Thread Tales From A Scrappy Quilter

A post at longarm quilting forums referenced these little thread catchers and she had made up several for herself.   One for her car, one to sit by  her hand sewing chair...  She said they only take about 15 minutes to make and that sounded like the perfect project that I could work in this morning. The original blog post is found @ Needling Things as well as her complete instructions.   I knew immediately that this would make the perfect replacement for the coffee filter I have taped to the top of my longarm head to hold all those snips of thread from starts and stops while quilting.   With a 12' table... and your machinehead being anywhere on that table makes it inconvenient to get to a stationary trash can.  Wouldn't these buttons be cute on mine? I placed 2 fabrics right sides together and cut a 12" square.   From there, I did not make a paper pattern and merely used my ruler to cut 2 60* cuts. You then stitch around all 3 sides leaving a 3" open

This was a fun little quilt that I quilted almost all freehand, just a little ruler work with the diamond shapes in the brown sashing borders and almost no spacing registration needed for this quilt.   The cactus panels used in the quilt did not lend itself to showcase any of the design and I thought it may be so busy that the quilting was not going to show anyway.  I needed something to quilt it well but not be elaborate.  Opted to use a wavy crosshatch ....  and sure enough, it really does not show well so I'm pleased that I did not do anything complicated.  Had to play with the lighting to get it to show in the picture!  I think this is a really cute quilt and wish it were mine to keep.

This is a cute little quilt that I quilted for Charity Bee.   They need things for boys so I tried to quilt this w/o feathers, flowers or curly-Qs.   I quilted this with a freehand swirl.  Kitties! Backing

Done.  I love it and with the Americana colors, I could use this year round if I wanted.   Decisions on binding to use.  The pattern calls for the binding to be cut with the fabric used for the 4 blocks in the corners (blue star in my quilt).  I know this will look good.   But I also have just enough dark blue binding left over from Riverbed Reflections to bind this.... decisions, decisions.... An unexpected finish - I like the way the quilting in the body of the quilt "morphs" into the crosshatched border.  Opted to not SID between the body and the border to keep that look.

A guild that I belong to hosted a workshop with Debbie Bacon of Bacon Bits and Pieces this month.  We worked on a small QST project where we were supposed to perfect our piecing for these very small units and create a Red/White/Blue patriotic wallhanging for the holidays (or substitue any colorway of your choice).  Susi came through with her promise that all attending would get one of her crazy little garden flags and they were all so cute!  Getting ready to post this, I realized somehow the last few months photos are just gone from  my phone camera!  I'm so glad I recently transfered about 1000 photos to my computer so all that I'm missing are maybe 2 months of photos that are now gone forever.  No photos to share of the class... but some of my favorites that others worked up included one in brown batiks, pastels and my very favorite was done Amish style with black background. The little quilt is on the frame and hopefully will be quilted today. Each star block fini

I'm trying to clear out old projects, use up stash and get tops quilted that have been waiting for quilting time.   I'm so ready to get these completed and ready for someone to love.  Riverbed Reflections was a project that my much younger at the time son really was interested in.  I thought he could handle the piecing on this one so I gave in and added it to my purchases for that day.   The fabrics were not available that day exactly like the ones used in the pattern (gee for all the years it sat we could have found each and every one LOL).  All fabrics used in the quilt top are from the  Riverbed collection.  The backing was pulled from stash but too small so I inserted a large strip pieced randomly from the larger scraps from the top. I really love how the back finished!  My son had lost interest and I needed a smallish project to take camping at the lake over our Memorial Day holiday weekend.   It is hot during the day, too hot for me to enjoy being out on the lake but a