Exciting Fabric Find

Yesterday when I was sitting around waiting for my fabric to arrive, I idly went to the Facebook marketplace and typed in "cotton fabric." I don't do it often, but I just did it yesterday on a whim. An ad came up for some woman who was moving into her retirement quarters and was getting rid of her fabric. This was the photo she posted. It looked like there was a fair amount of fabric, but to be honest some of the fabrics shown were sort of ugly. But it looked to be batik, so I made an appt and went out to her house.

When I got out there, she also brought out a tub of books and offered to sell those to me as well. I poked at a few pieces of fabric on top and there were enough pieces that I liked to make it worth the $35 she was asking so I just gave her the money and took the tubs, as requested. She wanted it all gone. And she offered me the books for $5!! Yup, took those too.

Anyway, I got home and pulled out all the fabric and started laying it out and I was shocked at how much there actually was. I did a quick tally (I didn't carefully measure everything, but quite a lot of it still has the store tags attached) and I got almost 70 yards!!! OMG! I paid 50¢ a yard for batiks! Hehe, I've never been this lucky with a fabric purchase before.

Quite a lot of the books are knitting and crochet, which I have no interest in, but there were quite a few quilt books and magazines so they were definitely worth the extra $5. Yeah, I had a good day today.

Also, I got my white fabric and I spent the morning cutting out the triangles for my Morris Garden quilt. Hopefully, I'll get it assembled by the end of the weekend, but right now I can't help pawing through my new stuff.

Tuesday To Do #24

Last Tuesday I wrote about working on my Morris Garden quilt. I hoped during the week I could 

• Cut out and assemble the rest of the red and blue diamonds.
• Cut out the white triangles.
• Start putting together the blocks.
• Assemble the quilt blocks per the plan.

Sadly, I discovered I didn't have enough of the white fabric that was part of the fabric line. I only need about 1¼ yards, but I only have one yard. It's a bummer, but I didn't have anything in my stash that I both had enough yardage and liked what it looked like with the other fabrics. So, I ordered a replacement fabric and now I'm waiting for it to show up before I can continue work on this quilt.

I did everything I could without the white fabric.

While I wait, I've been trying to finish up quick little projects that have been hanging around unfinished in my sewing room.

Over the weekend, I made six mug rugs from some scrap HSTs.

Then yesterday, I picked up another small project I'd set aside in April. It was actually easier than I expected to sew all those Y-seams.

I originally intended to make mug rugs from these small blocks (they're about 5-inches), but now that I have already made six, I'm thinking about piecing them together into a larger block. I haven't decided yet.

With any luck, I'll get the replacement white fabric soon and I'll be able to resume work on the Morris Garden quilt this coming week. I will go ahead and carry forward the remaining items on the list.

• Cut out the white triangles.
• Start putting together the blocks.
• Assemble the quilt blocks per the plan.

Linking up with Tuesday ToDo.

Mug Rug Distraction

I've been trying to get myself to clean up sewing projects that have been kicking around my sewing room for a while. A couple of days ago I ran across a small package filled with these little HSTs leftover from the Xmas quilt I made in July 2020.

I sewed little squares onto the Xmas quilt sashing to make the stars,
so when I trimmed off the extra fabric, I was left with quite a large pile of little triangles.

At the time, I couldn't bring myself to just throw them away,
so I sewed them together to make half-square triangles.

I didn't really have a good plan, I just started sewing them together in a pattern. I decided to just make a few mug rugs rather than try to make something larger. Some of the seams are not matched so great, but I decided done was better and I was not going to take the time to make sure all the points lined up perfectly.

I had more green than red HSTs so I ended up doing a couple in just green to use up the last of the pieces.

It probably wasn't worth a whole day of work, but it is satisfying to make something useful from such tiny leftover scraps.

Messenger Bag Finished

My One Monthly Goal is finished! I used ByAnnie's MJ's Messenger Bag pattern, but I had to adjust it to accommodate a larger laptop than the pattern originally called for. It took me about three days to make this. I could have finished it much sooner but I procrastinated on the little shoulder strap pad because it was such a pain to sew on my sewing machine. It was so thick my sewing machine kept telling me the foot was up. Sigh. But it is finished now, and I'm pleased with the bag.

Excuse the photos, we have terrible light today.

