Bears and Bees

At my quilt group we have some tubs labeled UFO's or Unfinished Objects.  Over the years people have donated projects that were never completed.  Some of them have a few completed blocks and others just some pieces of fabric cut to size.  It is always a mystery as to what the original quilter had in mind, and a challenge to take it from where they left off to make something else. 

In the tub there was a set of 8" squares of some country-style fabric featuring bears, honey, and bees.  Two of the ladies arranged the squares and sewed them together.  I had quilting ideas buzzing around in my head (hee, hee) and asked if I could quilt it.  They happily agreed.  

And here is Bears and Bees:

One of the tone on tone fabric has bees buzzing around and I figured they would be in search of flowers

The other tone on tone fabric has bear paw prints and surely they would be following the bees so they could find the honey.

 On the patterned fabrics I used wavy lines to divide them into nine-patches

 Finally, on the border, I did a combination of flowers and bees to tie it all together.

 I hope this cheerful little quilt gives some joy to a child in need of it.  It was fun to work on.

Re-ordering the Order, Part 1

As someone who keeps things pretty organized, there are still times where I have a "doh!" moment regarding to how best to manage stuff.  In this case it is the leftover fabrics from my quilts.  Up to this point, I was sorting the leftovers by size cut, which really made it a bother to put away the leftovers once a project was done.  I would have to sort everything by size, and then put them in the various bins.  Even up to now, when searching through all my bins for a certain fabric, it still didn't occur to me that there was a better way.  

Finally the light came on, and I realized that sorting by color and grouping all the leftover of each fabric together would make things so much simpler.  So began the Big Sort....

Last week I did a quick sort by color, and just tossed them back in the boxes.  This week I took out all the fabrics in each box, re-bagged each fabric together, and labeled the boxes.

Once I was done, I then gather the leftovers from my latest project, bagged them up, and put them in the appropriate tub.  So much easier!

Always Glad to See Fall

Crimsom, gold, copper

Autumn's banners a-flutter

Adieu to summer

Sigh...our fall color may be especially sparse this year, but I will take what I can get.