Category Archives: Thrifting

Green, Peach and Purple

Where to start? I think today’s post will be divided in sections determined by color. Let’s start with green as that happens to be my favorite color.

Yesterday I played with loads of evergreen boughs. Ray trimmed some of the trees in the backyard and he knew I would want some of the cuttings to decorate for the holidays. We are fortunate to have many cedar, spruce and hemlock trees on the property thus a never-ending supply of boughs. I brought them inside and tucked them on the mantle and a number of windowsills. They will dry out and drop needles but I love having them here and there. The fragrance is wonderful.

I also made two swags and hung one on our mailbox and the other from the railing by the steps to our front porch. For a quick minute, I debated wiring lots of them together and hanging them along the entire railing but nah, I wasn’t feeling like such a big project. Finally, I have a large blue pot by the front door and I filled it with boughs that are just ‘planted’ into the dirt. Along with a few artificial berries and pinecones, it looks very festive. I have boughs left over which I will bring to Mom and Dad’s house later today. Mom likes having pine boughs on the windowsills too.

PS – What do you think of those cute gnomes on the windowsill? I made them last year using the tutorial on Sew Can She. Super easy project and pretty darn cute, right??

Moving on to peach – the 2024 Pantone Color of the Year. What is your response to this year’s color? I have to say, I am not a fan. I like their reasoning behind the choice but the color leaves me feeling unenthused.

Pantone explains:

“…. we wanted to turn to a color that could focus on the importance of community and coming together with others. The color we selected to be our Pantone Color of the Year 2024 needed to express our desire to want to be close to those we love and the joy we get when allowing ourselves to tune into who we are and just savor a moment of quiet time alone. It needed to be a color whose warm and welcoming embrace conveyed a message of compassion and empathy. One that was nurturing and whose cozy sensibility brought people together and elicited a feeling of tactility. One that reflected our feeling for days that seemed simpler but at the same time has been rephrased to display a more contemporary ambiance.”

Seems to me, this is asking an awful lot from the color peach but so be it. I am curious to see if ‘peach fuzz’ becomes widely used in design (clothing, fabrics, interior design) this year.

Shall we move on to purple? If asked, I would tell people purple is not one of my favorite colors. I don’t use it a whole lot in quilts and you won’t see too much of it in my closet. However, I recently bought a piece of purple sweatshirt fleece from a thrift store (of course). My plan was to make matching pants for my grand daughters (who LOVE purple). Then last week I decided to use it to try out New Look pattern N6772 for sweat pants for me. I figured if they didn’t fit well it would not be a big (monetary) loss.

Guess what? They fit perfectly. These pants are super comfortable with just the right fit in the hips, waist and thigh. I can say with certainty if I had made this pattern for the first time with a nicer fabric for which I paid full $$, they would not have worked!! It is Murphy’s Law.

But with a $3.00 piece of (very) purple fleece, I obtained a perfect fit. So, I am going to learn to love purple and wear these! (I also plan to test my Murphy’s law theory and buy a piece of fabric in a better color and make another pair.)

As for the pictures of me wearing said purple sweatpants, I took them myself with the timer on my phone. It works for the most part but I won’t be including them in my sweat pants modeling portfolio.

There you have it – some green, peach and a big dose of purple! Hope everyone is having a great day. I am heading over to my mom’s today with those pine boughs and we are planning to make a batch of Cucidati . These figs filled treats are traditional Italian cookies served at Christmas time. I think I have been eating them since I had enough teeth to chew them with! I will take a picture of our batch of cookies and share in the next post.

Friday Finish to Share

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Just dropping in to share this cozy quilt! I finished it up last week which is fairly quick considering I started it just a couple of months ago. I posted that I was battling a ridiculously lengthy virus and, out of boredom, started stitching 3 1/2″ prints with alternate blue chambray squares. Then I got distracted with the leftover squares and made a matching baby quilt. Well, now I have a set!

The lap size version is so soft, drapes wonderfully and makes me happy! (Really, what more does one need)?

I quilted it just like the baby quilt with a straight line running through each chambray square.

