Henrietta asked what the stack of blue boxes in a previous photo were. They're from a hardware store and were originally meant to store nuts and bolts and suchlike. But they looked useful for a sewing room, so I bought four sets and I've used them in numerous ways over the years.
At one stage they formed a set of shelves, with boards in between them, and now they're serving to hold up a shelf above my sewing area. One contains all sorts of sewing gear, measures and cutting blades and bobbins and marking pencils.

The other has a series of narrow strips in them, when I thought I'd use such things. And I mean narrow, ranging from 3/4" to 1 1/4". The latter I still save, and have started a log cabin using them, but I decided I didn't want to keep the others. I thought I might make applique stems from them, but that's probably not going to happen so I've stopped cutting those sizes. I suppose I should repurpose the drawers but I haven't decided what to put in them yet.

Yesterday I weeded all the small lengths from the 1 1/2" drawer and sewed them into pairs, then crosscut them into 1 1/2" slices.
From these I sewed forty tiny four patches which will join the others I've already made. I have two quilts in mind to use them up, but that's a long way off.
I like to tidy up the strip drawers like this occasionally; it only takes half an hour or so and the stack of four patches is growing nicely.

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I love the blocks that are on my design wall now. They're like an album, but with more of a checkerboard feel to them. I wrote a post about them years ago, and how many variations of them I'd already made.

I'd sewn the red block and the one with the green background a while ago and they suddenly wanted to be turned into a whole project or two. Two more WIP's don't matter to me, and I'm loving how they're turning out.
I sew the blocks together in batches and leave the corners till last, and it always amuses me how they look like stars before I press them open. This would make a very cute block if I ever get around to it, but I won't be sidetracked at the moment.
However, I did feel a tad guilty about the old sets of blocks, so I've started putting one lot together. It won't be anything fancy, and there's only twelve so it won't be big either.
I'm still not connected to the internet- I won't have a big spit about it here but hopefully this week will see me back in the loop. I've missed blogging regularly because there's no record of all the time that's gone by. It's handy to have my projects documented here, and other events like the birth of the puppies.

Here's Pippi enjoying a bit of winter sunshine, we've had some very cold days here and ice on the car in the mornings. I love winter!

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I've been rearranging my workspace trying to get the best lighting and a little design wall area. I'll have to walk around the cutting table to get to the iron, but it's all exercise. I tend to sew a heap of seams and then iron them all at once, so it won't bother me to have to get up now and then. I've been cutting lots of pieces for different projects and I think the time has come to sit down and actually sew some together.

In this photo you can see how much taller Pippi is than Dolly now. She'll fill out too, so she's going to be a lot more substantial when she's fully grown.
This is the sight that greets us when we come home; two hysterical dogs dancing from foot to foot and yelping anxiously until we get through the gate.They look so funny- this isn't their best angle, that's for sure.
Dignity, they haz none...

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I just finished quilting this large quilt for a customer. It was 103 by 90 inches and seemed to take forever to reach the end. There are feathers all over it, a bit over the top but it looks effective.The coloured pieces are all reverse applique, this must have taken ages to complete. I've only ever done small areas of a block in this technique, I can't imagine doing a whole top like this. The customer must have liked it though, because she also finished her friends top.

I have no internet at the moment so blogging is difficult. I'm hoping to change that soon, I really miss reading blogs and being able to post.

I'll have to post a recent photo of Pippi, she's bigger than Dolly now, but she's still a puppy at heart.

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