I've been nursing a sprained back and sewing moments have been few and far between. I'm seeing a little relief and have been working on the Mennonite Hunger relief donation quilt. The first picture is of the runner that is going to be the item that I donate. I made another table topper and was not happy with the results. There is a picture of that project, following this one. Anyway, this is the runner that I'll be focusing on. It turned out to be 22" x 48". I absolutely love the fabrics! They are bright, happy, spring fabrics and I like the way the different fabric lines worked well together. This is the runner that will have to be hand quilted, so I didn't want it to be too large to get overwhelming. The big border is 4" wide, which will give me a fair amount of space to quilt. And, of course, the busy fabric will hide my stitches! And this is the topper that will not make the cut! I designed this one too and used EQ5 to make my pattern. I think the mistake that I made was in setting the measurements to round to the nearest 1/8", not 1/16". Since most of my rulers don't have 16th measurements, I adjusted the templates for 8ths. The little blocks within the 12" blocks are only 4", and those little 4" blocks just multiplied the distortion. You can see that the setting triangles are puckering a bit. This should quilt out, but it will take some maneuvering to get it flat and keep it from puckering during quilting. I just got frustrated with the whole thing and moved on to make the runner. I'll finish this topper and use it for myself. Oh, the topper is 41" x 41". (As usual, sorry for the picture quality. The fabrics look washed out instead of bold and bright.) Have a blessed, peaceful day!

Just a miscellaneous day today, with lots of odds and ends.

I was doing a little under-the-bed cleaning and found a box of fabrics that I had totally forgotten about. My guess is that they are from the 80's and perhaps the 90's. This first shot is of some Christmas laminated fabric yardages. I thought this was a fairly new concept in the past few years, and here it is, in my old stash, laminated fabric! The fabric seems to still be in pristine condition and I'm kind of excited to find a project for this laminated fabric and see how it sews. It sure pays to clean out those under the bed boxes!




Next up, found in the same under the bed box, are these embroidered, homespun fat quarters. Again, totally forgotten about! They are also looking like new and will make cute additions to projects.






Here's a close up of one of the cows;

And here's a close up of one of the ants. I love the ants!

Well, yesterday was a vintage day. After finding the long lost and forgotten fabric, I got out my vintage 1974 yogurt maker. I wasn't sure if it would still work, but after 10 hours, I had some great homemade yogurt. I had kind of forgotten about this little appliance when a FB friend passed on a recipe to make yogurt in a crock pot. This sparked my interest to dig out the old yogurt maker and give it a go.

I even found the little instruction folder to give me the specific instructions.

I also made three sets of kitchen curtains yesterday. (I had a very productive day, thanks to God!) I looked for "ready made" curtains, but they were just so expensive. Most were sold by the individual panel and I needed six panels. Regular kitchen curtains, which were cheaper, were simply too short for my windows. I didn't want the valance and shorter curtains, just a regular pair to hang in each window. I had been fabric shopping and also found that yardage was quite expensive, knowing that it would take about 7 yards to make them. I finally found some discount fabric at Walmart for $1.50 per yard! It was a nice, textured white blend, that was perfect for curtain use. The bolt only had 6 yards, so I had to sew the curtains differently than planned. Instead of an enclosed rod casing at the tops, I just hemmed all four sides and used cafe rod hooks to hold the curtains. I'm actually glad that I made them this way, as it makes opening and closing them very smooth and easy.

Next up is the fabric that I bought to make a quilt to donate to the Mennonite Hunger Relief auction in September. I found this fabric on sale, designed a pattern, and now I'm ready to begin. I'm only making a wall hanging, probably around 42" x 42", and it will have to be hand quilted. That's the part that I'm not crazy about, but I know that I can do it! Each of these yards of fabric comes from a different fabric line, but I thought they went together beautifully. I'm excited to see if it all turns out as I see it in my mind.

And lastly, here is a link for another charitable cause. It's "Just One Star", a project sponsored by Moda. All you have to do is make a star block which will be put into a quilt, then given to a wounded veteran. The goal is to receive 1800 star blocks and make 100 quilts. Deadline is May 1st to make your blocks. Go here for a pdf download with all of the details, the instructions for the block(s), and the address to send your block(s). I hope you will join me in making at least one block for a deserving vet!