Bits and Pieces

Since I've been spending so much time at mom's house, I went and bought a new machine that I can just leave there. It's such a pain dragging my machine back and forth every day, so I wasn't getting any stuff for Etsy done. This will make it so much easier, and once mom is well I'll have a back up machine for if my other machine is being tuned up, or to take places. This one is smaller and lighter so it's a lot more portable. Every once in awhile Carla needs a machine, so she can use it too.

I did some dyeing with a cotton/nylon blend, and it actually turned out very nice. I am making a shrug out of a thrift store sweater; once I have it finished I'll post pics of the dyeing process and the finished shrug. I finished quilting the wall hanging for the quilt show at work, too. I have to put on the binding, and then I want to do some beading. I am calling it Rain Over the Mountains, so I want some tiny sparkly beads that give the feel of raindrops. I'll post pics of that, too.

I was looking at a quilting book at work, and the authors showed how they keep their small scraps seperated by color in plastic shoe boxes. I think that's the greatest idea, so I bought 5 of them and sorted about half my scraps. That's all that would fit; I have soooooo many of them. Anyway, I set myself a challenge to try and use scraps for projects at least twice a week. I've posted pics of two of the projects. The little clutch is from a Quik Sew pattern which is available on line here: http://www.sewing.org/enthusiast/clutch_purse.pdf It comes in two sizes and makes up very easily. They close theirs with a snap; I'm doing an elastic loop and button. I haven't picked out a button yet. I have another one cut out from a vintage tablecloth and ready to go; I'll probably get it sewed together this morning. The second project is the appliqued flower blocks; I have 7 done. They are a nice take along project. As I finish 4 I am sewing the blocks together and then hand quilting them. There are a group of 4 almost finished at Moms. I also found this really cool bathmat which I can run up pretty quickly on the machine: http://montessoribyhand.blogspot.com/2007/11/recycled-bath-mat-tutorial.html
We actually need a bath mat here. It says in the tutorial to cut the squares using a template, but I think I'll use my rotary cutter and mat at least on the bigger scraps. I might have to use the template on smaller pieces. I like this idea a lot because it gets rid of scraps and puts old towels to good use.