I Love Fall!

The days are cooler, the colors are gorgeous, sunlight takes on a golden glow in the evenings and pumpkins are everywhere.
When Kathie posted her little Halloween tumbler recently, I knew I had to make one, but I wanted to go with Fall colored repros. It is very small, and the leftover tumblers made an even smaller little quilt. I should probably call it a mug rug.

Here is the finish on one of my little Halloween colored minis. The other one is still a basted sandwich, ready for quilting. I hope to get it finished this coming week. Those are more of my little "Tuffet" creations from the Schnibbles pattern. I've had questions about how I made them chunky, instead of like pillows. I will put a tutorial on a tab at the top. I will not be showing the entire process--you will need Miss Rosie's pattern for that. I will just show how I adapted it to give it dimension. I've made almost a dozen of them now. Most of them are pictured at the end of the tutorial.

I made my next RRinJ block.
Then I got the latest Barrister's Sow-AL block made in Christmas Fabrics. Looks pretty simple, doesn't it. When I made it the first time in plaids it went together easily. This time I was having to unpick repeatedly. I hate to think what I would have been doing if it had been a hard block!

You can see the pins along the bottom of the Tuffet.
I haven't stitched the opening yet. : )

Now for some fun. Like I said at the start--I love Fall. So I am celebrating with a little Fall giveaway for my blog friends. It includes the tumbler mug rug, one of the Fall Tuffets pincushions, and a Fall bag of my handcrafted soaps in "Forest Blend", "Spearmint Clove", and "Spice Blend" scents. If you would like to be included just leave a comment and I will draw a winner late Monday night.

That's all for now. Thanks for all of your concern--I am recuperating nicely. There has been a lot of time for sewing and there are some things I am working on that I hope to share soon.
Until next time,
Janet O.

A Grand Day Out!

 I don't know how many Wallace and Gromit fans there are out there, but you know who you are and you will recognize my title. I just needed a day out--or even part of a day. This past Thursday I was going stir crazy. I had been home from the hospital for a week and hadn't been farther than a walk around the farm. I still can't do much for any length of time, but there is a mountain canyon 10 minutes from our home and the fall colors are at their peak. DH had taken the afternoon off, so I suggested we just buzz up the canyon a few miles and see the color. Then I realized we wouldn't be far from a very fun quilt shop on the other end of that canyon, but I didn't know if I could tolerate 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back. DH's idea was that we could stop in the canyon and I could walk around a little to break up the trip. It was a great opportunity to get some photos of the color, too.

The quilt shop did not disappoint. Along with some great CW fabrics from the clearance corner and a few Jo Morton FQs, I snatched up this pattern when I saw it.

I have enjoyed seeing the Schnibbles everyone makes, though I have never made one. The thing that caught my eye about this one was that last May I purchased a couple of pin cushions in The Gathering Place, a great quilt shop in Rupert, Idaho. I gave one away and kept one and I have wished I could find a pattern to make more. This is the one I kept and I thought with the help of this pattern I could make something like it.

So the pattern came home with me--after we had stopped for fresh peach milkshakes at the local burger joint. Yumm!! The adventure wore me out, but it was worth it. : )

The mail had arrived by the time we got home and I found a surprise from my friend, Mary C., in Washington. She had sent me shirt parts and photos of a quilt she had posted recently that boggled my mind. Thanks so much, Mary. Always fun to get surprises!

Today was the day for doing something with these treasures. First I put a couple of the shirt parts to work in the most recent Barrister's SAL block. Thanks for an easy one this time, Randy. Turned out well.

Then I went to work with the Tuffets pattern. These "tuffets" looked very much like the purchased pin cushions I bought in Rupert, except for the fact that the "tuffets" are more like little pillows and I liked the dimension of the one I bought. I put my brain in a higher gear that it has been in for a while and thought I could figure out how to make them have the dimension I wanted. So I played around and made my first one with the leftovers from my Halloween mini quilts (I knew I would end up making something with them). I followed the pattern pretty closely for my first attempt and it was much larger than I had expected. After that I started winging it and made them a little smaller.

There was some trial and error involved, but I think I have the bugs worked out now. I filled them with walnut shells, but you can use poly filling, too. I think this is my new obsession--I can see so many possibilities, and wouldn't they make great gifts?
Here they are with the one that inspired me. I think it feels right at home there. : )

So Thursday was a grand day out, and today was a grand day in--sewing!
Until next time,
Janet O.

Here we go again!

More baskets! I couldn't help it. Temecula Blessings Basket #4 was posted on Thursday and as you probably already know, I am making 4 different sets. So far this has been my favorite, in spite of the fact that I have had to unpick and reassemble two of the blocks due to sewing machine operator error!

I chose the colors based on that strip of batik to the side. That piece, along with a considerable length of binding, were in the scrap basket I used to raid regularly at a now closed LQS. I will be binding it with this.
Then there is the set that makes me think of the color blindness test photos that used to fascinate me in the World Book Encyclopedia. Does anyone know of what I speak?

Next there is the set in a variety of CW scraps. It has been fun to choose random scraps to put these together. I just had to work a purple basket in, though. That was not random!

And finally, the set that I started out to make before things ran amuck--CW scraps in blues and browns.

I am curious to see what the setting is for these blocks--and even more curious to see if I follow it.
We aren't finished with baskets yet--sorry! Recently I had downloaded the pattern for this Spring Baskets quilt from the All People Quilt website. You can find the pattern here.

As I was preparing to put it away last week I had a thought. My Mom gives me all of the scraps, leftover pieces and yardage whenever she finishes a quilt. The one she just finished hand quilting produced a considerable number of bonus triangles, which she would be inclined to throw away, but she knows to save them for me. I wondered if they could be trimmed to make this basket design, though they would have to be smaller than the pattern indicates. Most of the the triangles are not very large.
This design board shows the jumble of squares with which I begin and then the finished Spring Baskets block that is the end result.

These baskets are finishing at 5 1/2" and I have enough triangles to make 5 or 6 blocks.
And last, but not least, Randy posted more Barrister's Sow-Along blocks and I needed to catch up. And wouldn't you know it--there is a basket block among this group. I am making a second set of these blocks in Christmas fabrics, but I haven't made it that far yet. Here are the plaid versions for what I am thinking I may call "Barrister's Day Off".

The block in the upper left corner was assembled using bonus triangles from my Rocky Mountain Christmas quilt, so I didn't follow the color layout--just used what I had. Not sure that was a good choice, but I am going to live with it. 

Primitive Gatherings Picnic Quilt is nearly ready to assemble into flimsy stage.  I think this would be a fun quilt in red/white/blue. I think I will eventually have to make another one of these! (You may be wondering what this quilt has to do with baskets. Picnic quilt--basket--picnic basket--get it? I know, that was pretty weak.)

So that is enough of baskets for now. (*Huge sigh of relief!*)
I'll leave you with this shot that I caught (with the less than stellar zoom on my point-and-shoot camera) from my kitchen window a couple of days ago.

Happy Spring!!

Janet O.