Crazy Quilt Finally Finished After Ten Years

Close up of central ornamental part

Full view on the bed.

I finally finished a quilt that I started over ten years ago. It is made of scraps of fabric and ribbon and bits of found lace that I stitched together at odd times over the years. It was sitting in my stash of "unfinished sewing projects" for way too long. About a year ago (!) I got the final pieces seamed together along the edges and this week I stitched on a backing. This was an old flannel sheet with a pretty floral design on it that I got for $3 at the Salvation Army Family Store and that makes a nice warm cozy back to the quilt top as I decided to forgo inserting batting between the two layers of fabric.  I was inspired to finish this by watching a PBS TV show recently -- Sewing with Nancy -- on making quilts where Nancy (Zieman) showed how to make perfect squares and triangles and how to arrange them for classic quilt designs.  Well, my quilt is not like that but more along the lines of a 'crazy quilt' in terms of design, as crazy quilts are basically easier to make as you kind of make them up as you go along which is how this quilt got made!  I recycled an old loose weave cotton knit blanket on the inside as the "batting" and added a full size flannel sheet for the underside.  It's large enough that the quilt can lie on top of a king size bed or can hang over the edges on a smaller bed.  It's mostly pinks, reds, greens and a lot of floral bits with some lace and ribbons and a stitched down ruffled part in the center, so the overall effect is on the "feminine" side. I've done some stitching in the ditches, but not completely throughout the quilt.  I'm thinking I might sell this quilt if someone makes me an offer and I can bear to part with it!

Book Tote Bag Made from Scrap Fabric

This past year I decided to bust my pile of scrap fabrics and unfinished sewing projects and this book tote bag was among the first to be finished.  The green fabric is from an old pair of jeans, lined with some dress fabric I found in the trash, and decorated with some old floral sheet material. To get the basic green fabric I just cut the jeans legs off and opened the seams and created panels that I then stitched together. Before putting in the lining, I cut out squares and circles of the floral sheet material and stitched them on as decoration, using red thread and the zig-zag stitch setting. I also created two handles making ribbons and then stitched them inside before adding the pink check lining.  This  makes a great bag to keep and carry library books in and although I haven't done this yet, I know it's washable!
As you can probably tell, I don't spend a lot of time measuring and patterning and cutting things exactly, but rather do a lot by eye and as the mood strikes me, to give the whole thing a bit of a hobo feel. If it looked manufactured, it wouldn't be home-made, would it?