The backing is a soft flannel I found at a thrift shop a month back. I think someone may have donated it because it somehow got a few spots of what looks like rust (?) on the fabric. Since it was close enough to the edges I was able to work around them nicely. Along with the flannel backing, I also used a light weight batting. This ended up giving the quilt just the right weight and drape.

This is the sort of quilt I love when I am watching tv or reading a good book.

After taking pictures the other day, I brought the quilt upstairs to the sewing room. I got an urge to free motion quilt a few designs in some of the print squares. I had pink Glide thread in the machine so I chose a variety of the pink squares and stitched a flower on them or a little swirl. I may do a few more today. I know I won’t quilt all of the print squares but it was satisfying to do a few here and there. It looks cute. Sorry, no pictures available. Maybe at some point?? This doesn’t change the overall look of the quilt anyway. It was just something I did for fun.

That is it for today. It is going to be a gorgeous day out. How about you? Are you enjoying some pretty spring weather?

Linking up with Alycia at Finished (or Not) Friday and Brag About Your Beauties.

Giftbags, Sweatshirts, Chocolate Cake and Shortbread Cookies

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Lots of fun happening around here these days! Making, baking, getting outside and spending time with family have taken the bulk of my time lately. I couldn’t remember what I had shared lately but after taking a look at my photos on my phone, I found several projects to write about.

Let’s start with these cute matching sweatshirts. I wanted to play with the serger machine my sister gave me a while back. It is really useful for finishing a seam when making clothing. A couple of years back, I picked up about two yards of extra wide pink fleece at a thrift shop. I am not one for this color so I didn’t make anything with it. With cooler weather coming, I decided to make my grand daughters matching pullover tops. When they were here a couple of weeks ago, I tried them on the girls. I had made the necklines with the fleece fabric and there wasn’t nearly enough stretch. I could hardly get them over the girls’ heads. Back up to the sewing room to unpick the stitches and replace the necklines with a ribbed knit (also thrifted!). I haven’t tried them on yet but the neck is quite stretchy so I think they will fit well now.

This next project is long overdue. I don’t wear an apron too often but if I am doing something messy in the kitchen I like to have one on. This (thrifted) fabric is so cool. It is a very lightweight denim with a print that looks embroidered on it.

To give it some body, I lined it with a piece of yardage off my shelf. The pattern called for hemming the edges but really, lining the full apron is better. It gives the apron some heft and takes much less time than rolling the hem all the way around the entire apron. I think it provides a nicer finish overall plus it is reversible.

I wasn’t in need of another sewing machine but when I saw this at an estate sale, I couldn’t pass it up. It works so well and has the basics – different speeds for sewing, needle up/down, and a nice selection of stitches. It will be great if I have someone over to sew with, for teaching my girls to sew (this machine is less complicated than the Bernina), and for a back up if the Bernina is getting serviced. It is also much lighter in weight which is nice when taking a machine to a class. Totally worth the $28 I paid for it!!

I make these on a regular basis. Wrapping gifts at holiday time uses lots of paper which isn’t terribly ecological. Since I have quite a collection of Christmas fabric, I made four more gift bags. These are lined and have ribbon drawstrings. I tend to make them in a variety of sizes and fabrics so they fit different size gifts. I tried for a better photo but honestly, I got lazy and didn’t want to stuff them. Hahaha.

What do think? This is just a peek at a project I am working on now. It will be a wall quilt for our bedroom. More on this as it progresses. I am really thrilled with it thus far.

These cookies were so yummy. I wanted to make some non-dairy cookies for last weekend. My son and his wife came for a weekend of visiting, beach walks and some fishing. Anyway, I chose to try these Tahini Cookies from The Mediterranean Dish. Wow! Soooo good. Tahini is a sesame seed paste and has a different flavor. My DIL didn’t really like them but the rest of us sure did. I made a few substitutions with the recipe – mainly using vegetable shortening instead of butter and rolling them in confectioners sugar after they cooled a bit. I will surely make these again.

