup. Yeah… help guy forgot to tell me about one more teeny tiny setting I needed to switch off and…. Poof! all but about 6000 random pics from my 59,000+ photo library are gone. Cue pulling out my hair and yelling at the universe.

Bottom(ish) line, my iPhone is backed up to a separate account and has most of the pics I lost. Apple makes it very hard to download/upload pics, especially to a PC or other service (help guy said they throttle download speeds deliberately to make it difficult.) It’s taken me the better part of a week, but I think I have everything in place to do the iPad reload tomorrow. Please cross your fingers and beseech the computer gods that it goes well. I’m tired of this and just want to quilt. 

Getting Ready for the New Year

Getting ready for the new year by finishing up the old…

Mary and Gary gave me fabric and fabric spending $ for Christmas, so top on my list this week was a trip to superbuzzy, my fav Ventura quilt shop. 

I’m planning a version of this quilt ⬆️ using Tula Pink’s new fabric line, Grayworks. So pretty!

Repotted my indoor plants so they’ll look good on the stand Breanne gave me for Christmas. Love that I can see all of them and they aren’t crowded. 

The cacti in the bowl (right side) will go back outside if it ever stops raining… I was afraid they’d drown out there.

Folded and organized the fabric avalanche left over from the Winter Wonderland project and the run up to Christmas. I tend to ignore the mess when I’m mid-project but it’s nice to have a clean start for the new year. 

Now we’re hunkered down, watching British murder mysteries and reading. Want to bet whether we can stay awake until midnight? Pretty sure I will but Himself will more than likely be asleep by 10:30. Happy New Year, everyone!