Little Small Things

While going through my fabric bins, I found a leftover piece of flannel that I used when I set up a Duck Display at the County Fair a couple of years ago. I set it up using Ducks to tell Women's History. It was fun and difficult. I used the fabric as a backdrop.

I simply put a seam around the edges, turned it right sides out, top-stitched it, and then ran quilting stitches across it to keep it together. Its gone to an Infant Center in town as a doll blankie. California law prohibits giving any child-size blankets to babies under a year old, which has me shaking my head. Better they have it to play with than it take up space in my fabric bins. I sent a few ducks to the school too. Regulations say kids that age cannot have anything smaller than what can fit through a toilet paper roll. The ducks are fine & easily washed at night to be clean the next day.

Then I made another fabric box. Wow, do I love them! This one goes to a swap partner celebrating Ostara or Easter. I get to use up my buttons too; four singles and as long as they match in color and size, they work! This one was made of 10" squares which are the largest I cut from scraps. Its fun to find matching fabrics. I've seen some fabric boxes that are more creatively stitched on the edges, but once I figured them out, I just like what I do.

The rest of my day was spent cutting and getting ready to piece. I have three projects set out; One is for my friend Debi's birthday gift. She loved the knitting needle case I made her last year, and asked for another one. Seems she was given her Auntie's collection of knitting needles in a baggie and wants to protect them. Of course, I tossed the pattern for the needle case and couldn't find it online. This one is much more difficult but will be easy enough once I get to it. The second project is the House Block for my February 12" Christmas Block Swap. And the third one is going to be a Fall Table runner for another swap I am hosting for the Wheel of the Year in the Southern Hemisphere. They are seasonally 6 months different from us in the north, so this the next holiday they will have is going to be Fall.

You would think all my stash would get used up with all these projects I make, yet it seems that its never ending. I have nearly filled one of the pet bed forms too!

Another 12" quilt block swap partner for the month asked for hers to be made out of batiks in gray, and yellow, which I don't have. And while I am at the fabric stores, I need to buy complementary colors for the Mystery Quilt. Goddess, those mysteries drive me crazy just having fabrics cut without knowing how they will be used.  Yet, I keep doing them. Oh this is why stash builds...duh.