I am addicted - after seeing Patti's 'Mile a Minute Tutorial' I just had to try it out. I have a bag full of strings that I need to use up ('cos otherwise they will multiply and become two bags).

These are true strings - button bands and collars off shirts, hems off skirts I've cut up for the fabric and uneven pieces from straightening yardage so hopefully the blocks will come out at least a little bit wonky.

I'm going to try not to use any of my evenly cut 2 and 2 1/2 inch strips - though I might renege on this if the blocks all start to look a bit samey and I want a bit more brightness and variety in the fabrics. I can make 10 X 6 1/2 inch blocks in an evening and it's nice, relaxing mindless sewing with no cutting to do - bliss. Thanks Patti!

The Doll Quilt made it to my swap partner JoAnna without mishap so I will now post a full picture of it.

I haven't been able to blog, sew or comment much on other's blogs lately so please don't think I'm ignoring you. I've been a bit preoccupied by some things that I need to sort out and it's taken up all of my time at weekends, hopefully all will be resolved in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to some sewing time this weekend anyway. I haven't gone without sewing for so long in ages - I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.

Flower Yo Yos

I was looking for round Yo-Yo makers on the Clover website when I saw that these Flower Shaped Yo-Yo makers were coming out.



Quilt shops have just started to stock the round yo-yo makers here in the UK but the flower ones don't seem to be available yet - I bought these 'buy it now' from E-Bay.com. I think I need a bit more practice to perfect the technique and I have no idea whatsoever what I will use them for but I just couldn't resist them. I think it was the pictures of the finished products that I saw here, they look so pretty. The bigger ones are 1 1/4 inches and the smaller ones 1 3/8 inches and they are very quick to make. And this, I'm afraid, is the sum total of my sewing activity over the last week and a half: life, work, rain, and other stuff has got in the way.

I finished the CW Doll Quilt and although the colours and pattern were very different from the first one it did grow on me - I see more in my future! I also found a neat label that I thought went with the era quite well. It is now on its
way to the Swap recipient. I'll post a picture of the completed quilt once she's received it.




I also got this book in the post today,

which I first saw on another blog (but sadly I cannot remember which one) and have had on my wishlist at Amazon for ages. It is so lovely, the text is in Japanese but there isn't much of it, just pages and pages of photographs of feed sack fabrics. You can see more of the content here at Amazon.