Back on track

I got back to clearing off the cutting table this weekend and I didn't start any more drawstring bags. That's a big win!

A couple of weeks ago I unearthed a bin of these fabrics. Long time readers might remember that I started these as yet another travel project. I used a bunch of them in the Penguin quilt that I gave to my SIL. I still had a stack of fabrics ready to be tied, stitched or clamped and decided that I'll pack them up again for the car ride to Maine. That will give me 3 different types of projects that I can work on for 32 hours of riding and, hopefully, the variety will be good for my hands.

I bought these stencils from Cindy Needham a few years ago and they are perfect for marking fabric for Shibori stitching.

In an hour I had all of these fabrics marked. I marked one with each stencil. The cool thing about Shibori stitching is that you could mark 10 or more fabrics with the same stencil and stitch all differently. I'll just use the grids as guidelines and make my design decisions as I pull each fabric. I used Crayola Washable Markers and I only stopped when I ran out of ink in one marker. This will give me plenty to hand stitch for many trips to come. The small sizes are very manageable and they are a perfect size for a feature block in a quilt.

My Shibori project bag is perfect for this project and the zipper pouch is perfect for my threads, needles and little scissors. I'm ready to go!

 Back to clearing the table I found some doll patterns that I printed off so I cut out 2 dresses, a sparkly t-shirt and batik shorts. I also found a bin with all the leftover animal print batiks from the Safari Quilt. It went into the batik fabric bin. I just don't have a good idea for using it at the moment. I'm getting close to the dustiest edge of the cutting table.
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My friend, Brenda, came over for her first quilting lesson. She's going to buy a longarm soon and she's hoping to help with the veterans quilts. Helping her become comfortable with quilt if of great personal benefit to me!  She was fearless and now she's alreay quilted her first quilt!

I finished off the weekend with some repair work. It annoys me so much that my pillowcases fray while the sheets are perfectly fine.  In the past I'd toss them out and buy new ones. But I just got them to that perfect soft cotton feel so I don't want to throw them out. Plus I'm trying to do more repair and less tossing. My first though was to take off the cuff all together and add a new one in a print fabric but the serger was out and I decided to take the easy way out. Function over form.
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I love having a serger! I just turned under the edges and did a really quick cover stitch. Good as new.

I also made some postcards this weekend but I have to wait until Thursday to share them because one of them is for Mom's birthday. They are pretty cool, though.

Today, the big green quilt will get loaded and basted!