What have you been doing this evening? I’ve been busy trying to finish the rest of the items I’m planning to put in the Craft Fair on Saturday. With Thanksgiving coming and the requisite cooking/baking, I won’t get much more done before the Fair.
I’ve finished up my fabric postcards. I used Carol Doak‘s Holiday Ornament paper-piecing pattern to make my snowman postcards. It went together very well, but I just couldn’t decide what to team the snowmen up with. The snowmen made 3″ blocks so I had to add more in order to put them on the 4″x6″ postcards. I decided to make some of them have a Christmas look and others just a wintry look.
O’ Christmas Tree fabric postcard
"Follow the Star" strip-pieced fabric card
“Follow the Star” is strip-pieced and quilted and placed on the diagonal for this card. The star is blanket-stitched on top of the strip-piecing.
Snowman Fabric Postcards
“Lost Mitten”, “Starry Night”, “Let it Snow” and “Up with the Birds”. Snowflake fabric for the writing area on the back.
The other item I finished it a little hanging message. I actually punch-needle embroidered the message quite a while ago but couldn’t decide what to do with it. This afternoon I decided it would make a cute hanging sign. “Live Simply” is a wonderful motto to remind each of us that we don’t need so much “stuff” and can live with less than we do.
"Live Simply" hanging sign
The last two things I have to finish tomorrow afternoon AFTER I make a lemon meringue pie for Thursday is two small denim pouches, perfect for credit cards and bit of cash which fits into your pocket for shopping with two hands. I’ll show you them when they are done.
Today in our quilting group, we learned to make fabric bowls. They were so interesting to make. Everyone said they’d seen them before and thought they must be very difficult to make. With the help of a great teacher, we all were able to make progress. Some finished, some didn’t. I believe we agreed that we’d share them with everyone Sunday night during the Ice Cream Social so I will be sure to get DH to take some photos when the group gathers to show off the bowls. The directions were based on the books by Linda Johansen.
I had to return my library book today. Fortunately I was able to read it in its entirety before its due date. The book is HUGE but great reading. I listened to the first five books of the “Clan of the Cave Bear” series by Jean Auel over the last few months. I had read them years ago when they first came out but listening to them on the iPhone iPod feature was fabulous. I enjoyed them so much. The newest book, The Painted Caves, wasn’t available on audio-book as it’s quite new. Jean Auel does a fantastic amount of research into the anthropological, and social, history of early man and the locations where they have been historically proven to have been. She weaves such a story of these people and their lives together. Ayla and Jondalar are an amazing couple and with their animals and their daughter they present us with details about the actual living arrangements of the early Peoples. The domestication of horses and wolves (the forerunners of our domestic dogs of today) add a great deal of interest to the story. Their travels from one end of the earth to the other, taking years to achieve, tell a lot about what the topography was like during/after the Ice Age. Living among mammoths and aurochs and other long-gone animals seems so exciting while reading this book. I recommend this series highly. They are entertaining and educational–what a mix!
I was lucky to get another book I’ve been reading about lately. Jennifer Chiaverini‘s latest book, The Wedding Quilt, was available to check out so I grabbed it. I had read about it on her blog and was eager to get it. I’ll give you a review of the book after I’ve finished it, but I expect it to be just as good as all the other Elm Creek Quilts novels have been.
That’s it for tonight. Good night, sleep tight!
On The Go Quilting 