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I have a couple little things to share today, and although non of them deal directly with sewing, they will aid/allow the process to go on.  First things, I finally created a design wall for myself.   On a door!  I stapled the daylights out of some batting that I had left over from Pat's quilt onto the closet door in my sewing room.  Pretty soon I'll have a project to go up there so I'll show a picture of it 'in action!' For now, here's the initial photo--minutes after completion.

Lately, I have also received a large amount of material--you could say I was on a roll!  I got a bunch of Christmas stuff to make a Christmas quilt, so I'll show that off once I get to doing that (hopefullly it's before Christmas!).  I also got a big schwack of quilter's candy fat quarters from Connecting Threads.

They came unfolded so I did a real nice job getting them all lovely to stock away.  I also got some lovely charm squares from there:

And I got some solids.  That I didn't bother to take pictures of yet.  They're not as exciting though.  I'm determined to finish off the fandango quilt so I'll be getting to that back soon.  I'm sure that will provide far more interesting pictures than what I have posted today.  Or perhaps not.  But I'm excited!

New knew gnu

While I await the arrival of the batting that will go into my fandango quilt, I have gotten to work on the Pure fabric I cut up a while back to get to work on my next project.  So far I have sewn all of my strips together (was that a strip piecing extravaganza or what) and pressed many of them. Usually I try to break  up between sewing and pressing because I find pressing a lot to be tedious.  However, I decided that once I got sewing I may as well keep going.  So, here's what I have pressed:

That polka dot is one of my faves so far.  But I really do love it all.  Here's what I need to do still:

So that will be another day.

On top of these, I have taken on a new project.  My sister went to Africa a couple years ago as part of the Free the Children organization (they built a school there).  She was gifted a 'wrap dress' that is basically a really long shoulder to floor length strip of fabric.

This is half of it.  The other half is the same.  She wants to keep it, but there's not really a call here for dresses that consist of a fabric wrapped several times around your body.  So, she asked me to make it into a quilt.  I will be cutting up the other piece into squares to use for a "border" in order to make it bigger, perhaps queen size.  When I do the quilting I'll use my darning foot and do free-motion quilting around all of the little flowers.  I think it's going to be great.  I hope.

A Quick Gift

I decided I wanted to make a small gift for my preceptor from clinical, so I went to Sew, Mama, Sew and used a tutorial for an aromatherapy rice bag.  I strayed a little bit because I used several pieces of a flannel layer cake that I bought from Connecting Threads.  So the front is the same, but the back is just improvised to be big enough.

Front

Back

It would have been nice to have the back be solid, but I like it well enough the way it is.  I'm hoping that my other fabric orders will be in soon, I got some on Thursday.  I will probably put them up on here soon.
  

Finito

I finished my lovely table runner.  It's not perfect, but I think that it looks pretty good and it mostly looks straight from normal height.  It's a little bit uneven if you look right overtop, but I really like it.  I'm also impressed with my colour choices.  Who knew?

Ta-da!  Since I finished this I tore apart the closet in my sewing room to put shelves and such in the sewing room.  Therefore, my chair and cutting desk are absolutely loaded with clothes.  So, I will likely not have any progress for a bit, but maybe I'll take some nice pictures of my lovely flowers.  Because I like that kind of stuff.  And well, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who reads this, although I may have a few faithful friends who wade through my banter to see what I write.  Thank you, you know who you are.

Running Along

Okay, so I finished this a while ago, but during my last set of shifts I didn't feel inspired to post anything about it.  So here goes.

My table runner is one step closer to completion.  I just need to trim the edges, quilt it, and bind it.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out, but I wish that I could get some better seams, I never seem to be quite straight.  I'm not yet sure how I'm going to quilt this one.  Oh well, that's for next time!

Also, in the background my new sewing room is visible!  I did some major rearranging around the house here.  I will get it all cleaned and organized and share some pics soon.  Yay!  Also, the fandango quilt top is patiently awaiting being finished.  I purchased an order from Connecting Threads, and in there is some 100% cotton batting, which will soon be inside the quilt.  So, soon enough.

Fandango Quilt Top

Well folks, here it is.  It's been slightly frustrating, and it's slightly off in some places, but my lovely fandango quilt top has come together!  I got Adam to hold it up for me, and, well, he did his best.  Thankfully I managed to cut out his dirty feet.

I haven't measured this quilt yet, but I will soon.  I have decided to buy some new batting for it.  The stuff that I have is that cotton/poly blend.  I didn't realize that even though it's 80% cotton, it would not shrink at all like the 100% does, and there would be no crinklage.

I tried to randomize it, and almost succeeded.  All in all, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  It's a little more square-ish than I intended, but I think it works well that way.  Should be a good quilt to wrap up in.

I am not yet sure what I'll do for backing, but I have a feeling I'll be dragging the whole thing into a quilt shop to get someone to help me find the right choice.  Also, I will likely use the last two 1/2 yard pieces of fandango that I have left over and piece it together somehow.  Such fun :-).

On a non-quilting note, my first zantedeschia bloomed in my garden.  I was a little worried that with the torrential rains followed by a near drought that they'd been either drowned or baked.  But here it is!

I do love gardens, even if mine is not that nice!!