Scrappy Makes Me Happy!

I have finished hooking this small round mat - it is 15" across - and I hope to find a small stool or chair for it next weekend when I attend the Antique Show. I love how scrappy it turned out!

And today I stitched up this little piece by following Pam Buda's SAL instructions. It was fun to do some quick sewing after hooking exclusively for many days. Notice that this is very scrappy too!

It was very easy to find the ingredients for this project since I have these three containers in my studio full of 1-1/2" squares. One of dark, one of light, and one of HSTs.

A Prim Home Tour

A couple weeks ago, a friend invited me along to visit a home that is furnished and decorated with the most amazing collection of primitive antiques that I've ever seen in person - it was amazing! No commentary here - I'll just leave you with all these wonderful pictures.

Country Roads SAL

Just a quick post to share my Country Roads quilt top so I can connect at Lori's linky party. It was such a fun and easy project to do - loved every minute of working on it. Thanks for motivating us Lori - I love seeing all the different versions around blogland!

I really thought I'd have it quilted by now, but rug hooking has captured my time lately. Here's my progress on this small cat's paw rug - might need to buy me a round stool or chair so I will have a place to use it when it's done! (appx 15" across)

Home Again

I'm home from attending my brother's wedding in California - it was SO nice to see all of my family and meet the bride's family - a very happy occasion! They seemed to like the quilted table runner I made for their gift, so that made me happy.

Now that our newest grandchild has arrived, I finally got around to making this new piece of wall art using Scrabble game tiles to spell out the names of everyone in my little family. It was a fun project and I did have a bit of help doing it, which makes it even more fun. If/when we have another grand baby I'll just have to start over, and that will be fine with me. Luckily, it fit perfectly into a thrift store frame I had on hand so I just had to paint it. I used Heat & Bond to adhere the fabric background to a sturdy piece of cardboard, the tiles themselves are attached with hot glue, and the book page scallops received a shot of spray adhesive to their backside after I inked the edges a bit. I twisted a strip of burlap to make the flower and added a vintage red button to the center.

Yesterday I attended my monthly meeting of the Salt Lake rug group - it's been two months since we saw each other so it was really nice to catch up on the visiting. Myra's beautiful floral rug is nearly finished - she used a pattern that was originally for an appliqued quilt but adapted beautifully to a hooked rug. I'm sure you would recognize each of the flowers if you could see them up close.      I love it!

Nancy is making this Susan Quicksall design for a new grandchild - just has to work on those borders.

I began a small round rug that I will fill with cat's paw circles - scrappy as usual.

Yvonne was hoping to get the wool applique on this quilt finished quickly, so she could layer it and begin quilting it on a road trip she'll soon be leaving on. It was her first try at using wool for the applique and she's not quite sure if she likes it as much as using cotton needle turn.

I bought myself one of the new Zirkel magnetic pincushions recently. I've used a magnetic one for years now, but this one is extra strong, and the pins hang over the edges in a circle so they're easy to grasp without any fumbling. I worry a little about it grabbing onto my thread snips on occasion, but it's supposed to be okay with the electronic sewing machines. I'll see how I like it after a week or two of use. Have any of you tried one?

Halloweenish

My little quilt group met at Kathy's house on Wednesday night last week. I am always amazed to see what she does to decorate for Halloween. A few months ago I showed pictures of some furniture she had made for a haunted house she was making out of a regular dollhouse. Well, it's mostly finished now and it's pretty spectacular. Here's the front of the house - it's placed on a lazysusan so you can spin it around to admire it from every angle.

This is the living room furnished with two wing back chairs - the round area rug I made for her using needle punch measures 3" across to give you and idea of scale. Notice the crooked witch's brooms hanging by the front door with spiders on the windows.

And a view of the other side of the living room with the cupboard made of foam core board -

This hutch is full of potions and lotions and high heeled shoes.

The bed set into the dormer window isn't very visible in this photo, but it was so cute! The witch's hat is displayed on the dresser waiting to be donned by it's owner.

This little shelf has tiny black houses displayed on it.

The rest of these photos are of her REAL house. She is a doll maker extraordinaire and she made this Frankenstein (along with many Santas, elves, leprechauns, Uncle Sams, & religious figures)

She has entire sets of dishes depicting the holiday and she uses them for dinner parties.

Another decorated area.

I don't know where she finds the time and energy to do all this - I get tired just thinking about it! But her children and grandchildren think it's great - she's still a kid at heart I think!