Once in a blue moon...

It isn't often that I post twice in the same day...once in a blue moon...which it so happens is tonight! Imagine that! Now on Wednesday I thought it was only Tuesday, and today I thought it was the 30th. when in fact it is the 31th... yikes...half a year gone!

I just finished my Floret quilt top for Minis & More...the pattern is by Coriander Quilts and you can see it here.

The fabrics I've used are from Denyse Schmidt collections I got at Joanns back in 2011 and 2012, so they been well aged.

Now the monthly project is called Minis & More and this is a more... quite a bit more...I used 5" squares instead of the 2.5" mini charm squares so these 4 squares measure 45" square. I'm going to made 5 more blocks so the top will be 3 blocks by 3 blocks and with a border this will make a lovely quilt for my double bed.

Michele at Island Life Quilts and Sherri at A Quilting Life will have a parade of the Minis & More in the next couple of days so you can see what everyone else did.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Its a yarn-y kind of day...

I got another sock knitted this week...which is a good thing...except it is another single "looking for love in all the wrong places" sock, instead of a" found my solemate" kinda sock. Oh well, I blame it on the yarn as I couldn't resist casting on this colorway of Blue Moon Socks That Rock to see how it would knit up.

This is Beach Blanket Bingo... a homage (prononced oooo-mage) to Annette Funicello...a quintessential summer delight! This one gave me a little pooling around the ankle...and I'm intrigued with how the "stripes" on the foot seem narrower and closer together than on the leg even though there is the same number of stitches both sections. I wonder what the mate will look like...stay tuned, but don't hold your breath. It may be a while before I get back to this skein as 3 more skeins of BMSTR made an appearance in my mailbox yesterday.

These 3 don't have names other than being classified as Rare Gems. They are one of a kind skeins. I purchased them sight unseen... took a chance... a sort of yarn lottery...and I think I came out a winner. I have high hopes for pooling out of the first skein on the left. I probably wouldn't have chosen the middle skein but I like it and I think it will be pretty too. The last skein on the right I'm not sure of yet. The contrast between the teal and the hunter green isn't as pronounced as in the picture. I'm envisioning a pretty little shawl or perhaps a pair of patterned socks. I think patterned socks are better in more tone on tone kinda yarns.

And then there is this mindless project...Nerine by Drops Design... you can see it here. It is a free pattern.

The yarn is Drops Kid-Silk and it is like knitting a cloud. I'm using the color Sea Green (although to me it is more Sea Turquoise) and you can see all the colors here. I've had to work on keeping my stitches nice and loose. I can be a tight knitter but much improved from my first pair of socks that were so tight they cut off my circulation below the ankle..arghh!! I'm placing the blame for this project on Mary Ann who made sure I saw the pattern...and I couldn't resist.

Have you noticed there is a lot I can't resist where fabric, yarn and floss are concerned? It is good thing that my vices are liquor, drugs and gambling. LOL

Well, I'm waiting for the inspector from Duke to come and look at the electrical work I had done 2 weeks ago. Glad to have this project finished and feel my house is safer for it, although I could have bought a WHOLE LOT of yarn for what it cost me.

hope you have a great weekend!
happy knitting!
carol fun

Wednesday...already???

Boy time sure flies when you aren't looking...I could have sworn it was only Tuesday...oh well I have made a little progress on several projects. First I got two of my blocks sewn together for my Floret quilt. I really like how they look in the Denyse Schmidt fabrics and today on KatyQuilts I found another great scrap quilt idea with the same fabrics... you can check it out here. I have pieces cut for two more blocks and hopefully I'll get them sewn up tomorrow.

And after a week or so of rest I finally got my Farm Girl Vintage Crops table runner quilted. I did that elongated zig zag stitch...quick and easy.

You can see it a bit better on the back.

And here is how it looks on the chest I made it for...

I've got a bird theme going this summer in all my living room decorating, and birds and leaves seem to go together. Well it is raining and that is a good thing. It is suppose to cool us off and drop the temperature and humidity for a day or so. I'd like that, my flowers would like that, and my AC would like that.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today... lots to see over there.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Hey look!!! A Chicken....

Really... among the many projects on my design wall this morning there is a chicken...we'll get to it in a minute. If you've read this blog for any amount of time you know I bounce around like a BB in a boxcar (my sainted Dad's description of me as a child). I haven't changed any.

