Too much time on my hands??

I have a few weeks between lectures and classes and just in time, Frances B. Calhoun from Lynchburg, Virginia sent me a photo of the fabulous tile quilt she made from our book, Tile Quilt Revival.   She named her quilt "Circles and Friends" and had this to say about it, "It was a joy to make and I’ll probably do more.   It is an opportunity to use lots of wonderful prints I have on hand.   The fabrics in this quilt are practically all decorator samples."

She used a black background fabric which give the appearance of stained glass.  Our method for making these quilts is  much less labor intensive than the traditional stained glass method of adding bias strips.  You create the lines by taking away something:  turning under the seam allowances and revealing the black background fabric. The black sashing and border make a great finish.  

Thanks for sending me the photo, Frances.  Great job!  I love it!

In the meantime,
I've been filling my time with various projects.  

For quite a while I've been working on some blocks from a pattern called "Dancing Umbrellas" from Laundry Basket Quilts (Edyta Sitar).  I've been using this as my carry around project that I take to my Saturday Sew Sisters quilting group of six friends.  I chose to make just nine blocks from batiks rather than the 25 featured in the pattern and also added a border.  I call my quilt "Dancing in the Rain".  Right now it is on exhibit at Prairie Queens Quilt Shop in San Jose with a few other offerings from the Applique Goddesses group.

And another project from  Edyta Sitar, from her book, Scrappy Fireworks Quilts is this sewing box.  I bought the book because I loved this project and I'm happy that I finally had some time to get it made.  I used "happy" Kaffe Fassett fabrics for my little house.  

 It''s about 10.5'' x 4.5'' and 8'' high.  Not sure what I'll use it for but I do smile when I look at it!


 And the last but not least too much time on my hand project was recovering my desk chair.  Thomas, my dear sweet cat (unless he's biting me!) clawed the seat of my chair near to the shredding point -- usually when I was sitting in the chair in order to get my attention.  I saw a picture in a book the name of which escapes me and I don't own, of how to recover your desk chair.  Off to Beverly's I go (where I found the flat folds on sale for half price) to get some fabric.  The chair was originally green and I could have gotten a good enough green plaid and not have to deal with covering the back rest.  But I was really tempted by a big brown paisley.  Anyone can have a green plaid chair, I thought, but not everyone can have a brown paisley desk chair! Covering the seat was easy since it only required a staple gun which I had in my toolbox.  The back did require a little sewing, both by machine and by hand.  And, I have enough paisley fabric left to recover the seat if dear Thomas shreds it again.  This project makes me smile too.

And here is a picture of my pal Thomas, who likes to help me sew.