A New State - Nevada

This past weekend my husband surprised me with a trip.  Since he kept the location a secret all the way up to the drive towards the airport, finding a quilt store was a high priority once our destination was revealed (Las Vegas)!

Nevada - Quiltique

Google likes to rotate my pictures.

Never having been to Nevada before, once I found a quilt store I needed to find a good fabric to add to my 50 state collection.

I was a little surprised that I couldn't find a fabric with the lights of the strip, but I decided to go with the red in the bottom left to represent Red Rock Canyon and it suited me much better!  A bit of the blue may go with it to show how blue the sky was, but I'm still up in the air about that.

Red Rock was pretty awesome.  We didn't get to spend nearly enough time wandering around out there, so we will have to go back with more appropriate gear for sure!

The top two are some cute little critters that I just couldn't resist.

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Fabric Recovery - Brown

Since cold water worked well for removing the wayward color from my finished quarter cabin blocks, I have begun a similar soaking process for the rest of the fabric.  I started with the brown since it was the obvious offender.

When I put the fabric into its bath, it hung on top of the water for a few seconds, then started to fall piece by piece.  It looks a little bit like a sting ray here!

There was a lot of color to remove.  I changed the soaking water six times before it stayed clear enough that I was satisfied.

I laid the pieces out on a towel to dry, trying to keep them as square as possible.  After soaking, the squares ended up approximately a quarter of an inch smaller in one direction so I'll have to trim them before they are ready for the sewing process.

Linking up to MOP Monday.

Card Trick One

After getting two substantial quilts out this year, I've decided it's time to work on some small projects.  First up is a pair of pot holders.

I have never worked with quarter square triangles and I don't even have much experience sewing with pre-cut triangles so I was a bit nervous how this was going to come out.

But now I have the first one sewn up and am loving how it looks.  However, I wasn't feeling up to trying to match any more points after the first one, so the second card trick is still waiting for it's turn!

The first of two card tricks.

Linking up to MOP Monday and Let's Bee Social.