So at the top of the wall I have the two rows of the Meadow Mist Designs pattern, Looking Glass that I started last week. And below that I have two blocks from a pattern by Coriander Quilts called Floret.

The blocks from the Floret pattern use my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics that I have been aging since 2011. There are several collections in these blocks and I like how they have a vintage 50's vibe when combined with a white on white background.

Along with cutting 5" squares for the Floret pattern, I also cut a 2.5" strip from each piece as I'd like to make another 16 patch quilt with these. I recently saw this quilt on Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog made with the new Gardenvale collection by Jen Kingwell and it put me in the mind of some of the Denyse Schmidt fabrics. Since mine have been properly aged and are now "free" fabric I'm feeling virtuous that I'm using fabric I already have to make a quilt, instead of buying a new collection. Oh I am so good... I may dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back- LOL!

And the chicken... this is from Lori Holt's new book Vintage Farm Girl. On Friday she posted a chicken block with a sawtooth star and I immediately wondered how an Ohio Star would look on the chicken... so I made one.

An Ohio Polka Dot Chicken... I LOVE IT! Which has me bouncing off with an idea for another quilt...there are not enough hours in a day, I tell you.

Hopefully I'll get a lot of sewing time this week. So far there isn't much on my calendar... a dinner with the quilty ladies and a doctor's appointment for my younger son...I hope it stays that way.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Some Summertime Stitching...

Last week included some of the nicest days we've had all summer... temps in the low 80's and low humidity... it was glorious while it lasted...and I helped me with some summertime stitching.

I finished up this little piece on a scrap of some linen I dyed myself. This is from a recent release by Lizzie Kate called Seasons...you can see them all here. I like all of them and plan to stitch them in due time. This one finishes out to about 3" X 4.5". I have an idea about how to finish it but haven't gotten to it yet.

And finishing up that little piece got me to thinking about another summertime project I had started a long long time ago...I think the last time this saw the light of day was 5 years ago! Glad I remembered it!

This it Magic Garden by Shakespeare's Peddler and you can see it here. Now if you take a moment and look at the sampler in the link you are thinking, huh? First off I stitched this on a linen I dyed myself in shades of yellow and orange. I did that because I changed at least half of the colors in this piece. I love the design and the layout but can't for the life of my figure out why certain motifs were stitched in the colors the designer picked. Those flowers on the left hand side look like daylilies to me, and when I think of daylilies I think shades of yellow and orange... they are charted in GA Onyx...okay I've seen dark purple daylilies but I've never seen any black ones. And the carrot on the right... it is charted in GA Raspberry Frost... which is a tiny bit raspberry and a whole lot beige... which makes it look like a dried out parsnip to me. The slice of what I think is watermelon in the middle was charted in GA Hyacinth...purple...again I didn't get it, so I changed it to pink.

So in thinking about this, the title is Magic Garden, and perhaps the designer had a mythical garden in mind, or a garden at midnight...I don't have a clue. I'm happy with my changes as it is certainly a bright summery garden! I think I've got all my floss changes figured out except for random speckles stitched all over the background. The chart call for GA Hyacinth which look good on the linen in the picture but not for my linen. I need to look in my stash for a nice mottled yellow/orange... something a little lighter than the GA Orange Marmalade I used for the daylilies... or perhaps I selectively cut bits and pieces from the Orange Marmalade and use those. Sheesh... sometimes the decisions take longer than the stitching!

Now I'm off to listen to the baseball game until it is time to work on dinner. The talk today is all about whether our star pitcher Johnny Cueto has been traded or not. Last night the story was he was told 10 minutes before the game he was traded, but the deal fell apart. He went out and pitched a stellar game. At lunch time the story was yes he was traded to the Kansas City Royals...but just a little bit ago the story was NOPE... no deal. I have to say the management of the Cincinnati Reds is looking like a bunch of amateurs. I hate to see Johnny go... before I moved to my little house I lived in the same cul de sac as he lives during the baseball season. He is a nice kid... the same age as my older son and he treats his mother very nicely. He bought the house so his mom could come and cook for him during the baseball season. I'd certainly be willing to do that for my son if he as making $10 million a year, wouldn't you? LOL

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom-No Cape tomorrow.

happy stitching-
carol fun


happy stitching-
carol fun

Putzing on Pinterest...

I spend too much time on Pinterest... but if there is a 12 step program to help you stop...I don't want to know about it! LOL The other day I was studying researching wasting time on Pinterest and came across this wreath and here's a link to the directions.

