I thought these embroidery patterns by Aunt Martha were a hoot when I saw them and had to to get them. The top has been finished for several years, but I just quilted it in April 2006. The trees are my patterns and are a combination of paper-piecing and string piecing. I used up some of my leftover green bindings on this quilt.

Closeup of one of the green work blocks.

I love to work with hand-dyed fabrics and several years at a quilt show in Nevada I purchased quart sized ziploc bag of hand-dyed "fabric strings" for $5. These strings were the ends of the fabric that the vendor had cutoff when cutting FQ's for sale. I stuffed the bag as full as I possibly could and still seal it. I had enough fabric to make all of the string-pieced blocks in this quilt with 4 blocks leftover.

I love to string piece and see what I can make with fabric that would normally be thrown away. This quilt finished out at almost a twin size. I made a dent in the amount of the strings that I had on hand when I made this, but not for long.

One year I decided to challenge myself to use the teensy-tiny scraps that I would have leftover from paper-piecing in sampler blocks. The blocks are approximately 9" square and I used a different 'mini-quilt' pattern for each one. The Flying Geese block was the first one I completed and there are 158 pieces of fabric in that one block alone. The number of pieces in the block became less and less after making that block because I hated the pain of taking out the tissue paper that I had drawn the patterns on.

I designed and made this St. Patrick's Wallhanging while I was attending grad. school in Boston.

Another wallhanging in the series of 'seasons' that I'm slowly making for myself.

This wallhanging was made the first year, 1997, that I belonged to Interquilt for the infamous squishey challenge. The fabrics I received made me realize that you truly could send anything for the challenge. The flowers in the garden are made from ribbons, beads, and fabric yo-yo's.