Process, play and practice

Process:  I put these 6 inch squares together as  a leader/ender project and I made a few stars to brighten up the effect. There's lots of greens in it, some pinks, and other brown/neutral prints. I'm not sure where to go next with this -- at 44 inches it's a strange size for a baby quilt, but it's not big enough for anything else. I have enough blocks to put another row or two, but then do I need more stars? Or should I throw in some sashing?

Play: Here's my monochromatic blocks in warm tones and cool tones for the 15 minutes play bee.

I've been playing with my new Juki TL98Q to get the feel of it. I'm not quite ready to quilt a real quilt, so I've made some strip-pieced pads with pockets for Singer Featherweights. You can click on the photos to see my uneven stitches. Some days I can free motion like an old pro, and other days I just plain suck at it. The tensions at the back of these aren't all great, but then again they may never be washed. I still need to put on the bindings, but otherwise they're done.

Here's the one I made for my own Featherweight, made on my old Elna.

If you're still with me, I'm willing to give away one of the Featherweight pads to one lucky blog reader who owns a Singer Featherweight. The only conditions of this giveaway are that I choose which one, since I'm making some for local friends and they get first pick, and that you never, EVER remark on my bad quilting stitches. These are practise pieces that go under your machine. I'm proud of the piecing and the colour combos, but the stitching not so much. If you want a chance at this giveway, leave me a comment with your email by Wednesday, Dec. 1.

Placemat process

The weather has been sizzling hot here lately, so I've been hiding out in the AC with a little summer sewing. I'm making selvage placemats in citrus and other summery colours, using some really wide selvages from Bumblebeans scrap giveaway last winter and some of my own. I'm sewing the selvages directly on the batting, mostly in diagonals, but not always. Each one is a bit different. The top left one has two strips on it from cutoffs from two placemats that got a bit big. The beauty of selvages is one can just cover more raw edges with selvages. Often when I play with selvages, I focus on the writing or the colour windows, but on these I want to see the fabrics. Some of the selvages are 2.5 inches wide, so lots of fabric is visible. I also wanted to use up the last bits from Bumblebeans's box for me -- I've given away tea cozies and needlebooks made from that box of goodies, but I haven't kept anything. Now I can enjoy some of these lovely fabrics with my supper. And a bit more process: I'm using my b/w stash for backing these placmats. I love the white and brights on the selvage side, but placemats do get dirty, and it's nice to have a darker side too. I'm planning to quilt the back to the front with a white serpentine stitch, and bind them with a b/w selvage (its four metres long cut from a quilt backing.)