It looked so cool and summery and I wanted a new wreath for my front door and it looked easy and quick... so I jumped in. Here's my version...

Now I couldn't find the turquoise striped mini cupcake liners she used but I did find these multi-color mini cupcake liners in the cake decorating department at Wallyworld. Here's close up of how they look flattened out.

Even though you flatten them out there is a lot of the white reverse side that shows and I'm not sure I like that but I went with it. I added the orange butterflies for some interest.

Now for my caveat on this project... it wasn't too expensive as I already had a Styrofoam wreath and some ribbon. The cupcake liners cost about $1.75 for 100 and I used somewhere between 200 - 250. The pins weren't expensive either until I ran into problems. It takes a while to flatten the liners and pin them into a Styrofoam wreath...I first covered my wreath with some orange ribbon I had on hand. However my choice of straight pins was not ideal. I  picked up some inexpensive short applique pins at Wallyworld thinking I didn't want to go all the way through the wreath. Hmmmm... not good. Not enough length in the pin to get a good bite of the wreath and the small heads sometimes just went through the liner leaving a hole as the liner fluttered to the floor...grrrrrr! So I got more pins, cheap ones with a bigger longer length and large glass/plastic heads and ended up repinning the entire wreath, which effectively made the whole project take twice as long... and therefore while interesting and fairly inexpensive,  it was not a fast project. Live and learn from my mistakes...if I ever make another one I'll just buy pins with the bigger heads the first time around.

I'm not sure how this would hold up to a lot of weather. My wreath hangs on my door behind my storm door on my front porch which is pretty sheltered. I wonder if eventually the humidity may cause the liners to get a bit limp but so far so good.

So go and spent some time studying researching wasting time on Pinterest. I'm sure you'll find some fun stuff. If you want you can always look at my boards... here's a link to the stuff I've collected.

happy stitching and crafting!
carol fun

A new shiny thing...

So, I said I was going to machine quilt the table runner I showed on Monday...ummm... not yet... something else shiny caught my attention and off I went in another direction. I recently purchased this pattern, Looking Glass from Meadow Mist Designs. You can see her patterns here.

And I was up at Fabric Shack on Tuesday and acquired a layer cake of the adorable collection by Ingrid Slyder called Forest Friends. One new pattern plus one new layer cake equals one new quilt started!

I quickly got 2 of the 5 rows on my design wall but had to stop to get dinner together and then I worked in the yard for a while. I'll get back to this tomorrow. In the meantime take a look at these adorable forest creatures...

aren't those the cutest little red foxes you've ever seen?

Even the bear and the skunk seem charming...LOL!   And I love the background fabric with the polka dots. This is the second quilt I've made that I've used grey fabric which comes as a surprise to me as I've always thought that gray was boring. I'm rethinking that opinion... its not boring...it is a nice supporting color for other colors!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today... check out what everyone else is working on... so many quilts I want to make!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Bird brained...

Okay, after finishing my Go 4 It quilt and my Bar Code quilt, I was making a very concerted effort to keep myself from starting another quilt with a bajillion little pieces. Sooooooo... I started a table runner... it only needed to by 13" wide and 31"long... and somehow I ended up with this...

which only had a million little pieces instead of a bajillion...LOL! Yes, yes...this is a bit of hyperbole.  I used the block called Crops from Lori Holt's book Farm Girl Vintage as my starting point. I ended up making it as long rows instead of individual blocks but that didn't eliminate using little bitty 1" square connector corners...about 80 of them. I could have done the 12" version and that would have been about half the work but I like the way the smaller leaves look and it allowed me to cut a ton of different greens. Hmmm...somehow I still ended up back at a bajillion pieces.

As far as being bird brained, well that's a reference to my mental state and  to this background fabric.

It is from the Basic Grey collection called Persimmon and I couldn't resist buying several yards when it first came out. Glad I did because when I did a Google search I didn't find a lot of it out there. I want to get this table runner quilted today. I have plans for a cute vignette on my little yellow chest featuring this runner topped with several other bird elements. I LOVE all kind of birds...robins, sparrows, finches, cardinals and chickens!

The weather guy is teasing me with better weather for the end of the week... after a few more torrential downpours and 90 degree temperatures like we had this weekend. Sheesh! It is like living in a sauna. Thank goodness for central air conditioning.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Its 90 degrees in the shade...

so lets talk about wool socks!  I know that makes no sense at all but since I knit socks all year round and I have a finished pair to show I want to talk about them.

