Sewing Project #3 - Bricks and Cobblestones Scrap Quilt

This was a baby quilt I made for a friend a few weeks ago. I found the pattern free at http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ig/Free-Quilt-Block-Patterns/Bricks---Cobblestones-Quilt.htm. It is a great way to use up small pieces of cloth, and the picture does not do it justice as it is striking. A most obnoxious mix of colors and patterns!

I used solid pink for the back, and went along the edges of some blocks in a random pattern with my sewing machine, so it kind of ends up looking like computer circuity. (This anchors the 2 sides of the quilt together. Sorry - no photo!) I also made 2 black ties of 18 inches so the blanket could be folded in half, and "rolled up like a burrito" and tied. (My daughter likes her blankets like that to drag around.) I made a small cloth bag for carrying with a pocket on it and poof! Instant gift bag as well.

This can be made in any color scheme and size and it great to do incrementally. You can do it all at once if you need to, but I made this whole thing in 2 feverish days for an early-arriving baby and it was tiring. Happy sewing!

I am back!

Well, it has been a non-productive month or so on our house. The vehicle we use to haul stuff (old El Camino) needed work, so that took our house money for a while. We also got robbed of all our tools at our work site, so that is a setback as we still have not replaced them. (Don't you hate a thief?) And the heat was wicked hot!

But things are looking up! Through a swap meet in Oklahoma City and putting out the word elsewhere, my partner is getting rid of some excess Harley parts and turning bike parts into a home for us. So we will be back on track. We also garbage picked a small section of usable fence for our house, and two great chairs with wrecked cane bottoms that need very little work and cost someone else a pretty penny. I do so like picking things from the garbage pile! The chair I am sitting on now was trash, as was the black bench the cat and purse are sitting on. And those were Chicago trash at that!

Here are a few pictures to bring us up to date. We went to an "Artwalk" event with lots of dressed-up dogs, and Starry and Tim got to ride a Segway. Now Starry wants one for Yuletide! We got to see a colony of bats that were very impressive and cute, along with being very stinky!

I made a purse out of some jeans that Starry was too big for, and now she wants the purse because they were her jeans. She wants a lot of things! The cat is my partner's horrible animal, a wild-domestic hybrid called a Bengal Cat. It is pretty, but bad-tempered and dumb as a rock. Some of them must be nice, though, or people would not be shelling out big bucks for these speckled menaces! More to come...