Entropy Undone: Another FO to share - Nine-Patch Doorstop...but that's not why I'm so excited!

It is a little silly that I'm dancing around the kitchen trying to finish dinner, but I'm just so happy at the moment! I'm multi-tasking, as usual (not necessarily recommended behavior), so I check my email while I'm stirring vegetables (not exactly at the same time - it's a back and forth thing). And what do I find? An email telling me I won a giveaway of Heather Ross fabrics from Fussy Cut!! whoo hoo!! You should check out this cool blog - very inspirational projects and quilts (and very cute children).

LOOK LOOK! Here they are!

Oh, you didn't get a close enough look? Here they are again!

(could you die?) Not only am I lucky to win a pack of fabric at all, but these fabrics are the more or less the exact same ones that I've all but used up this year on a couple of gifted quilts. One for cute little Angela (see this post) and one for cute bigger Megan (here).

These are probably the happiest fabrics I've ever had myself - although I do not have yet an extensive or long sewing or quilting or stashing history. I know there are some really happy prints out there, even some that I've used, but these ones from the Heather Ross Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries collection are some of my all time favorites. I picked them out for those two quilts specifically because I wanted to stitch into them all the prayers and happy thoughts that would be humanly possible. And I love how both of them turned out. Since then, all I've had are some little scraps left - I made my mom some nesting doll fabric buttons for Christmas with fussy cuts (did I photograph those? no. this is the subject of a whole post where I catalog all the projects I've gifted before thinking to take a picture...), and most recently I used two little fussy cuts in this next project. And I think it's perfect that the giveaway was from the Fussy Cut blog, since that's all I've had left until now. But now I may be able to work some of these into a bigger project that stays closer to home. Or not - I am now a big believer in the power of gifting your more happy and beautiful creations for the power of good. (i'm not sure what happens when you gift dark and ugly creations, but it's probably a bad idea...)

Okay, now for the latest project I finished. Do you see the little dog patch and the camper-van? Those are from my itty-bitty Heather Ross scraps! This is the Nine-Patch Doorstop, made using the exact directions and measurements found in this tutorial on Oh Fransson! Now, some of you dear readers may already know this, but the author of this blog is incredibly talented - apparently this one is the first tutorial she made, and it was flawless. For Christmas, I got a copy of her recently published book "The Practical Guide to Patchwork" - I really love the instruction style and the projects are gorgeous.

Anyway, this was a present, officially, for Mr. Wonderful. Whenever the weather is even remotely nice, we like to open all the doors and windows and get fresh air moving through the house. When the air moves quickly between our front door and our back/basement door, the hallway door SLAMS so loudly that it feels like it shakes our little house! Probably almost a year ago, Mr. Wonderful was surveying some project I'd put together and asked if I could make a doorstop. I had already thought of this and downloaded the tutorial, but hadn't done anything about it. And then I still didn't do anything about it for a long time. Then this week I realized I was itching to do a small project and that I'd bought the special materials I didn't already have (specifically 5 pounds of beans and fusible fleece). Probably this project took me 3 hours to complete (? plus or minus) including picking and arranging the little patches for the front.

yes, it's full of beans (and some lentils) with a zipper on the bottom in case you need to empty it out for cleaning. so clever!

The beans serve an obvious purpose - weight and shape - and I'm not sure I put 5 pounds in because I confess I'd only bought 4 pounds and added what lentils we had left in our cabinet. It may need a little more stuffing...

Here's the back: this is another Wee Woodland piece taken from a Layer Cake I bought quite awhile ago - another purchase that I've forgotten the original intent for and so I've been pilfering pieces for a number of projects (like mom's pillow in my last post, and my zippered pouch linings before Christmas. oh well. It's not like I'm lacking in fabric selection down there in my crafty corner. The backing shows the straight line quilting I used - I did the same thing for the front as well. I was looking for some instant gratification, so took the easy route rather than anything complex.

And finally - here is the Nine-Patch Doorstop in it's native environment - when the weather turns warmer we will be able to give her a good functional test!