This is the pair I knit with Opal yarn called Bootsfahrt... boots fart...LOL... ok I know it means boat trip in German but come on who doesn't love a good fart joke? Nice colors and nice yarn to knit with...easy care... toss into the washer and the dryer and wears like iron... gotta love it.

And then there is this lonely sock in the missing man formation...

This is Blue Moon Socks that Rock in the colorway A Room without a Roof... like from the Pharrell song "Happy"... it makes me happy! Now I know I could the popular fish lips heel and it would keep those stripes uninterrupted but then I wouldn't get that wonderful pooling around the ankle...that's what makes me really really HAPPY!! I wish the whole sock would pool. So many people do everything they can to keep the yarn from pooling and I would do everything I could to make it pool if I knew any tricks.

I've gushed over Blue Moon Yarn before and my love affair continues unabated, and today as I was putting this post together I saw that they had their Rare Gems listed for sale. oooooohhhhhh... I've always wanted some to this yarn and thought you only could snag it at a yarn show...so since this rare opportunity presented itself to me, I ordered some. And now that I know my order has been safely placed I will graciously share this info with you... aren't I wonderful? You can click here to see what I'm talking about.   Ok ok ... wonderful with a side order of snarky and selfish, but where Blue Moon yarn in concerned I can't help myself.

And since I always have a complaint about the weather I'm want to share that my whining about all the dreary, rainy days had some validity. In the past 30 days Cincinnati has had over 10 inches of rain...the most rainfall in 144 years over that 30 day span. Local news story here.  No wonder there is mold on the bottom of my trash cans. Mother Nature is now balancing that out with temperatures in the upper 90's the next couple of days giving me more weather to fret about... I think this is a sign of getting old and crabby... I think I'll do well in those categories...LOL!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

happy stitching and knitting!
carol fun

Sudoku in the checkout lane...

Well it certainly took me longer to get to the checkout with my Bar Code quilt than I anticipated. Turns out I had cut and sewn several of the low volume strips the wrong width, and I had to take them out, and trim them down, and then sew them back it...sheesh. It was like standing in the express checkout line behind someone with 99 items in their cart...it took FOREVER!

Finally finished...yeah!!! Now along with dealing with the wrong width strips, as I was sewing the rows together I kept seeing patterns I didn't like. It ended up being a big Sudoku... I didn't want the same color to appear in the same row either horizontally or vertically. I kept moving a block here, a block there... no now there are two pinks in the same row...no that puts two greens in the same column... wait a minute if I switch the blue block with the black block... no that doesn't work either...arghh!! In the end the best I could do was that the same color does not appear in any horizontal row, and the same color only appears in one vertical row. At least I think that's what I have... and I can't do Sudoku worth a darn.  Perhaps I could have gotten it to work if I hadn't come to this realization before I had 4 of the 6 rows sewn together and I refused to unsew anything.  I'm anal, OCD, neurotic, ADHD and stubborn...I'm a great big package of crazy all tied up in a colorful binding...LOL!

And speaking of colorful, check out this fabric I found for the binding..

It is a Benartex KANVAS fabric from Maria Kalinowski. Isn't this fabulous? I bought the last 2 yds on the bolt from Sew-A-Lot in Centerville Ohio. This is a binding I know will  find its way onto lots of my quilts.

Here's an idea of how it will look on the finished quilt...

Now to get the back made and send this off to the my long arm gal, Terry.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Almost to the checkout...

All the blocks are finished and they've been arranged and rearranged and my Bar Code quilt is almost done and ready for checkout.

I got the idea for this quilt here from Kvilstina's blog. It was a bee block that totally captivated me. Now I did get sidetracked there for a bit with the novelty Charming Stars but I'm happy to have this one almost done.  The bottom 3 rows are sewn to each other ... the next row up is ready to be added and the last 2 rows need to be sewn to each other.

It was fun to include novelty prints in these blocks both in the color portions and the low volume portions.

I like smiling lady bugs and the pink and white poodles and the bit of the irons and the chicken wire in this block.

And this lime green block has monkeys and silverware and one of those Day of the Dead guys fiddling away.

