A little more wiggle

Another row of Wiggle Whimsy.......done!

It's part of a sew along that Terry is having and it turns out that so many bloggers are excited about the quilt that they've already finished!

Including Terry!

I'm excited about that actually! I've been holding back from completing all the rows.

It's an easy, fun, addictive pattern. I can certainly see why there are quite a few complete!  

Maybe next time I have a few sewing hours to spare, I'll just keep sewing until it's done! 

Or maybe I'll enjoy working on it a little at a time.

Lots of options!

Spring stitching

I've been doing a bit of Spring stitching this week!

The kids have the week off, so this is the perfect project to work on.

Just the stems left to go!

Finished off with piping

I've finished off my Drop quilt recently and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you before I put the label on and find a home for it.

After making this quilt over the summer, I started looking for the next quilt that needed piping and Drop was the one.

I used Fig Tree Tapestry mini-charms and an older Fig Tree fabric from the line Cornucopia for the border, binding and backing.

I don't know why I had so much of this dot fabric, but it was perfect for this project!  

The quilting on Drop was simple stitching in the ditch with invisible monofilament thread.

I thought piping that matched the border would be a great way to add some pizzaz to this little quilt.

Reading Susan Cleveland's book, Piping Hot Binding, made it easy for me to figure out how the process of piping works. You can check out a few pictures in this post.

It was easy and fun and now I'm on the lookout again for another quilt that needs piping!

Working on something sweet

It's WIP Wednesday here in the middle of a busy week full of birthdays, track meets, and Spring Break planning!

When I haven't been busy taking care of the family I've been putting together my Sweetwater Label Crew project for this month.

It's a super cute Spring table runner that I hope to be able to show you soon.

I did some of my cutting yesterday and I hope to work on some sewing tonight.

  I had a hard time cutting into that adorable Noteworthy fabric!  It just looked so nice all bundled up in the package I found on my doorstep over the weekend......"Hmmm. Where did that come from?"

If it wasn't for a Spring table runner, you can bet that fabric would still be on my cutting mat all neatly folded up, only to be admired!

Once again I'm linking up with Lee, over at Freshly Pieced, to show everyone what I'm working on.  Go on over and look at what other bloggers are working on too!

On a rather random note, in the past few weeks I've made several recipes I found at Kevin and Amanda, and they are so good! 

One week we even had the same meal twice!  Back by popular demand!  And I don't mean leftovers.  That's certainly never happened before.

I love trying new recipes, so we have quite a few family favorites in our dinner rotation and don't usually eat the same thing in at least two or three months forget about in one week!

I've got a few more of Amanda's recipes planned for the rest of the week. We'll try them out and then I'll be sure to let you know about our favorites.  They're sure to be quick, easy, and tasty!

What do you have planned for dinner this week?   

     

St. Patrick's Day

This morning I made our traditional shamrocks with breadstick dough, cinnamon, and green sugar.  Oh, and green milk to drink!

This evening we're having our corned beef on Rubens warmed in the crockpot.

What are you doing to celebrate?

My Wacky WIP on Wednesday

Okay, don't laugh.  My WIP this week is the beginnings of a rag rug that I'm attempting to knit out my my fabric scraps.

Needless to say it's not going well.

Keep in mind I've never knitted before. And I'm discovering that maybe this isn't the best project for beginners.

On the other hand maybe it is.  Because it's kind of wacky and scrappy it might cover up any mistakes I've made. I'm not sure yet. It's too soon to tell.

Not too soon to tell if I've made any mistakes, just too soon to tell how visible they will be!

I'm pretty clueless about knitting, but I just love the idea of this rag rug.  Using strips and selvages that would normally get thrown away is pretty neat.

   Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts has done some posts about making these rag rugs and she put the directions in her book too.  I wish my rug looked like her's!  

I am planning to pull this all out and start over.  Maybe that will happen today.  Seeing this picture has convinced me that my stitches are just way too tight.  I'm having trouble with the needles because of this.

  After reading some knitting blogs, I think I need to go back and make a conscious effort to make my stitches bigger.  Maybe even casting on to two needles to make the stitches on the loose side.

I'd appreciate any suggestions that you might have!! 

Well, I'm linking up with Lee from Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.  If you're curious about what other bloggers are up to, go over and check out her blog.  Lots of great projects to see!

Remember my last post about Soft and Stable, a great new product to use when making bags?  Annie, the maker of Soft and Stable, was kind enough to stop by and leave a comment with lots more great information about it.  If you're interested in reading more about Soft and Stable, you might want to go back here and see what she has to say.

I hope you get some quilting time in today!

My thoughts on Soft and Stable and a 'Pin'cushion too

I've discovered a great 'new to me' product that I have to share with you!

The Sweetwater Four Square Bag that I showed off in my last post called for byAnnie's Soft and Stable.

After a bit of searching, I was able to find it at one of my LQS's and I love the stuff!  I highly recommend it for bags!

It's kind of a foam-like product.  Mine was cut off of a giant roll at the store, but I think it comes in sheets too.

It gives the bag flexiblilty, softness and stability without being too bulky.

It's not as bendy......is that a word?.......as batting would be, but much more flexible than the stabilizers or interfacing I've used in the past.

I'm really pleased with the results and I'm happy that I decided to give it a try.  I didn't want to wait to order it, so I had considered substituting batting, stabilizer, or a combination of both instead.

Stephanie from Loft Creations gives a great detailed review here if you'd like to read what she has to say too.

  

I'm glad I tried the Soft and Stable. It gave the bag a more polished look and feel.  I'll definitely be using it again!

Have you tried it? 

  

On a different note, I'm happy to see that my Morsel pincushion that I posted about here seems to been pinned fairly often on Pinterest recently.

It's just fun to see that so many other crafters like it!.......Not to mention, I looked around at some pincushion boards when I was checking out what was going on, and I got too many lots of new ideas!

Zipping right along to a finish

I love this bag!

My Four Square Bag by Sweetwater is finished!

This is a great pattern, simple and fun.

  I did decide to change it up a bit and add a zipper at the top to keep my stuff from falling out.  I loved the look of the bag without the zipper, but that's just not too practical for me.

I didn't know how adding the zipper on my own would go, since I'd never added a zipper to anything that wasn't already in the pattern.

The catch was that this bag included a lining too, and I'm not sure I've ever put a lining and a zipper in the same bag, forget about figuring out how to do it myself!

It took a little sewing, then a little unsewing, but it really wasn't too difficult.  

From now on I'll be more open to customizing patterns a bit to make them work better for me. 

I guess that's an huge advantage to making it yourself!  Seems pretty obvious, but I tend to follow the pattern and not make many changes.  I'm glad I gave adding the zipper a try!  

Thanks for the encouraging comments when I was considering chickening out!