pq 13.3 and more

I've been doing a lot of things (sewing among them) lately, but just don't seem to want to sacrifice the time to blog about it.  Today I'm going to make that effort and catch you all up.

First up, as promised in the title, is my most recent Project Quilting project.  Our project was to be "kitchen inspired" and I struggled a little, but of course, asked the interwebs for some advice.  In desperation, I went to my board of quilt inspiration on Pinterest.  I didn't really think I'd find anything, but then I did...

Oh lordy, look what I've done.  Paper piecing again?

What will it be?

Peeps!

More peeps!

Rooting through my leftover bindings, looking for something appropriate...

And a finished little quilt.  It's about 6x11".

And the back.  A very aged piece of Easter fabric.  It was the back of a baby quilt ages ago and this is left over.  Back from before I prewashed everything, so it's a bit on the stiff side.

The next, and much bigger, in number at least, project is nametags.  I may have mentioned my guild having a rather vague discussion about nametags for our upcoming show at a recent meeting.  Maybe not.

But I decided I would make nametags for all the members.

Or at least hopefully.

I had seen a cute tiny sewing machine on Pinterest a long time ago and decided it was just time.  I had some issues figuring out where to find the pattern (turns out it's not as obvious of a pattern as I expected), so I went after a different one.

Nopety nope nope nope.

Back to the drawing board.  Or rather, realize that there is a pattern out there, just not what I expected.  The original is here, but the link goes basically nowhere, so the above link actually gets you the pattern.

Let's try that again.

Ah, much better!

But good lord, it's paper piecing again.

What.

Is.

Wrong.

With.

Me?

Onward.

I bought some letter stamps to add names for anyone who is not inclined to do their own.  (Some folks have beautiful handwriting...others...well...they have an easy option.)

I added a strap so it can hang around my neck, but attached it with buttons, so it can also come off and I can pin it on if I want to.

And the back has a clear piece of thin plastic sewn in for a pocket!  I'm still working on keeping that from getting crooked.  Pinning isn't exactly an option...

With that success, I moved on to nametags for the two friends (one a current guild member, one a past member who moved away, so membership seems silly) who will be attending retreat with me later this month.  That happens well before the quilt show, so priorities!

Barb loves purple and Colette loves yellow, so these were no-brainers!

Barb's back matches the front.  Colette's fabric was the end of some leftover binding, so I had to improvise the back.  I sent her a photo and she loved it!

And then the real work began.  I'm starting with my bin of leftover bindings, as these do need a stretch of binding.  If that leaves enough for a machine, it's a viable candidate.  I'll improvise with the backs and the little binding along the plastic if needed.

But I'm also trying to do a lot of different colors, so pretty soon I'm going to need to break out of my binding stash and into the real stash.  (No worries, I have smaller pieces everywhere, so I'll be fine.)

So far, I've finished a dozen beyond those for my two friends and myself!

I've opted to not do the strip to go around the neck on these.  That was a lot of extra work and I'm pretty sure I don't have that many tiny buttons!

I also cheated and used permanent markers to do the needle and fly wheel and such on these.  The embroidery was taking as much time as piecing the machines!

Some of them have a little lean to them, but paper piecing this small you can't expect to be that accurate, right?

I'm pretty excited that I've got this many done.  I'm trying to do two per day that I don't have to work (work just takes too many hours already and I have other stuff that needs to be done around the house - stuff that if I neglect, things won't end well) and should have plenty done in time for the show.

And finally, once I finish my allotted two machines per day, I can be allowed to work on cutting for retreat projects!

First up is one I've been drooling over for a while now.  "Easy Addition" from the spring 2016 edition of "Quilts and More," but done in a different colorway.  Jeni, blogger at In Color Order did it with a dark background, and I'm in love!

I may have shared my purchase of some navy fabrics a while back to supplement my stash?  I can't seem to find a photo, so maybe not.  I guess you'll have to trust me...

Next it was to the stash for main fabrics.  I echoed the one in the blog pretty much, but I loved it so much, it would have been hard to do anything different.

I spent time cutting and matching these up for blocks.  It went easier with fabrics that had yardage versus those coming from wonky pieces in the stash, but they are ready to go.  (Sorry, no photo!)

And then I started on project number two: "Tumbleweed Quilt" by Down Grapevine Lane.  Once again, I have deviated from the original and went with a dark blue background.  Apparently I have a thing for dark blue this month?

I pulled the remaining fabrics from my stash.

Originally, my plan was to do a lighter and a darker color for each block, but my stash does not have a lot of lighter fabrics in these colors.  (Not really in any colors...)  So I think I'm going to mix and match and just have multi-colored "blossoms" and be happy with that.

Which means I have to keep things sorted until I'm ready to mix and match.  "Big" versus "Small" is the pattern designation and each block gets one of each.  So I'm pinning sets of fabrics cut (yes, with templates - not much better than paper piecing, but apparently 2022 is the year of making hard quilts?) until the cutting is finished and then I'll see about mixing and matching.  Worst case, I'll do that at retreat.

And that is it for the last, what, week?

The hubby grumbles every so often about my sewing habit, but I've found if I feed him regularly, with an occasional batch of cookies thrown in, he is less grumpy about it.  And I take time off to clean and stuff, too.  It's all about balance.

No kitty photos, though there was some help involved in these projects.  Mostly just Toby supervising from his poof bed on the other side of the sewing room, though.

And with that, said dinner needs to be prepared.  And an early shift at work tomorrow, so probably no quilty magic tomorrow.  That's okay, there's always Wednesday!

Happy quilting,

Katie