My son turns 32 years next week. Since we won’t see him on his birthday, I made a cake for him last weekend. Again, dairy free. This bundt cake is based on a cake mix but I added chocolate chips (dairy free), dairy free yogurt, an extra egg, and a splash of Kahlua. For the frosting, I heated one cup of oat milk and poured it over one cup of dairy free chocolate chips. When they melted completely, I whipped the mixture with powdered sugar until I got the consistency I wanted. It was sort of mousse like? I had to keep it in the refrigerator because it doesn’t really set up. Really yummy though. Ian took a chunk home with him and we finished the rest this week.

I had the pleasure of hanging out on the beach with my DIL, Shar, and their dog Isla while the guys fished. Shar actually likes fishing as well but didn’t have a license so we were on puppy care duty. It was a beautiful day out.

I saved the best for last in this post! Shar loves to embroider and made this for me for my birthday. I love it so much. The quilt is adorable and each square has a different stitch. Look at the clothes pins holding it to the line – the detail work in this piece is just awesome. It is so special to me and I am really touched that she made this for me.

OK – I think I have caught you up for now. This weekend is a local quilt show. The featured quilter is actually someone from Grass Valley (where I used to live). She was in the guild there and is now President of the guild up here. I am looking forward to seeing her work.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!! Is fall weather starting where you live? The days are getting shorter and the leaves are just beginning to change here.

Linking to my favorites – see the list at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Feeling Like Fall!

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Oh how I love autumn. It means the summer heat is over, the possibility of rain is coming closer, the fire dangers might soon reduce greatly. Colorful leaves, cooking comfort foods, baking bread – this is fall at our house.

There is no filter or editing done with the photo above. The first of our 1/2 dozen maples has turned to a brilliant crimson color. It is the same each year; this tree turns red first, drops its leaves first, and leafs out first. Then the other two on the front lawn take their turn after this tree.

This is the road leading to our property.

This road doesn’t have any maples but the oaks do drop their leaves and it becomes autumnal in its own way.

Being crisp and cool out, I wanted a coffee when I was running errands yesterday. I went to Caroline’s, my favorite local coffee roaster. I asked for one pump of pumpkin spice added to my latte – this is not something I usually do but I thought maybe I would enjoy it. Hmmm, it was terribly sweet. I mean wayyyy too sweet. I won’t be doing that again. Either I really don’t like the pumpkin flavoring or they accidentally added twenty-nine pumps rather than the one pump I requested.

A week ago or so, I saw these cute garlands in a shop window. I liked the colors and the texture provided by the variety of fabrics it contained. Of course, I decided to make one. Julia and I both like seasonal decorations and I knew she would be happy to receive something with fall colors. I cut strips measuring 1.5″ x 4″. I used quilting cottons, wool felt and some fleece and tied the strips to a piece of twine. It is adorable and just long enough to decorate a bit of her dorm room.

Autumn also means using up the last bits of produce from the vegetable garden. Ray grows a particular variety of tomato that is pale orange in color and very meaty. Sunday I roasted a pan of tomatoes. I cut them either in half or quarters, depending on their size, and give them a gentle squeeze to remove any excess juice. Then brushed them with just a bit of olive oil and dusted them with garlic salt.

I put them in a 300 degree oven for about 2-3 hours. I checked them after two hours and removed any that are dry enough. If they were still really wet, I left them in the oven longer. They are delicious – really, really yummy!

Yesterday I was running errands and while at the grocery store, I stopped and thumbed through a quilting magazine. I couldn’t bring my frugal self to purchase it for $7.99. Instead, I went to one of our thrift shops. I found these American Quilter magazines for 2 for 25 cents. Oh my gosh – six current (2020 and 2021) quilting magazines for $1.50. While there I also picked up some sweet books for my two grand daughters and a jig saw puzzle. I want to bring a few treasures up to them when we visit later this month. Big sister loves these floor size puzzles and I am thinking it will be a challenge to amuse little sister while we assemble it. Maybe we can play with this during lil sis’ nap time. I spent just $7.00 for these treasures.

Finally, I received an unexpected quilt donation for Mercy Hospital a few days ago. It is just beautiful. I think the heart motif will be perfect for a family grieving a loss. Thank you Deb for this donation. It will be loved and will bring comfort.

I have done some sewing but I think this post is long enough. I will be back in a day or two to share a cute quilt top with you.

