Little Things

After working on bigger quilt projects the last few weeks, I decided I needed a week of little quilts. So, once again, I pulled from that large stack of unfinished projects and got started. First, I finished off a little Civil War reproduction quilt of tiny triangles.

This one gets to be a mug rug on the table by the cozy chair in my office. I wasn't really happy with how the quilting came out (I used paper that distorted the stitches), but decided I wasn't unhappy enough to redo it. Done is done!

The next one is a copy of a swap quilt from years ago. I had liked it enough at the time that I cut out a second set of patches and set them aside for myself. The border fabric makes me think of rainy fall days and wet leaves on a wet sidewalk. I found myself listening to the Carpenters's "Rainy Days and Mondays" as I sewed. So nostalgic!

The next one is another swap quilt copy. The theme for that swap was books and my partner was a big Wizard of Oz fan. After I printed off a sheet of the book covers for her mini, I printed off another one for myself. And speaking of nostalgia, this takes me back to childhood -- way back, just past the dark ages, when there was no cable tv, no streaming, no videos, just whatever played on ABC, CBS, or NBC. Every year it seemed, one of them broadcast the Wizard of Oz. I always loved it. And then there was the magical night when I was at a sleepover at my best friend's house and discovered that there were Oz books. In fact, there was a whole set of them! Once she fell asleep, I spent the rest of the night, enchanted, devouring one book after another. Here's to joyful wonder.

Ruby slippers and all. Because . . . of course.

Moving on, I finally finished the quilting and binding for the reproduction X-block quilt. I love the softness of this one.

And then, one last small project finally finished -- the tote bag using kaleidoscope blocks for pockets.

Because you can never have too many tote bags. At least not in my world. (A teacher's life means there is always plenty to tote about!)

And having had my fun playing with little things for a week, I'm ready now to get back to that larger medallion quilt. Onward, onward.

And hey, little things means I've moved five (count them . . .  five!) projects from undone to done.

Whew.