Swirling Spheres Revisited

 

In the last several months I picked up a bunch of buttons between a Freecycle post and my mother's donation to Swanson's Fabrics.  I sorted through them and kept a bunch of ones I liked.  Some I have plans for.  Others I just like.  Then there's the handful I set aside to add to a quilt.

Swirling Spheres was a Project Quilting submission back in 2025 that featured buttons.  I had envisioned more buttons on it, but had neither the time nor the buttons to do that.  

I fixed that.

Shift in Direction

My inkblot layout has been on the wall for months (see photo below).  I bought green fabric for the background over a month ago.  Next step was to start cutting and sewing.  So imagine my surprise after cutting a few pieces I stopped.  

Nope.  This wasn't working.

String Backpack

As I was making my new dance bag, I realized how shabby my little string backpack was.  It was some freebee from Rob's work years ago that happened to be a really useful size.  I've used it a lot over the years.  It's faded, dirty and is starting to develop a few holes.  Time to replace it!  

I dug through my orphaned blocks for inspiration and discovered a handful of blue and green four-patches that I don't even remember putting together.  Must have been some experiment that failed to launch.  There were enough pieces to make the bag with two four-patches left over.  Perfect.

The pieced sides by themselves could easily pull apart so I backed them with some fabric and ran some wavy lines of stitching over them to hold them all together.  Then I stitched the sides and the bottom and rolled over a sleeve on top for the string.  I bound the inside seams so there were no raw edges.

Dance Bag

The tote bag that holds my dancing stuff was starting to fray.  I could have repaired it, but bag was both too big (for regular dances) and too small (for dance festivals) and didn't have enough pockets.  This was my chance to design a new one:  a single bag that would work for both situations so I wouldn't need to move the odds and ends from one bag to another.  

 

Poof!

I blinked and suddenly it's the last week of August.  I suspect September will pass by even more quickly!  

Dave, our foster guinea pig from Dakin Humane, stayed with us for barely three days.  I was so disappointed to see him go.  He had just started to settle in on Thursday night.  I discovered he loved to be scritched (and he had lovely, touchable soft fur).  He actually came up the the side of the cage simply for love and affection. 

Piggy Swap

 

When I gave Dakin Humane an update on Jitterbug's eating habits (not eating hay nor drinking water), they suggested trying Timothy hay and a bowl of water instead of a water bottle.  The water bowl didn't seem to make any difference, but he did seem to like Timothy hay.  Unfortunately I am allergic to Timothy hay... so I needed to return Jitterbug.  I felt bad I couldn't do more for him; it was a bit of a relief to see him go.  I can't win them all.

As it happens, Dakin Humane had other available guinea pigs - out with one and in with another.  Say hello to Dave.

Dave may have similar coloring and bed-head like Jitterbug, but he is clearly a different pig.  Dave is loaf.  I just want to squeeze him!  He's a laid back mature dude, with fat mutton chop cheeks and lovely soft fur.  

Goings On

A trip to the Cape for Family Weekend had me return with a trunk full of fabric.  Literally - the whole trunk stuffed.  Unfortunately it smelled of moth balls and smoke.  Ugh.  It took days to get the smell out of the car.  I brought the majority of it to Swanson's fabric (they couldn't sell it because of the scent, but they could give it away).  I kept a tiny bag of it - maybe a 10th of the overall haul.  It took me a whole evening to iron the stash.  I will likely keep 13 yards of it, the other eight I may not keep - which will go to Swanson's, of course!

Jitterbug

 

We picked up a solo guinea pig from Dakin Humane to foster last week.  Say hello to Jitterbug.  He's a beautiful Abyssinian with serious bed-head and dark ruby eyes.  He came in with a bunch of piggies from another shelter, and then got beat up by his cage mate (and got his butt shaved to check for wounds - he looks a little lopsided).  They were separated.  I wanted both of them - but did not have the bandwidth to try introductions and tackling two cages if they couldn't get along.