The Doodle Bugs return. . .

It was just over a year ago when I first showed my Doodle Bugs. (you can see them here) I can't believe it's been that long! Wow, time flies when you're having fun, I guess. Anyway, a while back someone commented on the Doodle Bug wallhanging that showed up behind Shade in a picture of him in the quilt studio. I looked through the old posts and apparently I've never shown this top! Don't know how I missed that. So, at long last, here it is! It's only at the flimsy stage, but it's been up on the wall in the quilt studio (for the last year, I guess). I've been hoping to get inspiration for quilting it. I really don't know what I want to do in the way of quilting it.

Here's a closeup of one of the bugs. I used a dotted fabric for every bug, where on the originals I added the spots. This was easier! They are fused on with Misty Fuse, which isn't supposed to need to be stitched down. These guys are pretty small - 4 inches from nose tip to tail - so I don't want to have to stitch around each one. The Misty Fuse was dream to work with, as far as fusing it. It was so easy - I loved it!

I love this fabric in the background. It looks like hydrangea leaves to me.

I made the first Doodle Bugs for my granddaughters. I'm not sure where this wallhanging is going to live. Maybe at my house for awhile! Of course, I need to finish it before that's a problem, huh?

I've been doing more stalling, apparently. Avoidance of putting together the Witch's Pantry, although, in my defense, I have been working on it. I'm trying to finish up the last jars, and only have to put the lids on the last few. I just seem to have string quilts on the brain. I'm going to a quilt retreat at the end of the month and my friend KV and I are going to be making string blocks. So, I've been "testing" patterns. The latest one is the String X block. It's a pattern from Quiltville and can be seen here. Here's what I came up with:

I used old telephone book pages as the foundation. I used Bonnie's recommendation and used a larger needle (size 16 Denim) and a smaller stitch (about 1.5 on my Bernina), and the paper comes off like a dream. The pattern makes one quarter of the block. This is how Bonnie shows it put together - as an X. I, of course, had to play with it:

You can also put it together as an O. I think it would be cute to put both X's and O's together in one quilt. I wonder if it would need sashes between the X's and O's to show that they're X's and O's and not just some crazy pattern?? I'll have to try that.

Then DH got in the spirit and came up with this idea. I think this is called Indian Hatchet. That's kind of fun too! This could be fun to try lots of different things with. I just love asymmetrical blocks - there's so many fun ways to put them together. Anybody else have any other ideas?

KV and I will be making 11 inch square blocks, but I think I'll take some foundations to do this block too. The strings it uses only need to be about 5 inches long, so this block is good for "leftover" ends of longer strings. I haven't decided what background fabric to use, but I think that can probably wait until I have all the foundations pieced.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day! It was up to 55*f and warm enough to go without my coat for the first time in months and months! Two days ago our high was 35*f. So, this was a gift. It was wonderful. Blue skies, singing birds. And rain tomorrow. At least we had one beautiful day. That'll hold me for a bit. Now I believe that spring is on the way!