"Green" Shopping Bags

By now most of you have probably seen the green (as in conservation, not the color) bags being sold at many grocery stores. One of the major grocery chains in my area is Publix, and they sell these, as does Wal-Mart. The whole idea being that using and reusing these each time you shop will cut down on the use of paper bags or those plastic ones . I bought a few in the hopes I would manage to remember to put them back in the car after each shopping excursion. The day that I bought mine, the packer immediately used them, and I was surprised just how much they hold. My packer was quite the salesperson and informed me that they are designed to hold the equivalent of 5 plastic bags.

My only objection was that these beauties have the store name emblazoned across them, fore and aft! Now I never bought those designer jeans, ‘back in the day’, because I refused to use my backside as a billboard, and I still don’t want to! Besides, I want to be able to take these into whichever store I need to, and I would feel ‘tacky’ walking around with a competitors name all over. And how would the store know that I had already bought and paid for these on a previous visit??? I worry about stuff like that.. ....

Being the crafty and clever person that I am *choke*I decided to eliminate the advertising while personalizing and beautifying my bags. Being the oblivious dork that I sometimes am……well, take a look!

See bag melt; see iron with bag fused onto it! I thought I would take the quick and easy route and use Heat N Bond, but as you can see, the bag is now ventilated and my poor iron is a mess. Since I had been pressing some OC blocks (gratuitous quilty comment) I thought the iron may have still been too hot….I waited a while and tried again with the iron at the lowest possible setting. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!! All I can say is, bless the guy that invented Teflon and the guy that put it on irons! Without them, I’d be out iron shopping.

Anyway, that put a hold on things for a bit. Last Wednesday my quilt guild took a field trip to 3 LQSs and followed up with lunch. The first store that we visited had some really great food fabrics in FQs. You know that they just called my name! How perfect for my green bags! (You do realize that buying an FQ is like eating potato chips, once you start……)

This time I used a decorative stitch around the rough edges. The FQs were of watermelon, chili peppers, oranges and one with artichokes and rutabagas.

dishcloths

As stated in previous posts, I have taken some knitting classes recently and have a few things on the needles--just like with quilting, I have several going at once! Bad habits die hard, but knitters have a really good rationalization-keepping projects using different size needles and yarns going simultaneously is a GOOD thing because switching between them gives your hands a 'break' ! Gotta Love it!!

One of the things that I have started doing is a weekly dishcloth (from a yahoo group). This gives me something small, 'quickly' finished, economical (cotton yarn) and useful while I practice and learn new stitches and techniques. The pictures show the first couple of cloths that I have done-a third is on the needles and about half finished.

Okay, so, I couldn't wait

Even though it defeats the mystery part of a mystery quilt- since I have lagged so far behind, I know what the finished quilt will look like and couldn't wait to see how my fabric choices will work out. So, while waiting for the grandchildren to arrive, I skipped over step 3 long enough to cut out a few pieces of step 4 and 5 to see how they will work up.
For step 4, I was wondering whether to put the darker color as the star, or the lighter color- see pictures of how the finished square will look for each option. I'd really like the star feature to show up and not just blend in.
Then I started wondering about the alternating 'orange' block. I had thought of using up a bunch of my browns for the centers, then started second guessing that choice because I already have a lot of darks in the quilt and that might be too much the same and too autumnal. My second choice was a group of almost neon greens. I had been debating these to liven things up and thought I would have to wait to see the block to make the final choice.
So, here's what they will look like - what do you think?

Orange Crush update

The last time you heard from me, I was a contender in the 'last one to start on Bonnie's OC mystery quilt contest'. I think I may have been frontrunner for Queen Lagaholic. Now, I am pleased to report that I have started and have finished steps one and two, hoping to at least cut for step 3 before the grandkids arrive this afternoon to spend the weekend. Forgive the fuzzy photos- the camera hasn't had its morning cup of coffee, but I have and we just couldn't coordinate our trembling!