Piecing, Love, and Fox Bag!

This week I converted a nearly forgotten UFO into a WIP! This L-O-V-E was the first thing I ever made with paper piecing. I used all of my most favorite fabrics at the time. My initial plan was to have this be the center of a quilt and surround it by blocks in coordinating colors. After countless bees trying to get blocks that matched, I ended up with about 40 blocks in similar colors, but only a handful actually matched. Bummer. Then there is the size: Each letter is 8.5" x 10.5" (8"x10" finished), so even sized up with double border, it really wouldn't work well with standard 12.5" blocks. So with all that, I put this away over a year ago and forgot about it completely...


...Until today! I really wanted to try out making some prairie points because I am thinking about using some for my next mug rug swap project. I don't like the old school kind for the border and prefer the interior borders. So I went hunting for something small to use prairie points on. Then I started thinking about the genius advice my boyfriend gave me.

I was getting discouraged about still not having the ruler to make the Houndstooth cover for my cedar chest upholstery project when he suggested that I make multiple covers as pillow cases and use utility foam to hold them to the chest instead of stapling to a board and screwing to the chest.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone! That's a bingo! Obviously I was never going to finish the LOVE quilt, so I ripped out a bunch of stitches and reworked it. Then I framed LOVE in grey linen prairie points.


Now I just need to figure out how to quilt the thing, and how to make this into a cover for the giant piece of foam. In the process, I learned a few things about prairie points.

1. Do not use linen without starch for your first try at prairie points.
2. Make sure the open sides of your triangles open towards the direction you will be sewing so you can avoid having to straighten every single triangle.

There was also other progress made! I finished the purse for Secret Tote Bag Swap. Now I am in the process of filling it with goodies so I can ship it out. I can't say any more about my partner since they do not have the bag yet. I keep having the urge to make fox stuff because of the "What Does the Fox Say?" video.


This past weekend was spent at the new house and I had a little bit of free time. In that free time, I was able to finish a whole lot more EPP half hexagon pinwheels. Oh! I decided to make the pinwheels turn this way. I haven't ripped the stitches out of the one going the other direction. Maybe I will still make a whole separate quilt to avoid ripping stitches.


My boyfriend and I even got a little more painting done in the future sewing room. We finally did the ceiling! Right now, the entire house is that tan/brown color on all walls and ceilings. It is fine in its own right, but a little boring. It is insane how much bigger the room feels with white ceilings. Hopefully this weekend we can finish painting the sewing room.