Random Notions – One down, one to go

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  As I was enjoying a wonderfully prepared meal, I realized how grateful I am that my brother, Casey, is the most awesome cook I know.  Especially since I don’t cook.  I ate more that day than I do in a normal week, and I could barely move for a couple of days.  Life is good.

Since this is the start of my second year, I decided to change my background – I loved the orange, but thought this was pretty awesome, too.  What do you think?

For the last couple of weeks, I have been working on quilting the sampler quilt I made from the Block of the Month class on Craftsy.  I am happy to report it is all finished in time to give away at Christmas-

The back is just a solid pink cotton. I did not do a good job on the machine quilting, but this is the first time I have completely finished a quilt on my machine.  I just stitched about a quarter inch around the colored parts of the blocks and some of them look really lousy.  My machine has a really small harp, so shoving the quilt through it over and over really took a toll – on me and the machine!  I feel a bit stronger after all that, and I managed to push the walking foot out of alignment a couple of times. 

I had decided long ago that I would be giving this quilt to my granddaughter Layla for Christmas – every time she saw the blocks, she would ask if it was for her.  When I said that I was making it for me, she asked, “Can you make another exactly like it for me?” so at least I know she is going to like it.  I do not believe I will be making another just like this – at last count there were over 30 different fabrics in it and some I completely ran out of – and I do not think I have the patience for putting together so many odd sized blocks again!

So now, I have to get the fishbowl quilt finished in time to give to Harry for Christmas.  I believe for that one, I am going to bite the bullet – I will put the embroidery foot on the machine and just go to town with the squiggles so I don’t have to try to follow any lines.  I am hoping that by the time I am almost finished with it I will have learned how to control the fabric and machine together pretty well!

Last time I was here, I mentioned I was thinking about making another Quick Quarter Quilt out of the orange fabrics I have.  I pulled them all out and found I had 26 of them.  I narrowed my selection down to 11, which was very difficult to do.  This was what I had after cutting 2 ½” strips and deciding how to lay them out-

It needed something to break up all that orange, and I had this really great blue and orange fabric I have always wanted to put into something, so I inserted it and really liked it – 

It really added the something I wanted.  I sewed them into tubes-

 Which I then cut varying widths with a shape cutting ruler

 For another pile of circular strips-

Then I had to pay attention very close to where I opened the strips to place them for cutting, and this is what I got-

This is as far as I have gotten so far – I really love how vibrant it is and how the blue really pops.  It’s not big – only 24 ½” X 29” and I probably won’t add too wide of borders to it once it is straightened out.  I think it will look lovely hanging on a wall someday.  This Study in Orange is inspiring me to do the same thing in red, yellow, green, blue, and purple – make an entire rainbow!  We have a really big wall by the front door where they could all hang – I don’t think anyone would object. <like they would have a choice, hehehe>

So, plan for tonight is basting the fishbowls.  Hope you have something fun to do as well – thanks for stopping by!