Not Miss Muffet’s Tuffet

Have I mentioned lately how much I like to take classes? I love taking classes. My latest was at Creations, a wonderful quilt fabric shop in Kerrville, Texas. I made a tuffet! There were 14 students and we all finished in plenty of time. I was fretting some on the second day of class, as I am a somewhat slow sewist. I also made lots of mistakes and had to do some tasks more than once. But I made it!

Tresha's tuffet made with Australian fabrics

Tresha’s tuffet made with Australian fabrics

I had all my batik fabric strips cut and ready to go before the class started. Then I walked into Creations, saw their tuffet made with Australian fabrics and I knew I wanted to make one of those! And I did!

That means I still have all my batik fabrics already cut, ready to make another one, right? I’m thinking about it, yes, I am.

a Tuffets together s

All 14 beautiful tuffets!

If I could have taken someone else’s tuffet home with me, it would have been the polka dot tuffet.

So fun!

So fun!

Continuous Line Drawing

Lesson 3 of my online sketch and watercolor class is an exercise in continuous line drawing. Once we start, we don’t pick up our pen until we’ve finished the drawing. There’s no preliminary drawing in pencil, either. I did practice once before drawing on the watercolor paper.

I started out with one object, just to see how it went.

aa Lesson 3 Continuous Line Drawing (1b)saa Lesson 3 Continuous Line Drawing (1a)s

Then I used all three peppers. Fortunately, the peppers were on sale at the grocery store.

aa Lesson 3 Continuous Line Drawing (2b)s

Once I started painting, I saw I missed some definition, especially on the red pepper.

aa Lesson 3 Continuous Line Drawing (2a)s

The bonus lesson was to use our non-dominate hand to draw. Now there’s an adventure! It’s a pin cushion in the shape of an easy chair. I didn’t want to paint it black, so I decided to use purple instead.

aa Lesson 3 Non Dominate Hand Drawing (1b)s

aa Lesson 3 Non Dominate Hand Drawing (1a)s

Orange & White Quilt #1

I made this quilt for hubby. I collected Texas fabrics and orange fabrics for a few years before deciding on a pattern I liked.

The front

The front

back of the quilt

The back

All the quilts were quilted by Mary Golden in Cedar Creek, Texas. Everyone in our immediate family now has a quilt. I used my serger to make most of these quilts. Here are the links to them, in chronological order.

Brother-in-law’s quilt

Brother’s quilt

Quilts for two uncles

Sister-in-law’s quilt

This quilt is not one of my UFOs; those are still in queue. If you inferred the “#1” in “Orange & White Quilt #1” implies there is an “Orange & White Quilt #2,” you are correct. It’s just a matter of time for it to appear (also not one of the UFOs).

UFOs in my Closet

In the sewing and quilting universe, a “UFO” is an UnFinished Object.

Recently, I found six of them in my closet.

UFOs (3)s

I got to thinking about the Carpenter’s Star quilt I made and wondered if I had added a border already and if I had made the back for it yet. Unsuspectingly, I opened the closet in the sewing room and . . . BAM! The UFOs ambushed me (one of which was the quilt top I was looking for. It’s on the third hanger from the left).

I know what happened: I got all efficient when I bought the upholstery hangers (over a year ago?). I went through my fabric stash, found all the quilt tops I had already made (they were hiding with the unused scraps, fat quarters, and yard cuts of fabric), hung them up in the closet, closed the door, and forgot about them.

A perfect example of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

So, my goal (I refuse to use the word ‘resolution’) for this year is to finish all these quilts: adding the borders where needed, piecing the backs, having them quilted by a professional, and sewing on the bindings. I will post photos as I complete each of them.