Snail Spirals

Shaun has been in Germany the past week for a scientific meeting, the lucky duck, and so it's just been me and Emma holding down the fort. While I would have liked to go with him and see a bit of Germany, our finances said no. So I stayed home and have been fibering up a storm. Unfortunately, Shaun took the camera with him, so I've been severely impaired in my blogging ability. I finally couldn't stand it yesterday, and borrowed a camera from the lab so I could show what I've been doing.

In a screeching change of direction, I decided not to make the crocheted runner after all. I had finished eight of the motifs, and as I was looking at them stacked on my side table, I said, "Hmm, you could run a ribbon through those eyelets. And I've got all that dried lavender. I think I have some tulle somewhere. Those would make really cute sachets. Do I really need a table runner?"



All I did was sew a round pouch of purple tulle, fill it with lavender, and enclose it in the motifs by weaving a ribbon through the holes around the edges of two motifs. Tie a bow, loop a hanger, and voila! Pretty sachets. I'm going to sell these at the Fair. (Well, I'll keep one for myself and to enter for judging!)

I also finished up a framed hardanger piece. I got the frame while I was off-island, because apparently it is hard to find a ready-made frame with a 6" square opening. This one is one of the put-it-together-yourself kind from Michaels. This was my first experience with lacing a piece of needlework around foamcore, and I think it came out great. I actually had to lace it twice; once for the dark green lining fabric and once for the hardanger. Lacing the lining was good practice, though next time I frame a piece of hardanger, I'll use a different color thread for lacing the lining, as it was hard to tell which threads I needed to tighten when I was lacing the hardanger.



Then on Monday night, a fit of something (I'm not sure what) came over me and I made this:



My very first quilt block ever! It's the Ohio Star pattern, and while I know that it's not perfect and the points don't all match up exactly, I'm ridiculously excited about it. I made this one block from start to finish to be sure I liked the pattern, then spent two hours yesterday cutting out the pieces for all the rest of the blocks.



There will be twelve of these 12" blocks, in three rows of four, separated and framed by a yellow lattice and the whole thing framed by a wide border of the ladybug fabric. This will fit a twin/double bed and is for Emma. She spent the whole time I was cutting fabric folding and refolding a scrap, carrying it around, and wrapping her dolly in it, all the while pointing and giggling at the ladybugs.

I did have a passing thought at how strange it is to cut up perfectly good fabric into little pieces and then sew it all back together again....