Bits and Pieces

Over the weekend I had a few moments to finish up a few things on my “to do list”.  The first was to get the binding on our new Small Group quilt.

Isn’t this striking!

Believe it or not but it was simple too.  Nancy came up with the plan and she brought old yellow book phone pages.  She cut them bigger and we sewed stripes on at an angle with just one piece of orange or not if we didn’t feel like it.  After we had sewn all the stripes together the blocks were than trimmed to the correct size.  Her concept was for us to bring masculine blue scraps that were the color of blue jeans.  I’m pretty sure she intends to pass this on to a boy aging out of Foster care.

While we were working on this quilt, I keep thinking that this would be a great scrap buster.  I thought I might make one color blocks and then put them together in a rainbow pattern.  I would sure help to get all these scraps out of my way and be useful at the same time.

I also received my Ebay quilt this weekend.  It has a few problems but I was aware of them and am willing to deal with them because I liked the pattern and I get a piece of history at the same time.  I consider it a win-win but I can see how it isn’t for everyone.

I don’t think it’s that old.  We are told we can only date a quilt by the newest fabric and some of these look like 50’s fabrics.  I have been told by a quilt historian that the 20’s and 30’s fabrics were small prints with few colors, because of the Depression.  In the 40’s the fabrics started to get larger patterns and they were more colorful, as in more than three colors per print.  And we know that by the 60’s the fabrics were large, bold and colorful!

Some of these prints are something I’d buy today, especially the dots!  Every quilt needs dots, in my humble opinion.

There are a few holes I need to sew up.  This was all done by hand and I’ll fix it in the fashion it was made but I’ll probably machine quilt it to give it a bit of strength.

Of course at the same time I’ll make a pattern so that if the mood hits me, I can make my own version of this quilt (as if I’ll live long enough to add this to my bucket list!).

This little dickens…

He may not look any bigger but his personality has sure grown!  What a character! He thinks he’s as big as any other furry person in this house.  I’ve had to save poor sweet Sheba from his attacks.  He will just climb up her and try to bit her.  She so sweet to him.  She must have had kittens before she came to live with us.

She will hold him down and discipline him but her comes right back for more!  Lately Sheba has been hiding in the bedroom on the gigantic bed, but you guessed it, Elliott has been able to scale the massive height.

Yesterday I found him on top of my sewing table.  How?

Not only was he on the table but he was above the table and on a shelf!  He had arranged himself between my old spools.  Good thing I use Museum putty on everything around here!

Than he found a wooden dowel and a curtain rod.  Those were great fun till I took him down and distracted him with a ribbon.

There’s always something  going on around here, just not as much sewing as I’d like but he can’t stay this small forever!

Happy sewing my friends!  Brandie

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