We're not just cooking around here.

I know that the majority of my posts recently have revolved around cooking, specifically crockpot cooking, but we've been plenty busy with other things as well.

A good deal of what we've been doing is sewing. Or washing and ironing fabric, and cutting things out to sew.

This is the yellow fabric I'll be using for Ri's quilt. She loves sunflowers, so I'll be making a sunflower quilt using a dresden plate design.

It looks far more managable once it's all been neatly ironed and folded. One of the fabrics is some scrap left from a dress a made for Ri when she was about 12. Another is scrap from a dress I made for T.Lynn a few years ago. I don't have much in the way of yellow scraps, but I just happened to have these two, and I knew Ri would love using them in her quilt, especially T.'s. She always complained that the other two had been too big, and she too small to hold them much. Kay had gotten to play second mom to them, so when T. came along, Ri was quick to claim her as her own baby.

I haven't forgotten Beenie's quilt. I've finished making all the double triangle squares, and entirely completed several more blocks. I know, the sewing table is a mess, but there is some organization there. The quilt pieces are on the front right, and though you can't see it the completed quilt squares are on the left along with some extra fabric, Ri's quilt fabric, the washcloths I've knitted for her hope chest, and some mending. Directly above the quilt pieces you can see are some notions for projects I'll be working on in the next couple of weeks. The pin cushion in the bottom left of the picture is one I made to keep in the new sewing basket I broke down a bought since I've started to teach sewing. I used some scrap I had from the pincushion I made for Ri at Christmas.

There are several fabrics here waiting to be cut out. The blue on the left is some for a skirt Ri is making for Bree. She is actually making several skirts for her and a couple of the other girls. What looks like two more blue fabrics on the right are a denim for a painting apron for Bree, and a dress for me, though the dress material is really more of a purple. The orange check will be a shirt for Bree. The other cut pieces are for receiving blankets, shoulder bags, a tissue holder, and aprons for T.Lynn - that would be the cherries and froggies. The pale green at the top will be made into bias tape that I'll use to finish the edge of a hooded towel I'm making, using the elephant cross stitch that I finished not long ago. Other projects that I'll be working on, some of which are cut out but not in this picture, are a small zippered bag, a travel sewing kit, and some wrap pouches/cases for my knitting needles, crochet hooks, make-up brushes, and crayons/colored pencils (these are for the younger two to take in the car).

I've also been doing a fair amount of crocheting lately. I'm making a new shawl for myself, similar to one I already have. Instead of being in the shape of a triange (or a square folded like a triangle), or more like a really big scarf, like most shawls are, this one is like a large rectangle with a cut made on one of the short sides and going about halfway down the length - well, not really a cut. It was two long thin rectangles sewn together halfway up the length of the long side. I've seen them described as afgan style shawls and I guess they really do look like an afgan if they are laid out straight. All I know is that they stay put on my shoulders without my having to hold or pin them together. I love the two I have, but one of them is getting pretty shabby looking.

This is certainly enough to keep me out of trouble for a little while.