pq 12.1, sticks and tiny stars

Lots has been happening in my sewing room this past week, but I'll start with Project Quilting.  Season 12 kicked off yesterday and while I'm not going to go as big as I did last year, I thought it might be fun to participate at least a little bit.

The prompt is basically limiting colors to yellow and grey.  We can add in black and white, but nothing more.  I giggled when I realized I had this pincushion from WAY back when tiny stars was in its infancy...

This is not eligible, but it made me laugh - who would know?!

But then I decided to pull down a bin of bits and pieces and see what I could find.  I found these leftover half square rectangles from making bees last year.  Or, rather, I guess, late the year before.

These are all I had and while they're interesting, not really enough to make something of a useable size.  I have a bit more of some of the fabrics in my stash, but was being kinda stubborn and decided if I cut them in quarters, I'd have more pieces, albeit smaller.

And then a pincushion happened!

It's about 2.5x4.5" and the top is actually quilted. If you look close, I quilted in the ditch of the grey seam.  There's even a thin batting in there!

But while this qualifies as an entry, I know I can do better.  And I still have all those pieces, some still large, that I don't want to put back in the bin.  So I kept cutting and sewing and didn't take any photos again until I got here:

And then, I tried make myself go blind by sewing down black binding in the increasing darkness.  With thread that was determine to tie itself in knots.  There may or may not be a few naughty words sewn into these projects...

And here you go!  The runners are what I have decided are Cabbage Patch doll size.  About 3.5" across and about 13 or 14" long, they used all the pieces I pulled from the bin.  I have no idea what I will do with these, but maybe I'll have a collection of tiny runners to display on my wall at the end of the six challenges?

Tiny stars were mentioned a quick bit above, so let's visit that offering next, shall we?

I made a run at finishing all that was in the box before the new year.  I almost made it and was working on this last batch when the new year rolled in:

This brings my total to 951.  I figured out I'll want 1056 for the final size I desire, so that means I need 105 more tiny stars.  I'm out of fabrics and have run through my entire stash, so I'll need to visit my mom again.  But with the virus raging and hospitals in many places being overtaxed, I think I'll wait a bit before I visit.  Perhaps my parents will get the vaccine and we can visit more safely in the coming months.  This is a long-term project and I'm in no rush for more parts right now.  But the end is in sight!

There have been no cat photos yet.  What?!  Let's fix that.

My Christmas tree is still up.  Supposed to be up until the 6th, so...

Gabby was trying to get comfortable in this sideways conformation, but didn't last long.  I did get a pretty good photo of her first, though!

The following day, Finn and Toby tried to do the same.  Finn was also moving around, trying to find a comfy spot when Toby joined him.  And when Toby jumped down, the whole tree went off the edge with Finn on it.  The tree is currently laying on the floor.  It may not make it past this year.  It's pretty beat up right now...but the cats have had so much fun and the tree is getting old, so it's all good.

January first rolled around and I got to pull sticks from my jar!

I've had an urge to make a quilt using used shirts, so I decided to add it to the list, figuring I'd have some time once the weather gets nicer (in a few months) and the vaccine gets more widely distributed (also in a few more months) to hit the thrift shops for some shirts.  Well...

I was out doing other errands and decided to stop in at our Goodwill clearance center.  I didn't know what to expect and thought maybe I'd find a shirt or two.  Get the collection started if nothing else.

I found a few...  The cashier stuffed these 14 shirts (that I counted later) into a big bag and plopped it on a scale - sold by weight, not by piece.  $12.54 was all I owed!  I brought them home and they went straight into the washing machine.

And then I spent a chunk of two days working to deconstruct these and saved the cuffs for my mom.  (She has a crafty project for them, though I'm not entirely sure what.)  Cutting pieces for the quilt is on my agenda for today.

The pattern I'm going to use is this Lucky Log Cabins pattern.  And my goal is to have at least a top by the end of the month.  We'll see how that goes, but I'm off to a good start, having my fabric ready to go.

The using up random scraps project was a bag from the closet.  Years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a bag of scraps for my guild charity collection.  There were a lot of smaller pieces in there and, after having our charity people say some less than kind things about small pieces in general, I opted to keep a chunk of the bag and make charity quilts from it myself.  I've made quite a few smaller quilts, and had sorted the fabrics into themes and whatnot, but then stalled out.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Time to fix that!

So I pulled the first bag I saw. Because why not?

I sorted it somewhat here, but obviously an iron is desperately needed!  I left it here on the floor overnight, though, and Gabby wrestled it into submission.  Well, what probably passed for submission to a cat.  It looked more like a tangled mess to me!

After a chunk of time with a steamy iron, I have this.  The green butterfly fabric is an oddball, but I'll decide what to do with that, too.  The strips I am going to see if I can figure out a log cabin type pattern or something along those lines.  And there are a lot of squares in there, too.  So I'm going to be thinking about this, but will get something made, again even if it is just a top.

The other two sticks are a quilt to be longarmed, which is the cars and trees quilt I made not too long ago:

I have to decide how to quilt this, but I do have a back and batting.  I may have also cut binding for this one, but I can't remember for sure.  I'm excited to dig into my Rack of Shame and I love this quilt, so it will be a double win.

And lastly, in the category of "other" is the Lilipopo-style embroidery.  If you've not seen it, she has a blog here and the little girls and motifs are adorable.  I've been eyeballing her designs for a while now and have to decide if I want to order a kit (if she still offers them) or wing it on my own with just a pattern.  Another thing to contemplate while I cut loads of pieces from shirts.

One last set of photos.  We haven't had much snow to speak of yet this winter.  I'm not complaining, as it makes getting around more difficult, but Mother Nature had some fun the first night of the new year.

Looking down my driveway, after running the trash dumpster up to the curb.

And looking up my driveway from near the garage, where I started with the trash, to the neighbor's barn across the street.

We had a little bit of freezing rain and then lots of heavy snow.  It stuck and looked beautiful, but made the roads a bit nasty and was HEAVY to shovel from the walk.  Thankfully neither the hubby nor I had anywhere to go that day.  (The tire tracks you see are from the snow plow who cleaned us up nicely.)

Time to go start cutting pieces for a new quilt!

Happy quilting!

Katie