New Projects

I finally finished my rag quilt yesterday and DH has been using it ever since. I got the idea to make one from my sister-in-law who has one and I fell in love with it when visiting during the holidays. Hers was a bit different as it had squares and rectangles and I just used squares. The next one I may do some rectangles or triangles, who knows, but I wanted to do one and finish it before I started something else.

Rag quilts are made with flannel, squares are quilted and then sewn together with the seam out on the front side. The seam is clipped just up to the sewing line all around. When you wash and dry, it will get softer and the seams will fray and get all cool looking. It is just a cozy quilt to curl up with on a Winter's night.

Since I finished the quilt, I started working on some art charms for a swap I'm in. I've talked about this Art Charm group here before but for those of you that don't know, it is a Yahoo group formed by the authors of the book "Making Mixed Media Art Charms and Jewelry", Christine Hansen and Peg Krzyzewski. I have a button on the right hand column if you are interested in checking it out. We have a ton of fun. This swap has an Ancient Egyptian theme, so I've been researching symbols on the internet. If you have any ideas, I'd love for you to leave me a comment.

I chose to use copper wire and turquoise for my stones. I like how the little stone charms with swirls turned out but not so sure about the lotus flower... looks more like a lobster to me in the heavier gauge wire. LOL The pyramids aren't bad but the rectangle with the wavy lines is the symbol for "pool of water" and I like that one the best. Too bad it takes the most time to create. I need to make 20 of these puppies. I may end up with a mixture of different charms but I think the lotus flower is out.

Just because I didn't have enough to do, I volunteered to work on a project for the Orthopedic Association for the children who are patients in the Oncology Department at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. The kids get tokens when they get poked or a dressing change and then they can turn those in for a prize but they needed something to keep their tokens in. So, I'll be making little drawstring and snap baggies for the kids. I went through my stash of cotton material and found some that was kid themed and started cutting and sewing.  As I told the organizer of this project that I wanted it to be on-going, I probably will be needing more material. If you have any kiddie cotton that you want to donate to the cause, I would love to take it off your hands. I'll post a picture when I get a few of them completed so you can see what they look like.

Cheers, and have a great week.