projects in the works

 Hi!  A little re-cap here and some new, too!
I finished up this tote bag as my first encounter with Kraft-tex.  It's that brown stuff on the bag bottom portion.  It's a papery fabric alternative, and something I have wanted to try for quite awhile but never made it a priority.  Not very long ago, I saw a purse/bag pattern in a shop that uses Kraft-tex, and their sample was appealing.  Knowing that this was in supply over at Bear Patch, I immediately wanted to make it!  But first I found this free pattern over on the C&T website and thought I would start with something easy.  So here's my first project!

I have continued to whittle away at my Mini Rings quilt (shown below) and as of bedtime last night I now have it 2/3 done, with the first 2 vertical rows all sewn together.  I do like the color and design style of this.  But it also is made with some different techniques, and I'm not sure I have mastered those!  I'm not sure if it's my sewing, or just the nature of the beast, but a lot of my seams and corners do not match, which is not my norm.

On a whim, I took a few spare minutes and glue-basted these 2" hexies from a pre-cut pack of Tula Pink's newest fabric line, Slow and Steady.  The colors are happy!  No definite plan for these yet, but I'll cook up something from those ideas running around in my brain!

And I've picked out fabric and supplies for the next little bag project--

Since I have a couple of sewing retreats coming up this fall, I want to be prepared!  This Sew Together Bag has been simmering on the back burner in my sewing room for quite awhile, just waiting for me to pay attention and pick out the fabric!  I love picking out fabrics to go together, but I often can't be rushed with that.  I just like to take my time, I guess!

feeling lucky!

I know there's a lot of problems all around the world, and many things to obsessively worry about it I choose to go that way.  However, I'm am trying to maintain a positive feeling in my everyday life, without being Pollyanna-ish.  I just had a great time with my mom visiting us, and a quilt retreat, and a relaxing weekend.  I am even feeling really good about the fact that we have done a thorough sort and purge and reorganization of another storage closet!  

And some really fun things to look forward to on the horizon, too-- Dan visiting and bringing Jessica to meet us, a couple more quilt retreats planned, and, drumroll please, 

another grandson due in March!  Woo-hoo!

2 weeks ago while on quilt retreat, a few of us took a field trip to a new (to me) quilt shop in called Altoona, WI.  That's on the eastern border of Eau Claire.  It's called Stitch Supply.  I will definitely be going there again!  They have the largest assortment of Cotton + Steel fabrics that I have seen.  It kinda required me to buy several fat quarters of some of the prints that we haven't ordered for Bear Patch.  Don't they look fun?!  Odd bugs, fountain pens, rotary dials, matchsticks, jacks...

Good additions to my fabric gallery!

My mom stayed with us for a few days after that retreat, then flew out to Whitefish, MT, to visit Dan.  She can get a direct flight from Minneapolis to Kalispell, which makes it easy.  She was there 5 days, then came back to our house for an overnight before returning to Iowa.  Before she left Montana, she asked if she could bring me anything.  I jokingly said I would love a fresh huckleberry pie.  Well, she carried a piece of that pie all the way back to me!  I was so excited!  I'm eating only a little at a time so I can make it last!

After finishing up my recent garment sewing experience - and I will definitely try to get a picture of it in action - I really wanted to get back to sewing some quilt blocks.  So I picked up where I left off at retreat and went back to work on these faux wedding ring blocks--

I have some sewn together, and the rest in different stages of assembly.    I would like to get this done to put on the class schedule at the store after the 1st of the year.  

I did complete another small quilt, below, that could also become a class.  It's called Timbuktu, and I started working on it last January.  It requires the use of the X-blocks ruler.  After I got the quilting done, I couldn't remember if I had binding for it already picked out.  A lot of times I do that, and I usually put a little label on that piece of fabric and store it in a little box.  Labeled "Bindings", of course!  I looked all over the place for a cut of that green fabric because it seemed logical to me that I would have chosen that for the binding.  I never could find it, and it finally dawned on me that maybe it was a different fabric.  I found what was left from the backing fabric, and there was plenty of that to cut binding strips, so that's what I did!

Last week at Bear Patch, we received an order that included these hexagon pre-cuts of the most recent Tula Pink fabric line.  They work just right with my 2" hexagon papers for English Paper Piecing, so I have been getting those ready to stitch together.  Tonight is our employee sewing night at the store and I will be taking that along to work on.

I recently wrote about our English paper piecing group at Bear Patch, and I included the recipe for a yummy dip that I made.  Today I am making it again to share with my co-workers!  Time to get to the grocery store and pick up a few things needed!  I hope your day is lucky, too!