I hope you are enjoying the beginning of autumn. Let me know what signs of fall you are seeing.

Thrifting Fabric

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About a week ago, our local guild sent out an email to members stating a seamstress in town was retiring and having a sale. She wanted to clear out her fabric and supplies as she planned to downsize to a smaller home. I am sure you knew I would be sure to go check it out. The woman was both a garment maker as well as a quilter. Her shop was large and there was tons and tons of fabric.

By the time I got there much of the quilt fabric had been sold. But I was not really interested in quilt fabric considering the shop I have downstairs! My interest was actually in garment fabric. I found a few gems. Instead of setting a price on each piece of fabric (which would have taken days and days) the woman had a stack of plastic laundry baskets. The deal was $10 for whatever fit in the basket. Oh my. Let me show you what I picked up.

This is two yards (58″ wide) of a stunning border print. It is a cotton/rayon blend and has the nicest feel to it. I washed it and had no issues. I think Julia has claimed this piece for a pair of wide legged pants. That border will be so nice at the bottom of each leg. Sort of a boho look.

I picked up six yards of this fabric. Not a seersucker but it feels like one? I am not sure what it is but it washed well. Julia and I both want pants out of it and I am sure there will be leftover fabric.

Four yards of this gray and white chambray. It is really pretty and a great quality fabric. I am not sure what I will make with it. It is heavy enough to back a quilt but I think I want to make some sort of wearable with it. Hmmm…. decisions, decisions.

As I brought these up in the basket, along with a few oddball pieces, Carol (the seamstress) smiled and remarked my basket wasn’t yet full. I looked around and saw an antique unfinished Dresden quilt top stuffed into a corner. All hand stitched to a very thin muslin (as was often the case with this sort of quilt).

The blocks are huge at 18″ across. The fabrics look like the 1940’s – 1950’s. I picked it up and she said to add it to the basket. My plan is to pick the blocks apart – there are twelve blocks in good enough condition to use. Then I will fuse a very thin stabilizer to them since that muslin is so thin. Add some sashing from my vintage fabric collection and it will be a quilt top again. I am really looking forward to finishing this one and it shouldn’t be a huge project.

As I was waiting to pay, I saw this little quilt folded up on the counter. Apparently Carol had picked up the center patchwork piece and added borders to it. The little squares are 1 1/2″ and all hand stitched. It had been tied intermittently. I believe it looks like the remaining 1/2 of a quilt – if you look at the pattern, I think it continued into full square with that navy blue having been at the center. I am not terribly fond of the borders that were added. They are filled with puffy batting, probably a polyester. But it was calling to me. I could leave it as is and just give it a wash or I can consider taking those borders off and reworking it. Looking at the fabrics, the patchwork portion was also made in the 1940’s or so.

Julia will be busy this week with the county fair. Hard to believe her time with Leo has come to a close. Why is it that time goes by faster and faster?? Since we share a car, I will likely be home quite a bit which means lots of time to sew. I started a purse for myself a couple of days ago and want to finish that up. The quilting on my friend’s memory quilt is very close to being finished. Those two projects will be the focus for this week. How about you?

Finishing Someone Else’s Work

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Last November I found a treasure in a thrift store. It was stuffed into a basket and was marked 50 cents. You know me, I couldn’t just leave it there. I posted a picture of it on Instagram asking what I should do with it. The most popular response was to ‘finish it up as it was’. Then the holidays rolled around and it was pushed aside.

Instagram posting from last fall.

On Monday, after a very busy week with the fair, I decided to just play in the sewing room for a bit. I was too tired to do much of anything and certainly didn’t feel like cleaning house (and truth be told, I still don’t feel like doing that!). I was poking through the piles of stuff in the sewing room and found this. I had pin basted it and it was ready to quilt.

I took a second look at it and changed my plan. I decided to finish it without batting (like I did with the purple pansies runner I recently made). I really like the soft drape that last runner had without batting. I thought it would work for this as well. The piece was not terribly big, measuring just 14″ x 25″. So I removed the batting and pinned the pieced top right sides together with a piece of pink batik from my stash. After I stitched the perimeter with a 1/4″ seam, I turned it right side out and pressed it. I top-stitched 1/8″ in around the perimeter which closed that opening nicely.

