Puttering

On Sunday I was puttering around the Sweat Shop, straightening things up and organizing a little bit before getting started on whatever project I decided to work on for the day.  I had a vague idea that I'd finish the borders on the Merry, Merry Snowmen quilt since it's so close to being done, and then I could redistribute the leftover French General fabric--I was thinking about using the scraps for this month's Schnibbles project.

Well, you know how easily such plans can be sidetracked, right?  As I was puttering, I came across the blue work embroidery blocks one of my readers, Shelley, had gifted me.  Remember these?  I'd received a free machine embroidery magazine and had a giveaway, and she won.  In return, she sent me these pretty blocks!

Awhile back I had decided to experiment with color crayons on one of the blocks to see how it would look, and I really liked the outcome, but that's as far as I'd gotten.  Well, when I came across the blocks again today, I thought I'd play around with my crayons for a little while.  Before I knew it, the afternoon had passed and now I have nine colored blocks--I thought I'd just color bits and pieces of the images so the color didn't overwhelm the embroidery.

After I heat set the colors, I trimmed them all to 8-1/2".  Now I've put them away again because I'm not sure how I want to set the blocks.

I was kind of thinking this would make a great quilt to contribute to the local quilt auction to raise money for breast cancer research--we do that once every three years and it's pretty successful.  And I think we do it again in October or November 2014--that certainly gives me time to finish it if that's what I decide to do!

I like the idea that a series of kindnesses and generosity by strangers would lead to raising money for such a good cause.  I'll be sure to show you how this project progresses next time I pull it out to work on.