Sew I See!

I've been putting off doing anything "real" in the arena of piecing and quilting.  Instead, I thought playing with crumbs might be a fun post-Thanksgiving project.   There's a crumb project already in progress, but I had put that all away in shoe boxes to make room for other WIPs.  This time, I first just pulled out one of the boxes... Then thought, well, maybe I need some of the crumbs from that second box, too... And before you know it, my work surface looks like this!   Believe it or not, this is actually "organized", after a fashion.  Crumbs are sorted into their different types (skinny strings, triangles, neutrals vs. brighter/darker colors), and then there are larger bits of fabric and piles of joined crumbs, which are also sorted into smaller and larger pieces.   But it still looks an absolute mess!   I don't think I'll spend too much more time on crumbs.  They need to go back into their respective boxes so I can focus on the fall leaves quilt

This has been a disappointing autumn so far, for a variety of reasons-- one being that it's taken a while to get cool enough (around here).  It's finally cooled off a little more, but for the longest time, the mosquitoes and humidity just wouldn't budge (and there are still mosquitoes, in reduced numbers).  But whatever, world! I reject your reality, etc.  Time to build my defenses ever higher and wander even farther into fantasyland, for a while.  In other words, I'm avoiding news and other irritants and trying to make my own autumn inside with a seasonal quilt.  😉  The latest quilt-in-progress had me digging through my stash looking for a rusty red or two, and it was hard going.  This project has reminded me that the red-and-white hunter's star quilt decimated my stash of reds.  There's a lack of dark reds and rusty reds, particularly, and it's also time to build a better collection of creamy neutrals.  Next time I get a chance to fabric shop, those need

Earlier this week, I finished applying the binding (and label) to the pumpkin quilt, so now it's done!   The pattern is "Punkin' Patch" by Bonnie Hunter.   I added in some white and yellowish pumpkins, because I love the way they look and thought it would be fun to throw some in there.   It's been a while since I started piecing it, I think, but from what I recall, the string pumpkins were a lot of fun to sew, and I enjoyed seeing the pumpkin blocks come together.  The tons of tiny green squares and the flying geese were a little more of a slog for me, personally, even though I used strip sets for the squares and made the flying geese with a 4-at-a-time method to speed things up.  It's the type of sewing that's worth it for the purpose of the finished quilt, but not as much fun as string-piecing.   In any case, it's done, now, bound, washed, and dried!  Here are some photos to mark the occasion: Now that that's done, I need to load one of the "