Gold Mine

My cousin is having her first baby, and that gives me an excuse to quilt!  Not like I need an excuse, but, sometimes I feel like I do.  I want to make her a baby quilt.  Something simple, cause I’m going to be really busy over the next few months, but something stylish/modern.  And since it will be small, I can try out some machine quilting. 

While perusing the craft section of my library, I ran across Simple Contemporary Quilts:  Bold New Designs for the First-Time Quilter.  Front cover looked modern, back cover looked pretty good too.  I loaded it onto my pile-o-books.  When I got home I plopped on the couch and went through the book two times!  There are some great designs in there!  The directions are very easy to understand, and there are lots of diagrams and pictures.  I like that!  The hardest thing is picking which one to do!

I also found The Fabric Stamping Handbook.  Since doing the potato stamping with the kids, I am interesting in making my own stamps to try out.  Sounds like fun, and the book gives even more possibilities.  Maybe during the summer.

I found my pot of gold this week!

Towels Updated

Have you ever noticed how one home renovation leads to another?

In November, we started with this . . .

and ended with this . . . 

     

My kitchen is absolutely beautiful!  But after a few months of seeing my tired old kitchen towels . . .

Well, something had to be done!

I bought some new towels at Target that fit into my color scheme.  A  little better, but still lack luster.  Enter strip quilting!  I had seen this method used on several blogs, and thought that it might work to jazz up my “blah” towels. 

1. I cut and pieced strips of coordinating fabrics. 
2. Cut the strips to the length I needed, and fused them to the towels.
3. Zig zagged the edges.

 Perfect update for my new decor!