Busy Little Bee

I've been a busy little sewing and cutting bee, but I've been working on projects that I can't show in the blog yet, like birthday blocks for my Brown Bagger friends, which are supposed to be a surprise, or I've been cutting things out that aren't very exciting.

Monday night I cut the strata units for my bargello quilt into strips. Joannie made place mats, this time in golf fabric for her golfing league banquet.

Joannie, aka The Place Mat Queen

On Thursday night, I finished my August birthday blocks for Debbie and Nancy and did the first step on all the remaining blocks for this year (birthdays in September, October, and November). This reminds me that we will need to pick a block for 2014 soon.

Ginny was laying out her floral blocks from a birthday swap that the Thursday girls did last year. Karen was making a Chubby Charmer tote bag in bright colors, and Pat was working on the 50 Shades of Grey t-shirt Quilt #2. Beth is also working on a t-shirt quilt. Judi, Nancy Q., and Toni were also sewing. Sorry I didn't get more photos. It was nice to see all eight of us together at one time.

Ginny

Pat's T-Shirt Quilt, #2

Karen's bag, side 1

Karen's bag, side 2

Marion came over today with a very large bag of cut squares. We are going to destash (it won't make even a tiny dent) and list some bags of fleece and cotton 6.5" squares for sale on our Etsy Shop. We had fun sorting them and putting them into color groups. In the end, we did keep a few...but we're going to experiment with listing five bags of goodies. Here are the listings for the squares of pink fleece, blue fleece, fleece in turquoise, yellow and mint green, pink flannel and cotton, and assorted flannel squares. When we were finished playing with the fabric squares, we made a t-shirt pillow that is a custom order to go with our most recent t-shirt quilt, and we also cut out four pillowcases for our Etsy shop. Then we took a break and went to a new Chinese restaurant for lunch. After lunch we stopped at All About Quilts and visited with our friend Margaret. Marion got lucky and found a lovely bolt of bargain fabric for $3 a yard, so she bought what remained on the bolt to put towards a future quilt back. I got a couple of Kaffe Fassett fabrics for upcoming birthdays and also found a really cute fabric book panel about trucks.

Front of T-Shirt Pillow

When I got home, I still had energy, so I tackled the infamous Root Beer Float cookies, which are now Maple Madness cookies. The cookies have come out of the oven, so next I need to make the frosting. While the cookies were cooling, I cut out 14 blankets for our Etsy shop. We definitely need some new inventory.

It does feel good to get some of my obligatory quilting out of the way. I've told myself that as soon as all the birthday blocks are made, I can start assembling my new bargello wallhanging. Everything is cut and ready to sew!

What are you working on in your neck of the woods? Still one more day in my weekend left...maybe a little more sewing in my immediate future...

Linking up on Sunday to Sew Many Ways. Linking up on Friday to Richard and Tanya Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy