Small Finishes

 Apparently the potholders I made for family members almost 20 years ago need to be replaced. It's good to know they've been used and have held up for so long! It was my SIL who made the first request. I whipped up a pair for her last month or so and sent them off. It doesn't appear that I took pictures of them however. It was that effort that prompted me to make potholders for the fundraising auction for the Disabled Artists Foundation in November. Just this morning our daughter told the tale of her set of potholders. Still in use, but crusty and stained from use. So I made a new set for her:

She's still a fan of frogs, just as she was 18 years ago when I made the first pair for her. 

 I think my first efforts were foundation pieced onto batting, and typically crazy patch. Now I find it easier to just cut the strips to piece the top. There's a piece of batting under the front and the whole cloth back, and one layer of the heat reflective material in the very middle. I used a decorative stitch to secure the layers this time. Not pristine, but sturdy. The pseudo feather stitch fills the white space better than simple straight stitching would have done. 

The other small finish I have to share is another needlepoint coin/credit card case.

 This one began as a blank canvas and the patterning is my own design. I truly thought I'd found the center point accurately before I began stitching. Oh well, can't win 'em all!

Four Plus One

After the interruption on Scrap Happy Day I managed to create parts for four sets of potholders.

Here they are a few days later...

Winter

Thanksgiving/Harvest/Autumn

Christmas Pigs and Gnomes

Puppies

 

And a fifth set!

Fizzy

 These are on their way to the Disabled Artists Foundation Inc. (dAFi) for the November fundraising auction. The auctions are held online, via YouTube, on the second Saturday of each month. The proceeds make it possible to send art making supplies to folks who benefit from creative endeavors but are not able to purchase supplies for themselves. Some of the artists make and donate items back to the organization for future fund raising. It feels good to be able to make things that benefit others one way or another. 😊

Not So Scrap Happy Day

 I have been in the land of fiction most of this week, even though I knew Scrap Happy Day was looming. I wanted to sew, I just couldn't make myself do anything. The lingering effects of exposure to toxins. I did get a few scrap blocks made up for the Parts Department since my last blog post.

This morning I finally felt like sewing again and started two log cabin style blocks intended to end up as potholders.

All but the final two strips along the top and bottom to complete the blocks. At this point Luna had a seizure. She's been on an anti-seizure medication for not quite a month. Apparently it's not a high enough dose. She will be seeing the vet this very day to look into that. Meanwhile, I've had to stop to clean up the carpet and see to her recovery. Things will get better one of these days. In the meantime, here's the link list for others who are putting their scraps to good purpose or just have interesting blogs for you to peruse.

Kate, Gun, Eva, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Jill,
Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Jule,
Gwen, Bekki, Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L,
Vera, Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Bear,
Carol, Preeti, Edith, Debbierose and Esther

New Month, New Blocks

Scraps are a good place to dip one's toe back in the water of patchwork. Familiar blocks don't require a lot of mental energy either. While we've had rain to clear the air, folks have begun to use their fireplaces and wood stoves again thus polluting the air once more. Makes it hard for me to go out at all and maintain any ability to be creative. I have been cutting some scraps into strips and patches and piecing more of the simple blocks that make up such a large part of my Parts Department.

Most of these are 6" or 8" finished. There's one 9" Shoo-fly block in the set. I began with these two other 9" Shoo-fly blocks:

 Then I pieced up little 4" postage stamp blocks from patches already on hand.

Some of them have become stars.

I don't have any plans for a specific project in which to use these (or any other!) blocks. There are a lot more scraps to be dealt with, to say nothing of the other fabric in my stash. Guess I'll just keep on making blocks until health and inspiration can work in tandem once again. 😊

End of the Drought?

 It's the first official day of Autumn here. We've had sporadic days of cooler temperatures and a few days of rain over the last  couple of weeks. There have also been days of summer sunshine and heat. We may still get some pretty autumnal days that don't require jackets or rain gear but it feels like we've finally turned the corner. I also feel like I've turned a corner - for the time being at least. At the moment I feel like myself again, not affected by heat or toxins or hormone imbalance. I've come to cherish times like this. Perhaps because I finally feel so good I have felt like doing some patchwork again. The sewing drought might be at an end. I hesitate to go out too far on that limb but welcome the enthusiasm that is seeping back in. It has been very uncomfortable to be so disinterested in sewing for future quilt making. 

These are little 4" blocks made from 1.5" scrap patches. I don't know yet what I might do with them. They could become stars or part of any number of other larger blocks. For now I'm happy just to have made them. I have a pile of batik scrap patches waiting to be assembled into Shoo-fly and/or Barn Door blocks but I'm holding myself back from sewing them up so they will be available to use between seams later on. I have one major project I could start work on... prototype blocks for it anyway. I've offered to make a quilt for a young lady but her color choices are in direct opposition to my personal preferences and the bulk of my stash. That may not be the best way to come back from the drought.

For what it's worth, I've been engaged in what's being referred to as slow stitching of late. This is separate from the weekly prompts for the #52tags project but of a similar nature.

As I understand it, slow stitching began as a form of relaxation or meditation process. Just running stitches on fabric. Now it seems to encompass basic embroidery stitches as well. Hand sewing for pleasure and creativity but not necessarily to a pattern or for an end product. I don't especially enjoy doing the running stitch, I suspect because of my perfectionist tendencies. I'd rather do back stitch. I've been using 4" squares of leftover batting and odd scraps of fabric to practice and play with stitches and composition. It's also an exercise in overcoming those perfectionist tendencies. The fabrics are all raw edge, sometimes butted up against each other, sometimes overlapping. It feels to me like a remedial course in hand sewing. Some of us have to grow downwards I guess. 😉