A Week of Satisfying Sewing

Gosh, this past week has been just chock full of sewing fun. I have taken so many pictures of beautiful quilts, delicious food and wonderful friends. Most of the quilt pictures have been posted, but in recapping the week I have found that I've left a few things out. Today's post will be a catch-all post of the fun of the past week.

On Tuesday a group of us sewed at Terry's. Click here to read about the fun project Sheryll and Jan worked on. I finished the t-shirt quilt and left it for Terry to quilt. Here are a couple of additional details that I didn't already share.

Terry has 3 sweet dogs that make themselves right comfortable when all the quilters come. They are the most precious pups.

Terry began the day trying to finish these colorful zipper bags, but gave it up around noon. I think those zippers got the best of her. She worked on a different project in the afternoon and made better progress - but I have no pictures to show, unfortunately.

Wednesday found me at Sherrie's for the annual Veterans' Day sewing and socializing. This year seemed to be more about socializing than sewing, but that's all good. The food is always fantastic. Here are some of the goodies we enjoyed.

It's a potluck affair, and we always have more than we need. From the top:bacon-chocolate appetizers; potato soup and fixings; cranberry breakfast bars; broccoli quiche; salad with pears, apples, cranberries, cashews, swiss cheese, romaine lettuce and poppy-seed dressing; pumpkin bars.

Hettie and her daughter came with the new baby, Joel. He found himself surrounded by adoring Frienzies. Lyn is entertaining him in this picture - or is it the other way around??

Hettie also had this sweet quilt to show us. It is not, as you might think, for her grandson; it is for a baby shower coming up soon.

For my own sewing that day, I took my first foray into using Thangles, a brand of triangle papers. It was something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time.

And from that first Thangles effort, I made this Monkey Wrench block.

After careful consideration, I decided that I wanted more complexity, so I altered the construction a bit and made several Churn Dash blocks which you can read about by clicking here. After leaving Sherrie's, I made more blocks, stopping at 9. You can see my little table topper/wall hanging here.

In the meantime, I have made several more HSTs using the 3" size of Thangles. I saw a picture on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. Click here to see it. It is called Friendship Star Wreath, so I thought it would look pretty in Christmas colors. Stay tuned for more on that.

And I'm not done yet! Also on Pinterest, I saw the cutest little clutch bag, and it looked so simple. I could hardly wait to get to the sewing machine to give it a try. And so I did. Take a look.

This was as easy as advertised. It took me about an hour to make, and that includes the time it took me to select the fabrics. I have since made 2 more, and I daresay that a few of the females on my gift-giving list will have something like this under the Christmas tree.

Finally, I have been able to sit at my quilt frame quite a lot these past few days. With all the NCAA football games yesterday, and the Cleveland Cavaliers last night, I have achieved sore-finger status. It feels so good to glance over at the quilt and see the little stitch indentations in the shadows of the bay window.

And that wraps up a full and fun week of stitching. No UFOs breathing down my neck, and new stuff to play around with. Quite satisfying. I will go back to some of those UFOs still to be finished, but it has been nice to have a week in which I could experiment and play. Very, very satisfying.

Have a great Sunday!
Happy Quilting, Friends!