Small Projects and WIPs

I have finished a few of the projects on my small projects sew along list. The sew along is being hosted by Amanda over at crazy mom quilts. I'm also going to be participating in the Let's Get Acquainted! Blog Hop hosted by Beth over at Plum and June. I am really looking forward to "meeting" some wonderful new bloggers! One of the things we are encouraged to do while it is our turn in the hop is create a mosaic. Since my beloved Picnik is no longer an option, I decided to give Big Huge Labs a try at the recommendation of Beth. Hooray! It was easy and quick! I think I *just* may survive without Picnik;)

That wonky star above is my May block for the Stash Bee. This was my first time using Kona Coal (I know, I know, what took me so long to fall for gray...) and I have lots of projects planned using gray as a background now! The little wristlet pouch and lanyards were made for the teachers at my son's school. The lanyards are for the two lone men on staff. I should have taken a better picture, but there are washers attached to each item with the teacher's name on them. A friend showed me how to make the personalized charms that are so popular using her metal stamp set. It was so easy! I am glad she showed me how to do it because we were able to give each lovely teacher something personalized on a very slim budget.

The name tag in the bottom row has been finished for some time now. It is for our Madison Modern Quilt Guild, but I haven't been able to make the past few meetings. It looks like I should be able to make the May meeting so perhaps I should add a fabric flower or something in honor of it's first appearance at a meeting...hmm. Yep. I'll add that to the project list! The last two pics in the mosaic feature the backpack I made for my nephew. My niece finally made her appearance and since I already gave my sister her quilt, I thought I would take something special in for my nephew. I followed this tutorial from Anna and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It took me less than an hour and a half to finish it. Woo hoo! And I have enough fabric from the old khakis to make another one, too. Bonus! Next time, however, I will make sure that my directional prints are in fact going the correct way. Oops. I'm pretty sure Nathan didn't mind though and the Sesame Street music books he found inside more than made up for it:) I tried to get a picture of the backpack on Abigail before we went into Milwaukee to see my sister and her new bundle of joy, but she was more interested in showing me the picture she created for her new cousin!

Now for the WIPs! I am starting two quilts this week. Ambitious, yes, since I usually only have one quilt going at a time, but I am so excited about both of them that I can't help it! The fabrics above have been cut from my charms I received from the over the rainbow charm swap hosted by Bianca. I'm going to make a rainbow stacked coins quilt. I am going to start piecing these together tonight and also order more Kona coal for the border...

And these stacks. Sigh. These beautiful stacks were in my mailbox today. I was a bit worried when I was ordering these since it is sometimes hard to see color combinations on your computer screen. But I am very happy with the look of these!!! I have a very special project for these and I can't wait to share it in another post. This one is long enough!

**I'm also editing my small project list in this post**