Scrappy and Happy

Since I knew I was going to spend most of the day running around yesterday, I spent longer than usual on my morning embroidery. Besides...I was trying to finish an audio book, and so I listened until the end. Now I've nearly filled the first hoop for the last of the Heart & Home blocks.

This morning I'll finish the rest of it and then move my hoop to the next section. I can't wait to finish this because then I'll be ready to start something new. Isn't a new project the best thing ever? I'll say more about that eventually.

It was late in the morning by the time I left to run my errands. I needed to pick up my quilts from the show, go to the bank, get gas, and then do my grocery shopping. It was 2:00 by the time I reached the grocery store, and I was sorely tempted to bag it (no pun intended, but it's a pretty good one), and go the next day. Still I soldiered on, murdering no one in the process. I was in and out in about 20 minutes. Yahoo! Free at last! Free at last!

When I got home, I had my afternoon espresso and put my feet up for a while. There was still a little time left in the day, and so I headed into the sewing room to choose some fabrics for the Bag Ladies.

There are actually two layouts suggested for this quilt. This first one is the one done by the designer Carol Steffensen. I like it, but I wasn't really feeling up to tackling that scrappy checkerboard sashing.

This next one was done by some unknown quilter. I think Carol sent me this picture as an example. Looking at this, it seemed as if I could knock off just as many scraps using the whole cloth sashings, and so I opted for that one. (Sorry for that blurry image. I didn't take the picture.)

And looking at that, you can see that there's a narrow inner border, and a little wider middle border before the wider outer border. When I shopped through my stash, I came up with these fabrics for the borders. I only have a little bit of that yellow, and so I'll switch the pink and yellow around. These fabrics have all been used in other projects.

Also, each block is framed in black. I found a bundle of black that was cut off from the edges of another project, and this will be a good way to use at least some of it. The blocks are trimmed to 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches, and then framed with a 1-1/2-inch border.

And then, rather than reinvent the wheel, I just looked at the diagram and tried to replicate the colors and patterns with my own fabrics. I was able to finish the first block.

So, I like how that's looking, and I'm using some of my oldest scraps in the process. Today, I'll just continue on my merry way.

That's about all I have to tell you, but in closing I'll add that I used to be a daily participant in the Photo-a-day challenge at FatMumSlim. Now I only play occasionally, but yesterday's prompt was "pink." And I know of no better pink than this one.

It made me smile when I took the picture. I'll just leave this here. I hope it makes you smile too.