How to Use Stash Fast........

Hello to all of my new followers that found me through my post over on Stash Manicure earlier this week.  And, welcome to all of you that have been following here for awhile.  It has been so nice meeting all of you.

A couple of months ago I was browsing in one of our JoAnn Fabrics stores here in town and ran into a friend I hadn't seen in quite awhile.  We had a nice visit, and it turns out that she also has a blog.  We have been following each others sewing adventures since that day. 

One day I went to Steph's blog and found a crocheted rug she had made.  I enlarged the photo of this rug as large as I possibly could and just sat there staring at it.  As I read her post I couldn't believe it.  She had crocheted her rug with 1" strips of fabric using a size P hook.   I was puzzled because I didn't see any knots or pieces of fabric sticking up anywhere, so I wrote Steph.  She works at one of our local quilt shops here, and she told me to come up and bring my hook and some strips and she would show me how she joins her strips and help me get started. 

Oh, I know this is starting another project, but I'm using up my stash.  And, I can crochet faster than I can do any other craft.  I think this is the center that Steph started for me.  My daughter was here visiting, and we both worked on this.  First we tried single crochets and then slip stitches to see just what looked best.  Steph's piece looked so nice.  I may have to go back again for a refresher course......

Here is another one that I started. 

And, then we started a third one.  I like to crochet, but after working with yarn this is pretty hard on the hands and not nearly as fast as I'd first thought, but I just love the way this looks.  So I approached my daughter with this new project in the style of Tom Sawyer thinking she would want to do this, but she wasn't having any of it.  I really do love Steph's rug and hope to finish one of these some day. 

Then I was looking through my photos on the computer and found this.

I think this looks like a pretty neat rug, but where is it?  As I kept going through photos I found this.

That rug is the bottom of this crocheted bag.  It's finished all but sewing the handles on.  They are stuffed inside the bag along with some cute buttons.  The bag is made from crochet cotton.

Today I spent time outside in my flowers.  I have wanted to put a big pot of flowers in between my garage doors for awhile now.  So today I found a nice pot and it's late enough in the planting season that the flowers that are left in the stores are priced reasonably.   So that all seemed to take up most of today.  I forgot to take a photo of that pot, but these are some red day lillies that I have planted out back. 

The stella de oro variety (the yellow ones) of perennial day lillies grow so easily here, that it is kind of unusual to see them in a different color. 

I really have been doing some quilt things, but I can't show them.  I worked on one round robin and mailed it to the next person on the list.  Then the next quilt that I am to work on arrived, and I love the design and fabrics so much that I started working on it right away. 

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  I hope you are all finding some time to stitch today.