I used a gold thread and did more top-stitching here and there. I ran a seam around the three little two inch squares in the center of each block as well as along the edges of a few of the borders. This will keep things together should I ever need to wash it. (Though, I would likely hand wash this because I suspect the colors will bleed – these reds are really red!)

I think this is so pretty and very different from what I usually would make. I wonder how it ended up in a thrift store? Maybe the maker decided she didn’t like the colors? Who knows? But I really like it and love how it looks on this old sewing machine cabinet I have in my entry way.

This backing was perfect for this bright little project. The colors are gorgeous and have a Moroccan look to them.

I was very happy to finish this up and it was the perfect project to allow me to continue to avoid any mundane housework! I wonder how long I can keep procrastinating???

Reminders: There is a giveaway open over at From My Carolina Home – you should hop over there and enter to win the August Blogger Bundle!! Also, the sale on this bundle will continue through the weekend with 20% off of both the fat quarter and the 1/2 yard bundle. Click here to shop!

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Sewing Room News

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The season has definitely shifted to full blown fall around here. We had a great rainy weekend and the colors are gorgeous. The shot above was taken a few days ago up at the pond on the edge of our property.

I have a few fun things to share with you. You may have noticed that Craftsy has been evolving and changing over the past year or so. They started to carry their own brand of fabric (Boundless) as well as yarn (Cloudborn). Now they are offering a subscription plan to the videos offered for sale on their site. This is an interesting proposal for those crafters that regularly purchase and view Craftsy videos.

The subscription is similar to that offered on Creative Bug but the Craftsy site offers many, many more classes in all sorts of subjects than Creative Bug does. Of course, you get what you pay for, right? The Craftsy subscription comes at a higher price. For $14.99 per month, or $120.00 per year, the subscriber has full access to all of the classes in the Craftsy library. There is no contract tying the subscriber to the plan for a certain number of months to enjoy full access. (Of course if you pay for a year up front, you are subscribing for the twelve months.)

The interactive qualities, class notes, and discussions, are all available with the subscription. But you do not own the class, meaning when you decide to cancel the subscription you will no longer have access to the classes. I think there is merit to their plan. Right now, Craftsy is offering a two week free trial of their subscription service. Certainly worth taking advantage of, especially if you were considering purchasing a class in particular. You now have the chance to watch the class and decide if it covers what you need before purchasing it. There are lots of options how to utilize this new service.

As for sewing and fabric news, I am working on finishing up the binding on my nephew’s jersey quilt. I decided to machine stitch it to both the front and back. I am somewhat sure my nephew will not look at the binding and wonder why his Aunt Bernie didn’t hand stitch the back of the binding. Also, the quilt is made of jersey knits that have been stabilized. It is pretty heavy and I don’t want the binding to come apart when the quilt is laundered. I found one spot where the quilting stitches look a bit funky on the back side and I will take those stitches out and repair it on my machine. I think I have thread that is close enough so it won’t be noticeable. Hopefully I will finish that up and then have a fun finish to share with you.

Last week I got lucky on my thrift store prowl. I was having lunch with my mother in law who lives about an hour or so from me. I saw a local thrift store that looked interesting and stopped in. They had three rolls of knit fabric, each one 60″ wide. I really love the color of one roll, a dusty purple and I grabbed it. It was taped tightly so I couldn’t unroll it and check to see if it was in good shape. But I decided to take the chance on it. If it didn’t turn out to be clean and in good shape, my $12.00 was going to a good cause (Hospice). But guess what?? It turned out to be really nice fabric and there is probably at least five yards on the roll. It will be fun to sew something up with this. I am not sure exactly what yet. Nightgown? T-Shirt? There is plenty on the roll so maybe both?? As always, I look at a piece of fabric and it is so fun to think of the potential in it.

Hoping your week is going well and you are fitting in a bit of sewing time here and there!

Linking to Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts and a few others. Take a peek at the tab at the top of the page, Link Ups, for more linky parties.

(This post contains affiliate links meaning if you were to click through and make a purchase, I would receive a small compensation for that purchase.)

