The Falling Leaves

 I sewed this Leaves table runner last year, but realized I had not posted these photos. I will be getting this table runner out to display on my coffee table since it is now becoming Autumn. These leaves were all sewn from fat quarters that have been in my house for a few years.

The backing is left over from a much larger quilt. I thought that it went well with the colors of the leaves. I quilted this in a slight wave using the edge of my walking foot. It's a fun way to get a smaller quilt completed. 

The label is indicating 2024. That's how long it takes me to finish blog posts.

Effervescence Quilt Along - finished quilt top

I participated in Yvonne's Effervescence Quilt Along this year. The Quilt Along started in January and just finished up now in July.  

I enjoyed this Quilt Along very much. The blocks were pieced at a slow pace throughout the weeks. I appreciated this because I didn't have to rush. 

Another great thing about this Quilt Along is that I was able to use all fabrics from my stash of batiks. For some reason years ago, I received monthly fat quarters of batiks. However, they have been left forgotten about in a box.  Some of the pieces for a few blocks required more than a fat quarter. So I just picked a couple of fat quarters that were kind of similar in color to use for those pieces. 

I kind of like the dark colors on this. The Effervescence is a very unique pattern. I will be piecing the backing out of more fat quarters in my batik stash and then get to the quilting soon.

I am linking my quilt top to Effervescence QAL Final Linkup.

Dust Off a Book Blog Hop - Sewing Mat

 I decided to join in with Bea for the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop. I'll admit, I have purchased too many quilt books through the years. 

I finally did give some of my old books to a church located by my office. The church gives everything away to area residents. The quilt books that I gave away were mainly ones that created quilt blocks using templates. I have never enjoyed sewing with templates. There are many more time-efficient techniques than templates to create quilt blocks.  Here is the book that I decided to sew my project from:

Quilt Petite by Sedef Imer .This book is not really, really, old - the copyright is 2016.  This book contains quite a few small quilts, such as doll quilts and place mats. But I have never sewed anything from it.  So I decided to sew this Sewing Machine Mat.

The pieced section of the mat is set on point, which I do like. I had a charm pack of this Leila Boutique Farmer's Daughter fabric, plus I had some fat quarters for the bigger sections.

This is my finished Sewing Mat, along with a Thread Catcher. I had some black and white striped fabric that I cut on the bias for the binding.

The book said to sew a snap to the left pocket to hold the thread catcher. I used this type of a magnetic snap because that's what I had on hand.

 This is how I covered the back of this magnetic snap. Of course, I was concerned about putting my hand in and out of the pocket and getting scraped up. So I sewed 3 small rectangles together and added this heart label, just because I had it. I did hand stitch it down because it was too hard to put through my machine. 

This is the inside of the thread catcher, also, showing the back of the snap. I did not want to leave it this way, it is very sharp.

So I made another little patch and added this "sweet" label.

I just used some leftover low-volume prints for the back and pieced them together. I chose this "Sewing Heals the Soul label. I thought it fit since I made the Sewing Mat. 

Here is my new Pfaff sitting on my new finished Sewing Mat. I am able to have my cutting mat on my table and still have this sewing mat fit in my workspace. It will look nice once everything is cleared off, but, in reality, that does not happen often.  I am glad I finally sewed something from this book. Also, I'm glad I was able to use this fabric because it has been sitting in a basket for quite a while.   

Thank you Bea for Hosting this fun Blog Hop. Please visit everyone else that is participating in this Blog Hop.  They have some awesome quilt projects to show you. 

March 3

Karrin’s Crazy World

Textile Ranger

March 4

Alyciaquilts

KathleenMcMusing

March 5

MooseStashQuilting

WithStringsAttached

March 6

NettieSews

Beaquilter

Next Round #4 for Stay at Home Round Robin

 The SAHRR 4th Round is held at Wendy from Pieceful Thoughts. I have done "slices" before and I did borrow my block from Happy Quilting Melissa's Fast & Fun Lap Quilts Book. I am kind of lazy when it comes to figuring out my own blocks. I knew that she had a "sliced block" in this book because I have sewn each of the blocks in this book for a Quilt Along.

