Puttering is Progress

I had a slow work day on Monday, so I spent some extra time in the sewing room on odds and ends.  I mentioned to Lara that I was puttering, but that "puttering is progress."  She came back with the suggestion that "Puttering is Progress" be done in needlepoint and hung on our sewing room walls.  Great idea!  You heard it here first.

I got Plaid Peaks bordered and basted.  I also doodled a simple idea for quilting it.  We'll see how that works out in the next few days.

I also finished up a little table mat for the 1950s table I painted this past summer, which sits next to the washing machine in the basement.  This was an orphan 16-patch block that I didn't use for a quilt, but it needed to be made a bit bigger to fit the table.  I added a few more squares and a one-inch border.  

Instead of using batting and binding, I just lined it with part of an old muslin sheet and finished it like you would a pillow cover—sew three sides, turn right side out and slip-stitch the opening closed.  Then I stitched around the squares to hold the layers together.  I got that idea from a lady who sells quilted table runners at flea markets here in the summer.  She doesn't use batting, just muslin for the inner layer and no binding.

So now it's ready for the thankless job of catching laundry detergent drips, and I can just toss it in the washer when it gets dirty.

More puttering led to finishing this scrappy corduroy and flannel HST quilt.  It's doll quilt size.  

I didn't have a doll handy to pose with it—one that wasn't naked with all her hair loved off, anyway—so little puppy here was pressed into service.  He looked pretty eager to assist.

My daughter and I made this little guy in a mother-daughter sewing class at Nancy's Notions back about 15 years ago.  She got to use one of their new sewing machines in class, after which she told me we needed to buy a Pfaff.  See how marketing works? 

It was a very nice machine, but unfortunately for her, I didn't take the bait, happy as I was with my already vintage Singer.  But we made a cute puppy!

Puppy would like you to notice the fun flannel backing, and that it is simply quilted in the ditch—on that same vintage Singer, I might add, which is now 15 years vintage-er.  That's me talking there, not puppy.  

Puppy doesn't know anything about sewing machines, but he wanted to get close up to the quilting to see if it had a good smell.

Hard to tell what he discovered.  He's got quite the poker face.

It feels good to get a couple small items finished.  I'd like to finish the other couple UFOs and then decide what's next.  I see a lot of interesting quilt-alongs, finish-alongs, and challenges happening already in this new year.  Decisions, decisions...