A Little of This, A Little of That

It seems I start off each blog post with, "It has been a busy week....", and then proceed to tell how little I have been doing in the quilting department. This has been a busy week with family things but I have done a little bit here and there in the quilt studio.

First off I have cut out more half squares for my leader ender project from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I now have a small basket full of these so I can have them handy right next to my piecing machine.

I have over a hundred done now and plan to make at least 300.

I have also been working on my string blocks and have over a hundred of them made. I have them in set of two because I need blocks going in two different directions so this makes over 50 sets.

At one point in our life we lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years. In Japan is was necessary to carry your own tissues for the restrooms when you were out and about. We generally carried the small packets of tissues to wipe after using the restroom and also another one to dry our hands after washing. Paper towels were never provided. Most Japanese carried cloth handkerchiefs and used these to dry their hands. It was very common to see these cloth handkerchiefs on the sidewalk where someone had dropped them accidentally. They were always clean looking and it was very clear that they had been used to dry hands only. Being a foreigner, I was very intrigued by cloth handkerchiefs. When I was young it was very common to have these cloth handkerchiefs and we used these all the time to blow our noses. So I started to pick up these lost handkerchiefs and collected them all the time we lived in Japan.

I always thought it would be great to make something out of these handkerchiefs. I few years ago I found this book to make all kinds of things out of handkerchiefs or to use handkerchief type fabric to make things. I have let this project stew in the stash for several years now and I think I need to start making something from all the handkerchiefs I have. This projects folds the handkerchiefs so they look like butterflies.

I even have a couple of handkerchiefs that have butterflies on them so I need to really think through how I want to make this project. The one shown in the book is a full size quilt but I am thinking more of a wall hanging.

Well, this is all for this week. I will talk again next week.