Thrifted Stash Update

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It has been a long time since I have written a Sunday Stash post. Maybe because I have been buying fabric constantly over the past months for my shop and it would be really boring if I wrote about each addition. Technically, that isn’t my stash, but it is fabric and I do acquire it on a regular basis.

But today I want to share a couple of finds I had at the thrift store over the last several weeks. Every once in a while, I get lucky and find nice quality duvet covers in the thrift shop. I remember finding one a couple of years ago and using one half of it to back a scrappy quilt I had just made.

Duvet covers tend to be a quality cotton with more heft than quilting cottons. Thicker than sheets, they can be really durable. The first one I found is a pretty green color, maybe sage green or a dusty green? It has a gingham pattern on both sides, one check larger than the other. After separating the fop from the bottom and removing the hemmed or finished edges, both of these pieces netted out at 77″ x 84″. I should be able to back two lap size quilts with these and I paid a whopping $5.00 for the entire thing. There are no worn spots or stains – they look wonderful.

This is the next one I found. It is heavier than the green gingham – maybe similar to ticking or duck cloth? I took it home and laundered it. Then after removing buttons along one open edge, I split the top from bottom and removed the finished edges. It is a bit smaller, finishing at 60″ x 76″. As with the green pieces, it is free of spots or worn areas. I am thinking of a few different projects I may use these for. I am not sure if I will back a quilt with it because it is a little bit narrow. The neutral taupe color will be easily worked into a number of projects, I am thinking I will use this for some Christmas projects I have yet to begin. You’ll have to wait until later to hear about these. For whatever reason, this duvet cover was a little bit more expensive but I happily paid $9.50 for it. It is still a lot of great fabric for the price! (Side note: I no issue paying a little more for items like this because the main thrift shops I frequent are in support of our local Hospice organization and I am very happy to support such an important group of caregivers.)

Anyway – that is the latest with regard to my stash. If you venture into a thrift store, take a quick peek at the linens area – I am thrilled when I find something like this because backing a quilt can be an expensive part of the project!

Fall Mini Quilt Finish

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Remember this little orphan block that I scored at a thrift store a couple of weeks ago?

I spent a fun afternoon quilting it up. I used a rust colored thread for the main leaf portion and quilted it with a tiny stipple. These little stitches look so darn cute.

For the white background, I pebbled away for about one-half hour and filled it up. Sometimes it is so satisfying to work on a quick project. When I first started to pebble the white portion, I quickly remembered that I don’t really like to FMQ pebble patterns and thought I would regret it. But with such a tiny project it didn’t really matter. I was done before I could even get annoyed with the tedium.

For the border I quilted little leaves and berries but it is nearly impossible to see because the thread matches too well. It was good practice but really, I have to look very closely to see it. Kind of funny.

The dusty green binding wraps it all up into a sweet little mini. Perfect for fall.

Now that we are approaching fall, I need to start getting my Etsy shop stocked for the holidays. The Chemex cozies that I make are definitely my best seller around Christmas which means I need to get busy. Yesterday I cut fabric for five covers.

Selecting the fabrics is fun but also a bit of a challenge. Looking back at what has sold well over the past two years, the favorites are definitely gray, blue, black, and red tones. Also, the two fabrics with the coffee theme text prints (in cream or black) are usually good sellers. These are the last two I could cut from that fabric so I need to purchase more of it.

I love to make a few with novelty fabric. I have done some with bicycles for coffee drinking cyclists and another one with Marvel comics on it which made someone very happy. Last Christmas I had a custom order for a cozy made with Star Wars fabric. I am debating making a few fun ones like this but choosing a theme is hard, kind of a guess as to what will sell – if you have any suggestions, please feel free. I truly love your input. For now, these will get me off to a good start.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Remember, I am hosting Handmade Halloween on October 4th!! Link up any blog posts, new or old, that are related to Halloween – costumes, decorations, quilts, even fun recipes. Let’s make it a fun round up of all things Halloween! I will tell you that I have had some really nice prizes offered in support of this party. Go write a post and come back and link it up. This will throw your name in the draw – maybe for a win! See you then.

Linking up today with the best of the best. See the top of the page, under Link Ups.

