Creating New WIPs

I had 5 days off in which I thought I would get a lot of quilting done.  Silly things like grocery shopping, cooking, and Christmas kept slowing my progress.  Not to mention that darn jigsaw puzzle that we started Christmas afternoon (as we always do) but turned out to be twice as hard as we expected.

I did finish piecing "$2.25 + Tax".  It was made from 2 thrift-store men's shirts that cost $1, a slightly worn, tan, King -sized fitted sheet that cost $1.25 plus some cream and a strange blue-on-cream that I bought for some other project but never used b/c it looks green rather than blue or tan.

My original plan was to make a whole quilt of half-square triangles (HST).  I complained about the new technique that I tried in February because it left all the edges on the bias.  I finished 2 strips the length of the quilt then stuffed it in a box where it remained ignored until last Friday.  Since I had already cut out all the blocks from the shirts to make the HST, I decided to put them together as 9-patch blocks just to hurry and get this quit done.  With the center panel and outer 2 panels done, I still had some room to fill, but only random bits and pieces of the shirts.  I stripped them all together thinking that they'd come across as a relatively solid blue stripe.  But I had a few more HST blocks put together and decided to use them as anchors for the blue stripes.  The HST blocks needed some stabilizing b/c of that bias edge which I accomplished with the rest of the cream sheet and some scraps from the cream fabric bin.

This quilt is for my brother Dan, who will greatly appreciate the thrift store bargain, and needs a good utilitarian quilt.  I found some poly batting in a bin in the garage, which I was able to piece together a chunk big enough for this quilt which will be about 72 inches square.

I probably could have gotten it quilted, but I got distracted trying to use up the remaining scraps by making a pillow case so I could practice my free motion quilting.  After it's quilted, it will be folded in half so the right and left sides in this photo will be the front and back.  I saved the collars from the shirts to use as the finished edge of the case opening.

I might have gotten the quilting done, but I started working on a couple reversible aprons for my daughter the cosmetologist.

I also made 2 coordinating capes.  I've ordered some Nikwax for Cotton fabric which I hope will make these impressively water resistant.

I still have yards and yards of bias binding to make plus a couple hours of sewing to finish this project.

I try to stitch a little each day on the double wedding ring.  I'm back to counting "melons" to monitor my progress.  I'm at 29 of the 97 melons.  I should be finished in time for the August wedding.

Fortunately, thing there are 72 episodes of Cake Boss (my newest viewing addiction) available to watch on Netflix while I quilt.

 I was greeted this morning by an email from Stitch and Snip in Crouch announcing their $5/yard clearance sale starting today.  OK, so I spent more than I saved on gas and dinner, but I did get to spend the afternoon on a pleasant drive with Harley Dude. And I found one of the oddly colored lime batiks there I've been using in the hexi quilt.  I bought several yards to be sure I have enough for a good sized border to make up for my smaller-than-anticipated center.  

Hopefully I can finish up the sewing project and get the quilting started on $2.25 this weekend.  Fingers Crossed!