Spring Break: Part Two

Here goes another attempt at a brief blog post. I finished and mailed my March contribution to the Mug Rug Revival swap. I went a little out of my comfort zone with the asymmetry, but I don't think it would look as fun any other way.

I drafted up the pattern to use for the block because I wanted to make sure all the corners were extra crisp. Here are links to the patterns I came up with in a few sizes, all free of course. 

Paper piecing pattern for 9" block.

Paper piecing pattern for 10" block.

Paper piecing pattern for 12" block.

Then it was laundry day and somehow the third load was forgotten. I could either sleep on a pillow without a pillowcase, wait until the dryer was done to sleep, or make a pillowcase. I decided to race my sewing machine against the dryer. I won by a landslide. Here is my squirrely new pillowcase.


See? Squirrely!


I also made another hot pad for my boyfriend's aunt in an effort to slowly replace her worn out ones. I used reverse applique for the circle and then regular applique for the rays.


She loves mushrooms so I had to use this for the back! Side note: This might be my best stipple everrrrr!


Oh! We decided to make a baked bloomin' onion (recipe over here) and it turned out delish.


Then one day I decided it was a tote bag sort of day so I made this one for my friend Connie...


And this one for my bff Nurget (Melissa)...


And this one for myself. I couldn't decide which locally grown fabric I liked more, so I made it into a two-face sort of bag. Half the lining and exterior is one fabric, the other half is the other. Aren't the lambs and chickens adorable?!


Speaking of chicks, here are my chickens on their 5 week birthday. We celebrated by giving them a big bowl of red cabbage. They mostly just carried pieces around in their mouths while frantically running away trying to hide it from everyone else who was obviously trying to steal that one piece instead of getting their own from the bowl.


My boyfriend and I also made it up to the San Antonio Gem and Mineral Show. He picked up this gorgeous and huge piece of tiger iron. He got a great deal on it because it is just cut, and not actually polished (I put water on it to show the chatoyancy).  Side note, the locally grown tote bag was strong enough to carry this and all of our other purchases around the show!


We both prefer rough rocks, so the smooth side will be the side facing down. How can you not love the rough side? I mean, this is what this rock looked like when it was dug up. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Anyways, we decided it should live on the coffee table, but didn't want it to scuff the table...


...So I made it a teeny tiny quilt to lie on. I tried to model the FMQ after the striation in the rock itself. I toyed with actually making the lines the same color as the stripes in the rock, but the fabric was black to match the coffee table so I decided against that.


Here is a better shot of the FMQ.


And here is the lovely rock in its cozy new home. Taaadaaaa!