Recent projects

My sewing machine was smokin' last weekend with lots of little items finished and ready for gift giving.  I made seven mug rugs, six decorated bar towels, three star ornaments, and a little cosmetic bag.  Two of the mug rugs were made of napkins I found in an antique shop last week.  They are authentic Delft blue, maybe purchased by someone who visited Delft on vacation, bought them as a souvenir, and was downsizing.  Their loss is my gain!

I am going to a craft show this weekend (the one I'm selling wares in), so I hope to find a few other nice things to give to family and friends this Christmas.  I already have a pretty good collection of stuff, but the men in my life are still my biggest question.  I doubt I'll find anything at craft shows for them, but I keep pondering what might work.  I think a trip to the Carhart store is in my near future.

I also started working with my stash of swap blocks this week.  First, I used some 3" nine patches to make a small "Jack's Chain" center medallion.  It's a traditional quilt design but challenging since there are lots of "Y" seams.  I only had to add one more 3" block to the group to finish the medallion.  It took a lot of steam and some hand sewing to get it to lie flat.

I also have quite a few 6" churn dash and nine patch swap blocks, but decided just to add some of the churn dashes to the border.  At left is the medallion with some of the blocks on my design wall.  I now have surrounded the medallion with churn dashes but still need to make the finished quilt a little longer than it is wide for the Parkinson's Comfort Quilt Project.  When I finish the top, I'll put the remaining swap blocks together with sashing, perhaps on point.