One quilt finished and on it's way!

Yea!  I finished my part of the geometry quilt--or to use it's official quilt name, "Saucy and Snappy"--and it's been handed over to it's other creator, Bonnie, to do the hand stitching and offer it to her AAUW group's fundraiser in November.

I even remembered to take a couple of pictures before I gave it to her yesterday.

Here I just tossed it over the futon on the sun porch.  You can see that I used the leftover strips from the jelly roll of fabrics to make the binding--and I still have 2 additional strips!  And this is pretty close to the true color--not the orange that was showing up in the other photos.

A close up of the swirly, loopy meander I did over the quilt center in lieu of the Baptist Fans I'd wanted to do.  But, all is not lost--I discovered a use for the circular ruler after all, but that comes later in the post. I used a variegated thread from Sulky since there were so many colors in the quilt. In some places it blends in perfectly and in others, it really stands out.

And in this pic, you can see the free-hand loop and curve design that I used in the narrow first border, and the straight line stitching in the wider, outer border.  If you look closely, you can see that I alternated  a double stitch line with a single line of stitching all along the border, and Miracles of Miracles!  the pattern wrapped around each corner perfectly!  Oops, I forgot to take a picture of the corners, which were stitched in a miter fashion which I liked very much.

So, that one is done for me.  Bonnie and I met yesterday for lunch and a visit in Spooner, which is a halfway point between Duluth where she lives and Menomonie where I live and I confessed to her that as we were making the Saucy and Snappy quilt I really didn't like it much at all, but since we were committed to it, I sucked it up and kept working on it. But as the quilting stitches went in, it seemed that the quilt kind of came to life and by the time I was finished with it, it had become a beautiful swan.  As usual, I finally liked it so much that I didn't want to give it away.  Does that ever happen to you--in the end, you kind of fall in love with a quilt that you weren't sure of in the process?

About that circular ruler that I agonized last week over ever arriving:  I had the idea of making some coasters for wine glasses--like a mug rug kind of--so Bonnie and I went to Thimbles, a terrific quilt shop in Spooner WI, which you can check out here, to find some fabric that would be suitable for these coasters and also for a couple of wine bottle totes.  You can figure out that we're going to have a little wine corner in the fundraiser country store. I think it should have a big sign saying, "Whining allowed HERE!"  But I digress.

We found a fabric--ON SALE!--that has dark purple and dark blue grape clusters on it, along with a coordinating purple and oatmeal fabric that will work very well for these coasters.

When I got home, I found this pattern from Pokey's Ponderings  https://pokeysponderings.com/tag/wine-coaster-tutorial/ for these coasters and I thought they would be just the thing.  Each coaster is different so guests can remember which glass is theirs. And the little flaps cover the base of the wine glass so the coaster stays with the glass as it's moved around.  

So then I realized that I'd have to add some additional colors to the fabric I bought in Spooner to make a set of 4 different coasters, and I'm pretty sure I can find some in my personal stash. These coasters require 5" diameter circles and I'll use my new ruler for cutting them out.  Well, I'll try anyway! 

After I'd finished stitching on the binding and label to Saucy and Snappy, I saw a "squirrel" and made up 4 of these holiday potholders to put up for sale in the store. I have lots of Christmas fabric that I want to use up, so I'll probably make a few more potholders when I can.

I'd seen the aqua/green fabric at the Busy Bobbin booth at the Amery Quilt show and fell in love with the cartoon forest animals. I think they're perfect in these Christmas package blocks and in addition to the potholders, I'll be making up more to work into a table runner or two.  If they don't sell at the country store, I'll put them in my Etsy Store afterward.

And when I finished stitching the potholders, I forced myself to return to the Quilt of Valor. My friend who offered to do the long arm quilting asked me the other day when I thought it would be ready for her, and I told her by the end of next week, so I have to get a move on.

In case you can't tell, I'm having a ball making all sorts of things for the country store!  I keep getting more and more ideas, and not enough time, of course. But that's life, right? When the ideas stop coming, I think it'll be time to throw in the towel and call it quits!  Hopefully not for awhile--too many quilts yet to make!