Updates!

I've been busy in the sewing room as well as in the embroidery room. No, I don't have a room dedicated to embroidery--although I think I have enough floss to fill a small room!--but I do spend time every day in the sun porch doing hand stitching. I'll do that as long as I can before the weather gets too cold to be out there and then I'll have to find a space in the house with good enough lighting.

I've been wanting to get some items listed in my Etsy shop, Jolly Ruby, before the fall holiday season gets into full swing, and when I saw Halloween items in the stores when I took Lily school shopping in August, I figured I'd better get a move on.  Some of these things were begun months ago and are now finished up and ready for sale.  

Last winter, knowing that I'd be super busy with the "part time" temp job I took and that I'd follow that up with knee replacement and rehab for a few weeks if not months, and then spend the summer with Lily, I had a huge sale in January. My inventory has been way down these past 9 months and now I'm ready to get back into it.

These are the items I have in the shop at this time, and I have plans for more things as soon as I get them finished up. More complete descriptions and pix are in the Etsy listings if you want to see more.

This is a throw quilt I made with an assortment of Halloween fabrics in a snowball pattern. It has a pieced back using some of the same fabrics as on the front.

I made 2 of these Shabby Fabric patchwork pumpkin table runners and used another Halloween/Autumn fabric for the backing.

I made 2 similar table runners using purple Halloween fabrics in the pinwheels with the black on black sashing and borders as shown here . . . 

and the other runner is made using orange Halloween fabrics for the pinwheels, shown below. The two of them are the same size and are quilted the same way.

And I finished the embroidered Halloween Parties table runner that is done in black work embroidery on muslin with an hourglass border made with black on black fabric and off white fabric dotted with tiny spiders. The backing is the spider fabric.

I really like this embroidered piece--it's the second one I've made--and part of me hopes that no one wants to buy it, but most of me wants it to sell.  Every dime from the sale of items in my Etsy shop goes to the Jolly Ruby Fund which distributes the money to help provide for the needs of adults with disabilities.  When I initially retired from my job, I decided that setting up this shop would be a win-win for me:  I get to keep making quilted items using my ginormous fabric stash and the money goes to a very worthy cause.  I guess that's actually a 3 win situation--I make quilts, stash gets smaller (but does it really ever get smaller????) and people with disabilities get assistance.  

So, I'm off to work on a few more items I want to put in the shop, and then a trip to the grocery store so we have something to eat for dinner.