Here is my block that has 4 sliced sections. 

Here are the blocks that I have sewn so far from the prompts. I honestly don't know how to put this all together. I guess I'll figure something out for a table topper. I do need to add another block beside the green 6 1/2" block.

Who knows? I may decide later on how to arrange this. Everyone's SAHRR Quilt tops are really coming together nicely. It is fun to play along.

Next Round SAHRR

 Gail at Quilting Gail indicated to us to sew some stars for our Stay at Home Round Robin for this week. I chose to sew one big, bold, bursting 12 1/2" star to add to my quilt top.  My low volume background has little stars on it, too.

This block is actually called San Diego. I chose this from All of the Star blocks that they have for free to download. I'm considering completing a table runner with all of my blocks. Plus, I'm wanting to kind of sew a rainbow of colors.  These are my past blocks which are not sewn together yet.

I'll try to figure it all out down the road. It is fun to organize your own quilt top, plus to see what everyone else comes up with. Linking up to SAHRR Round 3

SAHRR - Next Round - Half-Square Triangles

The next round of the SAHRR has been chosen as Half-Square Triangles at Anja Quilts.  I decided to sew a border around my center block.  I liked the look of this framing of the block that Kathleen McMusing showed on her blog.

I decided on yellow for the border. Not sure how I like this so far, but we'll see as I add other parts according to the prompts. 

I did not do anything yet with the previous week's block. This block was called "Sunshine" for my initial. It was similar to King's Crown.

This block is 6 1/2" so I'm hoping that I can add a few more blocks to put on the sides of my center framed block. Then maybe I'll frame the other blocks somehow, too. It is yet to be determined. 

Stay at Home Round Robin

I was doing a little search for a paper-pieced block - because, well, sometimes my points don't come out too great for half-square triangles. I found this block on Generations Quilt Patterns and I thought it was the same as King's Crown Block. However, now when I snapped a picture and posted it here, there is 1 extra hst in each section. My eyes must have been deceiving me.

But a light bulb went off - Kathleen also said that you could sew a block that begins with your initial. Well, by the stretch of my imagination, this block that they call "Sunshine" begins with an "S" which is my last initial. Now, I guess, I'm working within the guidelines. As quilters, we are allowed to be subject to our own imagination. I am linking up to SAHRR Linkup

Stay at Home Round Robin 2025

 I decided to join in with all of the fabulous quilters for the Stay at Home Round Robin, I have not participated before and would like to try it this year. It's always fun to have friendly quilters sewing along. I looked through all of my orphaned blocks and came up with this one. 

It is rather pink and red. There are some green and white flecks that I can work with, also. I guess it is better to use this block up instead of having it sit in my dresser drawer for another 5 years or so.

I would like to have a smaller quilt completed for a mini instead of a large quilt. This is a 12 1/2" block so I will keep the piecing small for the remainder of the SAHRR. But that's ok, hopefully I can figure it out.

I will be linking up to Quilting Gail

Tiny Tote Bags for Christmas Treats

 I have not done any blogging for quite a while. So I thought I'd post a few of the items that I finished recently. Christmas has long past and we have been moving on into 2025; however, I did sew Tiny Tote Bags for my coworkers. 

I will tell that it was a bit of a time-consuming project. The pattern makes 10 tiny totes. I did sew 11 because there was some little squares left from the strip-piecing. 

I'm glad I sewed the extra one because I wanted to keep it for myself. Selfish, I know. But sfter all of my hard work, I wanted to be reminded of it each Christmas. I can hang it on the Christmas tree in future years.  Plus, the fabric is left over from a quilt top that I hope to have quilted and bound for Christmas 2025. The quilt top has been done for  probably 3 years, Deer Christmas fabric

Tiny Tote

Luckily there were 10 coworkers in my office so it made just enough. I filled the tiny tote with candy and added these fanciful "disco balls". John Travolta would be proud. I love his commercial at Christmas where he is the Santa Claus! I believe it is for Capital One.

Lining

A few of my coworkers really liked this. They commented: "it even has a little pocket". 

Linking to Sew & Tell