Hurricane Ida Update and August Sort-of Mini

Hi Fellow Quilters!  I wrote the post below several days ago and planned to use the auto-post feature to publish it today.  That was before we evacuated ahead of Hurricane Ida.  

After securing our home in New Orleans and our camp in Mississippi, we loaded our vehicles with the usual evacuation goodies and headed for my mom's house in Florida.  We left in the very early hours of Saturday morning, so we missed all the traffic jams you may have seen on TV.

Several friends opted to stay behind and ride out the storm in the New Orleans area.  We have been in constant touch with them through text messages and social media.  Everyone we know has weathered the storm OK, although they're a little shell-shocked by the length and intensity of the storm.  As the roads get cleared of debris and downed power lines, we're hopeful someone will be able to check on our house.

Per the electric company outage map, our camp in Mississippi apparently still has power.  We know from our neighbor's outdoor camera that water came up under the house, but since the water is still rising, we don't know the extent of the flood damage.  Our camp is elevated about 17 feet off the ground on pilings, and our whole yard is about 7 feet above the river.  Probably only a couple of feet of flooding, but it will be a mess to clean up!

As of this morning, almost the entire state is doing damage assessment.  The areas passed over by the eye of the hurricane will be heavily damaged; I'm hopeful there will not be great loss of life as well.  New Orleans had "catastrophic" damage to major power lines, so the entire city is without power (except for those with generators).  It's going to be a long road to recovery, but thank goodness the levees didn't fail (at least that we know of!) and the city won't have post-Katrina type flooding.  

We are still in watchful waiting mode.  Without power it will be difficult to live in our New Orleans home, but we may be able to live at our camp.  Time will tell.

For anyone interested, I'm sure there will soon be lots of information coming through on how you can help with storm recovery efforts.  I'll be happy to share that information as it becomes available.

And on a happier note, one of our family friends has a front-page byline in the New York Times this morning!  I don't know if the Times is dropping their paywall for coverage of Hurricane Ida, but here's the link if you're interested.  

OK, yes, there's some fabric-related content here.  I didn't actually finish an August mini this month, but I did stitch up two bags.  Not exactly quilt-related, but it's all I got!

I have a small stash of Tula Pink's Hushabye fabrics.  I originally used them to make a baby quilt, and wound up with a fair number of scrappy chunks.  They don't really play well with other fabrics, so the scraps haven't gotten used up.

I had cut and prepped the fabrics for Sotak Handmade's Devon Pouch last fall, but came to a screeching halt when I didn't have the right size zippers on hand.  While I waited for zippers to arrive from Zipit, the project got pushed aside.  

One day this week provided the perfect opportunity to assemble the pouch, and following the great pattern instructions I quickly finished the project.

I love the owl figure in the pink and brown fabric!  This will go into the gift-giving bin.  

Just playing with the Hushabye scraps gave me some new ideas for using them up - hopefully it won't take me a year to cut into them.  

I've mentioned before I have a large bin full of worn and raggedy denim jeans.  I recently cut up some of them to make Rail Fence blocks, but there's still quite a bit of denim waiting to be used.

I had some big chunks of khaki and black denim, so I used them to make a large tote bag.  The finished bag measures approximately 19" x 16".  No pattern, I just looked at a favorite tote bag and used what I know about bag construction to make my own design.

I only used supplies on hand, so the handles are denim (as opposed to webbing) and the thread is 40wt cotton/poly.  I'd go with a heavier thread next time so the topstitching shows up better.

I didn't want a lining in the bag, so that meant no fusible interfacing on the denim.  The bag turned out soft and kinda floppy, which is great for folding and stashing it when empty.  

I also didn't want to wrestle with hemming the top opening of the bag, so I used bias fabric strips as a hem facing.  

Now I've got a sturdy tote bag for taking quilting projects on the road!

Back in the String of Things!

 We spent some time at our camp last weekend, and during an afternoon thunderstorm I pulled out some denim strips I had started stitching for a utility quilt. 

The plan was to make a Rail Fence quilt using fabric from cut-up jeans.  

I'm pretty sure the project has been untouched since last August!

Even though I enjoyed the mindless sewing therapy, I was pretty bored with the lack of fabric variation.  I decided it was time to bring a new string-piecing project to the camp to alternate with stitching up the denim Rail Fence blocks.

After making the flamingo hexagon quilt (Flamboyant Flamingos), I had plenty of pink and green fabric scraps.  

A lot of the fabric was in pretty hole-y condition, thanks to fussy-cutting.  I thought a pink and green string quilt might be a good way to use up the leftovers.

My first thought was to make quarter Log Cabin blocks.  I wasn't crazy about the light pink centers, but the dark pink centers had some pizzaz!

I wasn't sure my scrap supply had the right variety of fabrics for successful Log Cabin blocks though.  Maybe I needed to do something more random.

Maybe some string-y diamonds will do the trick?

I still haven't decided for sure, but I've got a bunch of paper diamonds cut, and a box full of pink and green strings.  I’m looking forward to stitching up some pink and green along with the denim!

Side Trip Into Upcycled Denim

This past Saturday I was inspired by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge to make this pattern using some red scraps.  My Dear Husband decided he would like an earbud case too, but he requested his be made from denim.

 

I have a huge tub of old jeans (waiting to be made into quilts, of course!), so I pulled out a likely pair and quickly cut out the needed denim pieces.  I found the perfect fabric for the lining in my stash and I also happened to have a dark blue zipper on hand.

 

The denim was heavy enough that batting was not needed, but I did use some lightweight fusible interfacing for a little extra body.

 

I also used some trusty fabric glue to help hold the pieces in place for stitching.

 

The process went a little more smoothly using an electric sewing machine with the ability to sew in reverse, but I still think the top-stitching done by my Singer Model 15 was prettier!

 

Dear Husband was tickled to have an earbud case made from his old jeans!