More repurposing, plus a small giveaway

 Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a really good week. For me, we are barreling towards the end of the semester, and it cannot come soon enough. I can't wait to delete Zoom. And now that I've said that, you know it's never going to happen, right?

These past couple of months when I was too stressed to stitch, I still spent some time in the sewing room, sorting and deciding what to do with projects that I had started and not finished. Some will get finished, but others have been repurposed. (Like this one HERE.) I've pulled out some English paper piecing projects that are not going to be finished and I'm repurposing them into other things. Here is one of them:

 

I've shown these big hexies before, but I've never really figured out what to do with them. Thanks to ideas from a couple of quilty friends, I've decided to make these into a runner for a narrow table. And I'm only stitching it once, because this is already layered and basted, with the hexies pinned in place. If I stitch right over them, I'll secure the hexies and quilt it all at the same time. Works for me! 

This works for me so well that I decided to do the same thing with the bouquets that I also made using English paper piecing:

 

These turned out just lovely by themselves, but they're not going to be a big quilt, so I decided to quit while I was ahead and applique them onto this vintagey-looking print. This will make a nice table topper or something, and heaven knows we have enough tables. I'm still pulling out the papers from the back of the bouquets and pinning them down. These are taking a *lot* of pins so that they don't slide around. I'm actually considering some spots of glue. We'll see how frustrated I get.

 

And then there are these lovelies, which I haven't decided how to use yet:

 

I'm sure these will get a similar treatment. Do you think I could just applique the whole thing down to a larger piece? Or would I have more success appliqueing just the edges? 

All of these projects, while lovely, have convinced me that English paper piecing is not for me. I enjoy making the individual hexies, but putting them all together feels like a chore. If you don't feel that way, have I got a deal for you! I've decided to give away the unopened EPP papers that I have, in various sizes:

 

All of these are really nice papers, but they aren't doing anyone any good sitting there in a project box with no project ever coming. If you are a person who does EPP and enjoys it and could make good use of these papers, leave a comment below and I will use the random number generator thingy on Monday morning (May 3, if you can believe it!) to choose someone at random to receive these packages. Then I will pack them up and send them to you absolutely free of charge. A win for me because I don't have to store them any more (or feel guilty about them), and a win for you because now you'll have a new project or two! Hurray! (This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Carol in Canada!)

So that's what's happening around here! I'm hoping to have another finish by the end of the week, but it just might be my class instead of a quilt, because I am so ready to be done, and the students are, too. Until then, enjoy this picture of another scraggly azalea that bloomed in the backyard. I guess the deer haven't been snacking on these!

 Enjoy the rest of the week, everyone!

Bouncing along

Hi everyone!  How are you today?  We are barrelling towards Christmas and the start of 2017 (!!!), aren't we?  Have you finished shopping yet?  I had a good time on Amazon a couple of days ago, so I'm almost finished.  Yay me!

Of course, there are always a couple of things that just have to be made by hand.  Since this is my grandson's first Christmas, I made him these:

Pentagon patchwork balls!  Is there a little boy who wouldn't love throwing these around the house?  I used a tutorial from While She Naps, found HERE.  It's free, and there's even a free template for the pentagons. I used the pentagons at 100% for the smaller patchwork ball, and I printed them at 140% for the larger ball.  (150% wouldn't fit on the paper on my printer.)

I had a hard time with these little balls, but not because they're difficult.  Look what happened that really messed up my week:

Yikes!  We have a garage door with no garage door opener, and I was putting the door down when I pinched three of my fingers between the panels.  I said some very bad words and cried, too.  My finger isn't broken, but I dislocated it and the knuckle is still pretty swollen.  This made it impossible to put these little balls together using English paper piecing by hand, like they're supposed to be made.  Instead I used a really narrow zigzag and just butted the pieces up and stitched them together on the machine.  Never underestimate the determination of a grandma! It worked okay, but now I wish I had used red thread or something to give it a little zip.

One thing I learned with these is that it takes a *lot* of filling to make them really firm. I used a whole bag of fiberfill to stuff these two play balls, and I need to go get another bag because they're not really firm enough. You can see that they're just a little bit baggy.  I couldn't hand-stitch the last seam yet, but I really hope to have healed up enough to do that this coming week, so that's still open for me to add more fiberfill.  I also put a rattle in each of them:

For the record, the larger one makes a much more satisfying rattle.  I got these from While She Naps as well, and they work great.

Since I can't really cut anything right now, I also worked on these, which I had cut before I had the run-in with the door:

Purple 4-patches! Yeah, I might have to make Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt so that I can use all of these up.  I'm using the magenta for that project as well, but I haven't cut any of those pieces yet.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.  I think we're going to go buy a garage door opener!  And then maybe I'll give the hubs some instructions on wrapping presents.  It should be amusing!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazymomquilts, Finished or Not Friday, and Oh Scrap!