This and That and more of That

I don't know why I am not blogging as much as I used to. I've been distracted and never seem to take time to sit down and do this! I have been in the studio though, working on a variety of smaller projects.

I had to hem about eight pairs of pants and jeans for the men-folk in this house. I finished that up today. (I didn't take a photo of them)

I finished up the bag of quilts for the guild. I did the binding on five, quilting and binding on four more, and made one from scratch. I turned those in yesterday.

I put out all the rest of the things I have for sale at the shop. None of my Halloween bags sold. Bummer! I am going to quit trying to sell stuff there on December 1st. It just isn't worth it. I break even on the cost of the rent vs the sales. Plus, I don't have the self discipline to keep making new product to sell.

I did manage to sell that Skull Bag I made a month ago. I can't say who bought it, because they are giving it as a gift. I was more anxious to get the buyer's critique of the work done, than the money from the sale. She said it was well crafted. That made me feel more confident! She also offered a few suggestions that I will take to heart when I start the next bags.

Do you remember that quilt I entered in the contest, earlier this year? It came back home about a month ago. It measures 30"x 30". I was thinking of making it into a bag when my husband suggested making it into a pillow cover. I liked his idea better.

I am making it so you can still remove it for washing.

All I did was to bring up each corner to the center. I sewed most of it closed, and left the flap open. I will put a button inside with a stretchy band to hold the flap shut while it is being used. I thought it turned out pretty cool!

We recently had some work done to update our TV service. The technician that came out noticed I did some quilting! Gee, I wonder what his first clue was? He asked if I would make a quilt for his kids. He wanted their names on it and chose the purple fabric with all kinds of neat positive sayings printed on.
The technician had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq and was going to be deployed again soon, to Afghanistan. He doesn't know it yet, but I am not going to charge him for this lap quilt. It will be my small way of saying thank you to him and all the service men and women out there. Besides that, he was a terrific technician who went out of his way to install things the right way in our home! I wish all techs and contracted people were like this guy was!

Another project I worked on was putting together the extra bug jar blocks I had. These were the prototypes for a block-of-the-month at my quilt guild. I hope to make a small quilt that I can donate to the guild for our outreach programs. So far, I only have the four blocks sewn together in a row.

I experimented with some fabrics and made this simple table runner:

I am not too crazy about it, but it did turn out ok. It still needs to be sandwiched and quilted.

I did decide to make those three Christmas blocks into a table runner too. I need to sandwich it and quilt it. I will make binding that is from the same white fabric that is in the smallest squares.

Lots of projects are floating around these parts. I am working on the hexagon quilt almost every night. I still hope to finish that one in 2011 sometime. I WANT to work on the Cathedral Window quilt, but I know if I do, the hexagon quilt will suffer from lack of attention. I did give in and started working on a rag rug though. Sometimes my hands get tired when quilting by hand. The rag rug is a great distraction!

So that is all from these parts. I hope to visit a small, locale quilt show on Friday. I am also going to try to find a magazine that might have printed my Christmas cookie recipe! I will let you know if they did.

Now go sew something!!!