This is a good weekend to shop Craftsy! They have some great discounts on kits and supplies for their End of Summer Clearance. Take a look. This sale runs through Sunday night, 9/18/16.

(I am a Craftsy affiliate.)

Bits and Pieces

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My sewing room is basically made up of bits and pieces that eventually come together to form something pretty – I don’t mean this to sound all philosophical. I am not like that. I mean to say it is a mess and I spent some time organizing and realized there are all sorts of fun bits in there that I want to play with. I have picked up a few things thrifting, made a few fun things and finished some others.

As far as thrifting goes, here are the most recent finds. This little stack of bits was a cute one. I love the roosters and the piece of white is totally clean and quite large; and really,- who doesn’t want extra white fabric on the shelf? The yellow bit is about 7″ by 42″ and my yellow scraps are next to nothing. These are washed and put away for now.

This block was in a bin and looked so forlorn. It was a dollar and I wondered who pieced this with such nice points and didn’t want to keep it. I usually imagine that these things come from a lovely woman’s quilty UFO pile and get donated when she can no longer sew. Take a look at the beautiful curve she did with the stem, it is lovely. I will make a little table topper with it because it is 14″ square and deserves to be finished.

When I was cleaning up, I somehow ended up with this pull from my stash. I kept seeing pieces that needed to be together. I don’t have a project in mind for it but if I put them back in their color area, they wouldn’t become used together and they should, don’t you think? Pieces are anywhere from fat quarter to 1/2 yard in size. I just love this autumnal bundle. When I put the photo on Instagram last night I was asking what other colors might need to be added. My IG/blogging friend, Gloria, suggested deep brown and I agree. I have a nice dark brown in the solids stack and will pull it to see if it belongs with the others. Am I crazy to just pull it and let it sit there until I figure out what to make with it? Do others do this? I have projects lined up right now and don’t “need” another but still??

Here is another little bit. This is a six-inch square made up of leftover pieces when I was making the border to surround my THREAD mini quilt. I didn’t want to throw them away. It will adorn my design wall for now, waiting to become something else. It is so cute.

Speaking of the THREAD mini, I put sleeves on both minis and got them hung up. My thread collection is a mess. I have some on the wall, as you can see. The pegs on these two spool hangers are too short for my Aurifil and Connecting Threads collections. So I have bins of those two and another of gorgeous, shiny spools of Sulky. What is the solution here??

This picture shows the slightly ridiculous state of affairs in the closet that holds my fabric. It was either show you the truth or close the door which is a mirror and show you me taking a picture, standing on a chair, in my nightgown. The decision came quite easily.

Lest you worry that I didn’t make any progress on my scrappy projects during August, let me assure you I did. But barely….hardly any….almost none. I made four scrappy HST blocks. Except, once again, I veered from the RSC16 color of the month and used yellow scraps instead of a second round of purple. I think I can no longer call this a RSC16 project. They are so cheerful – I was too pressed for time to lay them out with all the others though.

I will have to lay them out this month though and take stock to see what colors I need to finish it up. There are three months left and while it sounds like forever, we all know it will pass far too quickly! I also need to double up on the Pretty Gemstones project and do two colorways for that.

Finally – oh, you are going to be so proud of me for this one. I took a ton of bits and pieces – namely the receipts that support my Etsy shop – and got them organized into a spreadsheet for the 2016 tax year process. Oh my gosh, you don’t know how happy this makes me. To have eight months all organized – Paypal and Etsy reports downloaded, numbers entered in Excel. Amazing!! My usual process is to complete our personal taxes, and then become angry with myself because there are twelve months of nonsense to compile to figure out the numbers for my little business. Last year I was kicking myself over and over for having it in such a messy state. But, look! It is September and 3/4 of it is done. OK, I will stop bragging now.

There you have it. A whole lot of minutiae – somehow having written this up makes me feel like I took care of lots of loose ends. Simple pleasures, right?

Linking up to my favorites – please check out the tab at the top of the page, Link Ups, for all sorts of fun linky parties.

Also, if you haven’t popped over to check out the $5 Blowout Sale at C&T this weekend, please do. Lots of great sewing and crafting books to be had for only $5 each.