Goodies for the Girls

My last post described the quilt top we worked on at the retreat. I made a bunch of mug rugs as thank yous for everyone who made quilt blocks. I also found some little seam guages on sale at fabric.com to add.

I used sewing-themed fabrics to do these. This cute dressform print was on clearance at Joann's. I liked it so much that I had to buy another yard after I used my initial bit.

This vintage pattern fabric is fun! I have a few of these with girls/ladies. I didn't get pictures of each mug rug, but the orange/turquoise/white fabric looked like ric rac to me. The mug rug designs were very simple and only took about 15 minutes each. I recently got a 5x7 hoop for my machine, so that saved a lot on stabilizer. I hope all the girls who got these are enjoying them!!

A Hasty Retreat

I spent the past 2 days on a quilting retreat at a camp nearby. The last time I had been there was 7 years ago. I accomplished quite a lot, which will give me several posts! This picture is a string quilt top that I organized for the group. We were a small bunch this time, just 11 ladies. I wrote a PDF file with directions and sent it to everyone 2 weeks ahead. Most of the ladies made 2 blocks- I made 4, so we ended up with 20.

This is one of my blocks as I was making it. You stitch random-width strips onto a white 12.5" foundation muslin. The white strip in the middle is left exposed, creating a diamond pattern on the finished quilt.

Here are the 4 blocks I made.

One more of the pieced string top. I brought it home to add a neutral border, which will make it about 60"x72", a very nice lap size for our Comfort Quilts. More about the retreat soon!

Reunion Kitchen Towels

My Mom is amazing. She is super busy working full-time, doing things with her grands, helping me out, traveling, and getting together with friends. In a couple of weeks, she will be hosting 7 college friends for a mini-reunion at her beach house. She is making beach themed goodie bags for each "gal."

I offered to embroider some of our favorite thick & thirsty Williams-Sonoma kitchen towels. My Mom wanted a lighthouse design and I added the words.

I chose several color combinations. 

They stitched fairly quickly- maybe 15 minutes per towel.

Which color combination do you like best? I ended up liking the first one I did the best (the first single photo). Isn't that always the way?

There is an eighth towel, but the words stitched poorly. I am going to fix it by stitching a narrow band of beach pebble fabric over the mistake. That one will be my Mom's. 

It seems I am on a "multiples" roll. The next project I will share, I made 12 of! Can you guess what it is?