Linking up with 

Brag About Your Beauties

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

Finished (or Not) Friday

One Monthly Goal October Wrap-up

Peacock Party

TGIFF

Tuesday To Do #23

It's been several weeks since my last Tuesday To Do post because I've been working on non-sewing projects. But my brain has been pining for more quilting, so I think I'll take a break and do some sewing.

In the past week, I spent two days finishing a little Anvil lap quilt, mostly from scraps.

Then I was going to work on another little flower lap quilt, but my Cricut cutting mats had gone astray so I ended up finally starting to work on another difficult quilt, Jinny Beyer's Midnight Garden pattern in the Morris Meadows fabric. This one I'm cutting out by hand and it takes quite a long time because I am trying to be very precise with my cutting and sewing. Diamonds can be tricky because the edges are cut on a bias.

I've spent the last couple of days cutting out pieces and I've started assembling the diamonds.

Obviously, my list for the next week is:

• Cut out and assemble the rest of the red and blue diamonds.
• Cut out the white triangles.
• Start putting together the blocks.
• Assemble the quilt blocks per the plan.

I'll be pretty satisfied if I get that list finished, especially since I do have many non-sewing tasks I should be working on.

Linking up with Tuesday To Do over at TexasQuilt Gal.

Morris Garden Quilt

I am obviously in the mood to do another quilting binge. Working in the basement is so dark and depressing, so I think I'll spend several days doing some sewing.

I have decided to work on the Midnight Garden pattern by Jinny Beyer sewn with Morris Meadows fabrics (a fabric line by Michele Hill from 2011). I've been playing with the design and I'm having a difficult time choosing between these layouts. The blocks are basically the same, but I rotate the colors within the star.

Which do you guys prefer?

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Anvil Lap Quilt Flimsy

I was in the mood a couple of days ago to work on a small quilt, so I poked around my EQ8 files and chose something pretty simple. Today's Friday Night Sew In gave me my opportunity to finish up the borders.

This was my original design, but I decided the colors were too stark. I wasn't in the mood to make something that was just white and black, so I added red to the design. I also decided to make the blocks smaller. According to BlockBase+, the name of the block is The Anvil. It was published by Nancy Cabot in the 1930s.

I ended up changing the border from my original design because I cut out too many of those triangle pieces. That's what happens when you just start cutting strips without doing the math beforehand. The new border used most of the extra white triangles.

It's a little funky, but it did use a bunch of fabrics I've had in my stash for a VERY LONG time. One of the white print fabrics was dated 1991. And most of the red and black fabrics were from my scrap bins.

Linking up with 

Friday Night Sew In

Finished or Not Friday

TG it's Finished Friday

Peacock Party

Brag About Your Beauties and

Whoop Whoop

Messenger Bag Progress

I guess I will finish my One Monthly Goal this month. I wasn't sure I would, but my husband went out of town for a week to visit family and I found myself in the mood to sew while he was away. 

I decided to make the Messenger Bag a little bit larger than the pattern so I could carry my extra-wide laptop inside. I needed to add 1-inch to both width and height. It was a bit of a challenge to make sure I adjusted all the affected pieces correctly, but putting everything in a spreadsheet helped.

This is the front flap finished before it was attached to the bag.

I decided to put the pen holder on the inside strip of the bag, rather than inside the flap. I was really pleased with how I managed to line up the seams with the handle strap on the outside.

A little bit like origami to put it together.

The inside is still outside until I finish that last seam.

Normally I wouldn't be able to resist finishing when I'm this close, but I had enough wrestling for one day. I'll try to finish tomorrow.

But I did feel like working on something, so I did a bit of fussy cutting. I will eventually need these.

Linking up with Monday Making.

October One Monthly Goal

I'm a little reluctant to make a goal for October because I don't know if I'll have much time to sew this month because we are preparing for a basement remodel, but I do like to have a plan for when I do have time.

In August, I had my first long arm lesson and quilted some fabric to make another ByAnnie project. I'd like to make a bag large enough to hold my laptop computer. 

I spent quite a while looking at the options, and I finally chose MJ's Messenger Bag.

I have the pattern and materials and just need to order the zippers before I start assembly.

Thanks to Patty for hosting the OMG challenge; it's helped me stay focused on projects and get them finished in a timely manner.