Not One but Two!

One positive side of sheltering at home is the time I get to spend in my sewing room. This week I tackled some baby quilts! They will all be donated to charity!

The first one was the result of the improv play I did to get ready to participate in the improv triangle sew along. In Nicholas Ball's book, he suggests practicing improv techniques such as curves, inserts, stacks, rings, etc. I took each technique and practiced using older fabrics from my stash. 

After completing the stacks technique, I had a pretty good size piece. 

Instead of having this piece hang around as an orphan, I dug through my stash to find more coordinating fabrics and made a baby quilt. I added borders to make the finished size 28" x 37"

I quilted fairly densely in straight lines about every 1/2" and a geometric meander in the borders. 

The backing and binding are also pieces from my stash. 

Even though these are the colors Pantene chose for their colors of the year in 2016, I assure you these fabrics are from the late 80's or early 90's. 

It is nice to use up older fabrics! 

My second finish is from a picture I pinned to my Pinterest board way back in 2012 from Flickr. The pattern is called Easy Going Modern by Felicity Quilts. 

I'm calling this In the Neighborhood because of the cute print. Just look at that orange bear with blue glasses riding his bike through the neighborhood! 

This quilt finishes at 31" x 36". 

I quilted it with straight lines cutting each of the blocks in half. I added a 1" border. The backing is pieced with left over pieces from the front and some bright red/orange I had in my stash. 

These quilts will go to Hands2Help2020. 

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Brag about Your Beauties, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, and Friday Foto Fun.

Next up will be this baby quilt resulting from more improv play. 

Stay tuned to see how this evolves. 

Another project I actually finished after many years is this lamp shade. I inherited this dresser lamp from my grandma, but the shade was in bad shape. I lived with it for a long while, then with no shade for some more time.

 I finally took the plunge. 

I made the pattern based on the old shade (in picture below) after deconstructing the shade. The fabric is the cutoff from shortening the curtains in our room. I pressed under 1/4" on the curved edges and another 1/4". I glued the larger circular wire along the bottom then glued the top wire. Once the wires were in place, I folded under the raw edges and glued the seam. 

To stiffen the fabric to retain its shape, I used Aleene's Stiffen Quik. 

It worked great!