The past few months I've struggled with working consistently on any one project.   Bouncing from embroidering to piecing, to quilting, to knitting.  None of my works in progress are getting the attention they deserve.  It's kind of driving me crazy.  I have a couple of new projects in mind, but I dread having one join the stack. This is where I'm at with my Arabic Lattice quilt.  It's a hand piecing project that is going to be a large quilt.  Hand piecing is a one block at time process that I love, so I'm cool with how long it will take to get this from block to quilt top.  It's just that there are a lot of blocks left so I'm setting this one aside for a while.  I have another hand piecing project with paper pieced hexies.  It's so low on the list it's packed up for now.  I also tested an applique block that I'm dying to make some more of, but again, packed up for now.

These are my spider web blocks.  A spider web quilt has been on my to stitch list for a mighty long time.  I'm machine stitching the blocks and plan on hand quilting this one.  These blocks are foundation pieced on to muslin.  The stack in the back is the triangles I still need to make.  I was thinking of focusing on this quilt top but then realized I couldn't hand quilt anything until I finish my paris embroidery.

My Paris map haptic lab is on my quilting rack right now.  To be honest, it's been there for quite a while.  It's a massive embroidery project that I plan to use as a wall hanging.  I've finished up the left bank and am working my way through the right.  In order for anything else to be quilted, this has to be done.  The paper pattern on the top is fragile and starting to wear in spots so I'm officially moving it to the top of the list.

So once I have Paris done, it should be smooth sailing through the rest of my projects, right?

For months now, I've been tossing making throw pillows for the living room to the bottom of the priority project list.  Somehow, this little pillow made it the top of the list this fall, and I'm so happy with how it looks.

I started with a picture of our house in big huge labs color palette generator.

I matched the palette colors with cosmo floss colors over at the workroom.

For the pattern, I took two pictures of the cottage.

I love the oak tree in front yard, but I really didn't want a big dark tree trunk in the middle of my pillow so I pulled both shots into photoshop elements and overlapped them to get both sides of the front door in one shot.  In elements, I clicked on image, then to mode and chose grayscale.  Once the picture was converted to grayscale, I chose filter, then stylize, then find edges.  This left me with a line drawing style picture I was able to print onto a sheet of transfer-eze that could be stuck onto my background fabric.

When I was done stitching, it looked like this.

At this point, it's hard to see past the transfer-eze.  Once it was rinsed and pressed I could not wait to get it on the pillow form.

Here it is on the front step

I'm off to make some new kitchen curtains now.

I wish my laundry was in a Paris apartment!

This is my new travel laundry bag made with Bari J.'s Paris Apartment line.

I'm working with fat quarters so the back uses one quarter with the front pieced to match the size.

You put right sides together, stitch the sides and bottom together, leaving the top open.  Then turn and press the top down 1/4", then turn down another 1".  With the bag wrong side out, edge stitch the bottom edge for the drawstring pocket/casing.

Then turn the bag right side out and edge stitch the very top of the bag.  Make a couple of bar tacks at the top edge and bottom edge of the casing, then use a seam ripper to take out the stitches between the bar tacks.  This gives you a little hole for the drawstring.

You could use ribbon, but I made a spaghetti style string for mine.  The main panel on the front is the embroidery sampler from Bari J.'s new project, We love french knots.

I love the look of all the knots clustered together.

Well, all this talk of dirty laundry has reminded me I have my share waiting for me down by the washing machine...

Last year I made Christmas stockings for a couple of friends.  It turned out that their dogs were jealous, so this year they will have their very own stockings for Santa to fill.

They are made with scraps of wool that have been machine pieced in a crazy quilt fashion.  I used embroidery floss to hand stitch all the embellishments.  I think my favorite stitch is the herringbone stitch on Izzy's toe.

I put the kids to work for this one. They each designed and stitched a little something for my mom.