And this red block contains lots of stuff I love... I love the little bluebird with a heart in his beak, and those goofy faces in the red fabric and those mustaches.  Mustaches have been a big "thing" in the past year or two ,and no more so than they are right now in my fair city, Cincinnati. They are playing the Major League Baseball All-Star game tomorrow night at Great American Ball Park, if Mother Nature permits. We've had rainy weather on and off over the weekend and today we had a wicked storm. I was outside trying to take down my flag and I can't remember seeing such dark ominous clouds. The wind was something like 40mph and it blew all my flower pots off of the railing of my porch, pretty much mashing everything in them. A trip to the nursery will be in order tomorrow.

Anyway back to the mustaches... I know you are totally lost as to where I was going ... me too... the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team and back when they started in 1866 most of the players sported mustaches. The city of Cincinnati has played off of this theme and we have benches all over town that look like mustaches...

This one is in front of City Hall where my older son works. But the biggest mustache may be this one...

It was just serendipity that we have a building that can be morphed into an old time-y baseball player we call Mr. Redleg.

So cross your fingers and say a prayer that Mother Nature lets them get in the game tomorrow night. I'll be watching and stitching. I know it will be a good game because it is one my beloved Cincinnati Reds can't lose... as they aren't playing...which is a good thing as this is getting to be a very long depressing season... they are 8 games under .500 and totally out of the running for anything post season... good thing there is always next year!

happy stitching-
carol fun

A bittersweet Sunday...

Ahh... yesterday was lovely... there was this big ball of light in the sky...I think they call it the sun...today...its no where to be found...ugh! We've had a couple of rainy weeks here in southwestern Ohio and the forecast is for more of the same. Wish we could ship some of the rain to the west coast, as this pattern of rainy, dreary days makes me one lethargic pile of plump. I have been doing some cross stitch but I can't show it. I'm working on the May Day Sampler Mystery SAL on the Facebook group Prim Stitchers Society. The rules are you can show any sneak peeks and it has to be finished August 1. I'm making pretty good progress and I'm motivated by the fact that I have several new projects taunting me from the table next to my stitching chair that want to be stitched...NOW!!!! They are kitted up and ready to roll...wish I could stitch faster.

So instead of work in progress I want to share a framed finish. Ta-dah!!! This is Blackbird Designs Bittersweet September that I received from Dyeing to Stitch's Ladies Prim Society.

Bev at Joann's did a lovely job on this one too. I added a gold filet again but a simpler one as it suited this frame better. I love that in addition to a great border (I love when the sides are similar yet different), this piece also had an alphabet. I personalized it by stitching the C and the N in a different color of floss as they are my sons' initials.

There have been two releases from the Ladies Prim Society by Blackbird Designs called Bittersweet something or other.

In fact as I recall both of these were originally called Bittersweet September but when the realized they had two charts with the same name they changed the second one to Bittersweet Lane... either way they are both pretty little pieces.

So on another gloomy day I will sit and stitch some more, at least that will brighten my outlook until the sun appears again...boy I hope it is soon.

I'll be linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday on Kathy's Quilts and with Vintage Embroidery Monday on Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Stars in my eyes...

I've stars in my eyes and on my design wall. I made 3 more of the Charming Star blocks with my novelty fabrics and I think this is all the blocks I'm going to make for this quilt. First up I made one in shades of dark red/burgundy...

I found some more Thomas the Tank Engine fabric and I think the green engine is Percy. My older son adored TTE and use to quiz me as to the color and the number of each engine... I use to have them all memorized but it is long gone now. Next is a sled and mittens and assorted snow gear, movie memorabilia, the United States flag which I now see I put in sideways (I'll fix that today), crazy cats, cars with Christmas trees strapped to their roofs, letters include the initials of my son and daughter-in- law, and dog tags... quite a mix of stuff.

Then I put together a dark green block...

I got this zippers from an American Jane collection, little billiard balls, a lucky pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, little cardinals, a tennis player, pine cones, ornaments and Santa. If you enlarge the picture you will see the the Santa in the middle is only wearing boxer shorts... honestly who thinks of this stuff?  I find it hilarious, as most people aren't going to see that unless I point it out.

And finally a dark brown block... I'm calling this block my homage to Debbie Mumm. This is the last block I did and I only had 2 novelty fabrics with brown backgrounds in my novelties pile. I got to thinking what else my be lurking in my stash. I have my own system for organizing my fabrics and all my Debbie Mumm fabrics are in bins in a little root cellar off of my sewing room. I stored them that way because when I make a quilt with Debbie Mumm fabrics I always end up using just her designs, as the fabric colors just go together so well, I've been collecting Debbie Mumm fabric for about 20 years, and I am particularly fond of the older stuff she did.

