WIP Wednesdays

• APRONS (2010)
  I've got two aprons in works. One holiday one that I'd started for my self but my sister really wants, so I'll finish it up and give it to her. And another that's in the process of being pieced together, quilt like, for myself as an everyday apron. While I most likely won't add batting, I do think I'll line and quilt it.
  Here is the little stack of fabric I'm making it with. Most of it I pulled from my Single Girl quilt stash.
  
• STRING PLATES (2011)
  I bought a little bag of stringy scraps from a single line for another project that I actually only needed very little of the fabric for. Now I have this lovely little pile of fabric that needs a project. For once the fabric will dictate the pattern! (I usually decide on a pattern first then find the fabric to fit it.) Anyway I was rather inspired by Andie's quilt and I think it would be the perfect match of pattern and fabric. Isn't her quilt adorable? Now I just need someone to have a baby to give the quilt to! (Oh wait! I need to make it first! lol)
  
  Here is my pile of scrap fabric (Verna by Kate Spain for Moda)...
  
  And I still have lots of the espresso brown fabric laying around which does in fact seem to go with so much...Pictures of it however always seem to come out black looking. In fact this is more of the "real" color when seen with the naked eye.
  
  And this is pretty much how far I've gotten with the top assembly. I'm actually really enjoying this pattern and think it would be great fun to make another one to fit the new Queen sized bed for the guest room.
  
  
  Edited to add Sunday night (I add to these all week in an as-I-go-along fashion):
  I um. Finished the top tonight. Heehee.
  
  
  This pattern was seriously *perfect* for the fabric I had. If it had been any bigger I'd have run out. It wasn't a lot to begin with. I was also trying to not have spend any $ on new fabric or supplies. As mentioned I have a ton of espresso fabric I'm trying to use up and a large spool of matching thread. I have a lot of Warm 'n Natural cotton scrap batting left over and I'm trying to decide if I should zigzag it together and use it up (wouldn't that be nice?) except most of it is in 8" strips. Can anyone use that size batting? I feel like it might make my quilt lumpy. On the other hand I do have two largish chunks of poly batting (shudder) so it'd only be one zig-zag seam and I wouldn't have to buy any batting.
  
  Now my other thought is backing. I'd like a flannel back but all I have on hand is some citron green and white striped stuff someone gave me long ago. It'd be okay (but not ideal - other then "free") if I wasn't planning on "hiding" my quilting on the front by using dark espresso colored thread. If I do that and use matching bobbin then all my quilting would show up dramatically on the back, which I don't really want. I prefer to always have my quilting be "invisible" on the back - that is matching thread to fabric. If I use a bobbin that's light to match the back and a dark to match the front, I usually wind up getting "stars" in my stitching on the front... meaning you can see little bits of where the light colored bobbin thread overlocks the dark thread that runs on the top of the quilt. Ideally I should go look for a dark colored flannel for the back.
  
  Oh and the last thing? I'm now not allowing myself to work on this any more until I finish my sister's quilt.
  

What I really should be working on is my sister's kaleidoscope quilt. I didn't finish it in time for Christmas so now I've got till mid-month to finish it for her BD. I sort of took a break from it as shoving it through my machine knots up my shoulders. I find pushing that much fabric through my machine tiring after a while so I need to work on it intermittently.