Sewing, sewing, sewing ...

(sorry, fuzzy)

My machine's been humming away.

A few weeks ago, I decided to put together a quilt for Levi's birthday. I've been collecting cowboy fabrics for a while so when I got going, it came together pretty fast.

I started with a center medallion of fancy cut cowboy patches with blue sashing and a braided rope fabric frame. Then the flying geese, which I love, and a plaid from my stash ... and it just kept growing from there. I'm hand quilting it now. That's a new skill for me, but since I got a free quilting frame that was being given away at my last guild meeting, I figured it was time to learn.

The Cowboy quilt was "unwrapped" over skype on Levi's birthday on Monday. A bit more quilting to do and it will be on the way to that sweet grandboy.

Next up. Rice bag play.

I am experimenting with rice bags for the next season of Make Welcome sewing. Tote bags. Wrist clutches. It's been fun and I'm learning as I go. You'll probably be seeing more rice bags in the months to come. Our Burmese students eat a lot of rice and they bring their rice bags to class. So far, we've upcycled them into pillows and a few tote bags. We've only used the burlap ones so far but today I played with the plastic fiber bags. Ironing is tricky.  Too hot and it melts. We'll see.

Tomorrow I get to go and talk to a local quilt group about Make Welcome. What a privilege!