A thing of beauty.... or is it?

Maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder. These flower blocks are part of my guild challenge: Anne asked us to make these applique blocks with a back basting technique using our ugliest fabric, and I did my best. The one at the left is yardage leftover from a sundress my mom made my sister 20  some years ago. Both of them should have known better. I think it is truly ugly, especially with that fake lace (light blue) on either side of the floral strip (pink against red). The kicker is that this fabric has a large border print on it, which my mom put on the bottom of the sundress. I would offer to send the rest of the fabric (nearly a yard) to anyone who would like it, but really, I don't want to spend money mailing ugly fabric. You can all just enjoy it virtually, and pull out a bit of your own uglies to have fun with. The one on the right cut from a thrift shop dress from the 70s. I  toned down both of these fabrics with the centre fabric. The fun thing about this challenge is that I've seen at least one other person working on her blocks, and hers is even worse. But like our fungly projects of a couple of summers ago, this quilt may work just because of all the clashing uglies. The background squares have to be yellow or orange, so there's some uinformity. Stay tuned for a picture of all the "uglies" after our next meeting in three weeks..

I took a break from the applique to make a small donation quilt from a strip of colour windows on selvages for the  Alzheimers Art  Quilt Initiaitve. I had sewn together a long strip of these dots awhile back, and decided it was time to make a quilt. I kept going with the dot theme, using three more dotty fabrics, and I handquilted spirals all over it.  It measure 9 by 12 inches.

And while I was finishing small projects, I tied an old VIP juvenile panel to some sale bin microfleece to make a blanket measuring 36 by 42 for the children's hospital. It took about an hour, and finally cleared up two separate pieces of fabric in my cupboard. I bound it by bringing the back to the front and stitching it down. The picture shows one of the panels with the back folded over on it.

And lastly, here are some recent thrift shop finds: a linen tea towel, and a large linen tablecloth. I'm collecting vintage pieces of linen for a futture quilt project. Got some of those old calendar tea towels kicking around? I'm happy to do a trade. At the bottom of the picture are a pair of lovely cotton pillow cases with hand embroidery and a crocheted edging. They need to take a trip through the washer and then it they'll go in the linen cupboard for regular use.