Eleven more charm baskets are done!
A week or so ago I did a lot of cleaning of the sewing area. (It's a first of the year activity and usually end of the school year activity.) I misplaced my bag of multi-colored fabrics that I had selected for this project. I grabbed some neutrals out of the bin that I keep in my sewing area year round so that my sew-to-go bag wasn't empty. Here are the five I finished during our SNOW DAY on Thursday.
47 baskets of 202 needed for the quilt are now complete. My baskets are trimmed to 4.25" vs. the recommended 4.5" unfinished block due to wonkiness. 52.5" x 64.5" finished is the quilt pattern size. I'll most likely go with those numbers--give or take.
How do you clean your cutting mat?
I think part of the problem with my cutting mat is that my rotary blades aren't really sewing grade. I believe they are carpet cutter grade. A lady in my quilt guild years ago was selling blades that her husband got at an auction. I got 100 of them for $10. They work great, but leave my cutting mat like this:
OH! I almost forgot!!! I have been enjoying applique so much I have started a project to keep by my living room chair. It's called Dicey. You can read all the details on the post yesterday. Now I have a project in the living room AND a project in my school bag. Woohoo! It's winter time. Stitch away.
I really wanted to practice applique circles.
I'm linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here.
Speaking of "making things", I made these yesterday. That wet/rainy snow mix was coming down yesterday. I was soaked when I came in the house. The other family members think I'm crazy that a 59-year old woman would go out and do something like this. I closed my activity ring while doing it.
It's supposed to get really cold the next few days (zero F and below zero temps.) If that's going to happen, I hope the snowpeople freeze and stay with us for a while. They are fun until I forget there are there and I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and see "people" standing in the yard. Then it freaks me out, I'm wide awake, AND I just go sew because I can't sleep...
4 comments:
Your baskets look so nice, you are really moving along on these blocks. I have flannel dust cloths I made from old flannel pillowcases. I brush one over the cutting mat then take a damp rag and wipe it off, that usually takes care of the lint. It looks like your cuts might be deeper though. Happy stitching!
Thanks, Gretchen. I have a lot of flannel pieces. I'll try that.
I keep a little oval silicone face scrubber (has the little fingers on the scrubby side) to use on my mat. It seems to work to pull lint and threads out of cuts in the mat. My mat hasn't seen nearly as much use as yours has though. I wonder if using duct or packing tape to pull out the heaviest bits first might help whatever method you use work better?
I had to laugh at the snowmen - scaring you at night! that happens to me when I hang clothing in the wrong spot!! Your basket blocks are so cute!!!
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