Road trip report

Hello, everyone.  The traveling weather in the central US is lovely this month.

Day 1 report: we drove through San Antonio and on to Kerrville, an old town at the edge of the Texas Hill Country. 

We ate at a cute little place in downtown Kerrville.  The food was beautifully presented. 

This was a short day, as there things to do before we left home that day. Still a good start to our trip.

We grow'em big in Texas

Hello, everyone.  

I walked out onto the porch to check on the basil plant that was recently dug up and put into a pot--it had volunteered in the vegetable garden where there isn't room for it--and saw a dragonfly.

This is about 5 inches long, the biggest dragonfly I have ever seen.

We just looked at each other and went on with our respective days.

Finished placemats

Hello, everyone.  The placemats started a few days ago are completed. 

Front view:

The center accent for 2 mats pretty much uses up all of a fat quarter.

Back view:

I do like the spiral quilting for a lot of things: no stressing over which design, no worries about getting out of the "ditch" by a couple of threads, no real need for marking if your fabric has a suitable motif to make the center round. (Here, it was one of the turtles' shell plates.) I used pale blue thread for the quilting. 

The binding is sewn on by machine, with a canned fagoting stitch that came with it. I like that there are little side to side stitches that help convince the back side to stay reasonably flat.

I used the Superior Pima cotton thread for the first time in the bobbin with the binding attachment and it is very nice. The top of the binding attachment is a multi-colored green spool of 30 weight Sulky cotton.

The binding piecing gave me a number of pretty green small triangles, I have to find a partner strip to turn them into half square triangle blocks now. One of these days the various HST scrap blocks will turn into something. 😀

Starting on a pair of placemats

Hello, everyone.  I saw a pieced placemat idea online and thought it would be fun to try out.

Can you see the directionality in the center print? I didn't notice that at first! Fortunately the seahorses are right side up. 

I love these colors. They remind me of the beach--hence the sea life print in the center.

The fabrics are from stash, but I did cut into unused fat quarters that I had bought on spec. 

The second Leaf-Butterfly bag

Hello,  everyone.  Today's post is another little bag.

As before, all parts are from stash. Linen blend for the exterior, quilting cotton for the lining and strap. I made the strap adjustable, so a person can put it on the shoulder or tighten the strap to carry in the hand. It has boxed bottom corners.

Thanks to the lessons learned from Christine's Home Affairs, I measured and marked the boxes after getting the side seams figured out so they lined up correctly.  Mostly. And came out straight in the end.

It's fun to do a small project as a break from something larger, like a quilt. It gives a sense of accomplishment.