In this brown block, 5 of the eight fabrics are Debbie Mumm...

the upper left corner is little chefs by Debbie Mumm, next is cute cats, M&M's (I only had a little bit of this one), polka dot cows which are closely related to polka dot chickens dontcha know...LOL, and all the rest of these are Debbie Mumm fabrics... the man in the moon wearing a mask, tuna and cat food cans, pretty birds and little sunflowers.

And here are two possible layouts of 12 of the blocks which would make a nice size lap quilt about 50" X 66" without sashing. First up the girl version with the pink princess-y block...

or the boy version without the pink princess-y block.

I like them both. so I think this is a successful start on a quilt for my yet to be conceived grandchild.

Now you would think that working with all these novelties would have gotten this out of my system for now... but you'd be wrong. In pawing through all my Debbie Mumm fabrics I've gotten a itch to do Charming Star novelty print quilt using just my Debbie Mumm fabrics. I envision it as a quilt for my inner child, not any yet to be conceived grandchild. Stay tuned to see where this leads. First I need to re-organize my novelties stash as it is strewn all over my sewing room, and I need to finish up the Bar Code quilt and I need to get a binding on my APQ Go 4 It quilt that I just got back from Terry my long arm quilter.  It looks so good! I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever run out of quilts to make!

Hoping to link up with Freshly Pieced today...

happy stitching-
carol fun

I spy with my little eye...

a bunch of crazy things...LOL! I now have 10 blocks made all using different novelty prints.

I'm not sure if I'm going to make a couple more blocks...I could try to do one with say, dark green backgrounds and maybe another with burgundy backgrounds, and then I'd have a nice size lap quilt. As it stands now my thoughts are to stop with what I have and put the blocks away for my yet to be conceived grandchild. Then when I know which gender I could either leave in the very pink princessy block for a girl, or leave it out and add the black block.. I.think I'll mull it over a while and look for more novelties cause novelties make me HAPPY!!

Here are the 4 blocks I finished up over the weekend.

Moving in a clockwise rotation starting at the upper left, we have a red block featuring...

lots of hearts, sunshine-y faces that I think are suppose to be the sun from the old Kellogg's cereal commercials, crazy limbed people... kinda walking funny, buttons, the Chinese characters for courage, peace and love, jacks... I wonder if kids even know what jacks are today, arggh!! pirates, and we finish up with cherries.

Next up a green block which has...

little baby hula girls, strangely patterned frogs, cupcakes, smiling black cats, some of my favorite characters from Peanuts, a cute toy plane, monkeys, and a boy playing soccer.

I've noticed that I've used a lot of older KP Kids prints in these blocks. I LOVE KP Kids but I haven't seen anything new from them in ages. They did the cutest kids and the most adorable pigs. I know I have a thing for chickens but their pigs are just adorable! Years ago I was in Paducah at the big AQS show and  a vendor had a kit with KP Kids pigs dressed up as farmers. I debated whether to buy it and passed on it... and I have kicked myself ever since. It haunts me... the one that got away!!!!  And to this day I figure if I like a fabric I should probably buy some because they will probably not reprint it ... and that is a bit of justification for my novelty stash... if it is cute, a third of a yard isn't going to break me! Boy I went off on a tangent didn't I?

Okay, back to the blocks... onto the purple one...

laundry hanging on a line... Halloweenie laundry, wish I had bought more of this one as I've used it all up, shoes, one of those KP pigs I was talking about,  cats and pink poodles, beach gear, sewing machines, cats/owls/spiders, and adorable smiling lady bugs.

And the final block I made has black backgrounds. My younger son said this is his favorite block...

 a pincushion and sewing bird, musical notes, dachshunds wearing sweaters, balls of yarn, a fudgesicle crazy glasses, a scribbled cat and pizza!

I realize I have a substantial stash of novelty fabric but never fear,  that will not deter me from buying more. I'm always on the lookout for items I don't have... the other week I found an octopus. I was asked the other day how much I buy of fabrics I like, and my go to cut is a third of a yard... 12 inches.  I find it is large enough to cut a good size square from and I get more variety this way. I also have to admit that I'm a regular at Fabric Shack in Waynesville and when I put a stack of bolts on a counter they just look at me and say "a third of a yard, right?" and they always are... LOL!

happy stitching...
carol fun