How The West Was Spun: Some Quilting Things

Some of the long-long-time readers of my blog might know that, eons ago, I used to sew more. I actually worked for several years doing theater costuming and working as a dresser and after that, when I worked for a museum, it was in the historic textiles/clothing department, so we did a fair amount of hand work for repairs and to get pieces ready for display purposes.

I actually sewed quite a bit in college and did some hand-pieced quilting. My folks got a king-sized quilt for their 25th anniversary (which, OMG, was something like 22 years ago?).

Since I've got a lot of deadline kind of production knitting happening right now, it's been nice to have something more casual and dare I say hobby-ish for when I do have the time to do something relaxing.

I'm working on a small set of mug-rug/coasters for my mum for the holidays. She's a big tea drinker like I am, so I thought a set of these, lined with a muslin-filled pocket of lavender to release that pretty scent while she's having a morning or afternoon cuppa would be nice. I have the tops done. I think I'm going to back these in the same red fabric, as that's her favorite color, and I just got a small package of lavender buds from an Etsy shop this week.

I finished piecing a top for a holiday-themed runner. D built a gorgeous piece of furniture for our living room last year, sort of a side table, and this will fit perfectly on it. My plan is to back it with the bright Christmas red fabric that's in the small border, and then it'll get a random machine-quilted stipling over it. We have a few things like a crystal pine tree that we like to set out, and I wanted to keep those from scratching the wood.

And finally, I just started a little mini scrap quilt. Each of the blocks is a star or a log-cabin-type square that's from scraps (you can see the lay out in the pattern photos there under the block). The stars are normally pieced and the log-cabin ones are paper pieced (or foundation pieced), which I've not ever done on a machine - just hand-sewn for applique - so it'll be a nice small project to learn that on. I just have the one block done, but a few more of the stars are cut out and ready to go for the next time I sit down to sew.