I Want This Boot!

What a great weekend! It was too short, of course, but very productive! Between the usual running errands, grocery shopping, chores, and marathon cooking sessions I managed to sneak in a big chunk of sewing time. We drove out to the country to visit my grandmother on Saturday and my husband even went through our outside storage and dug my hula hoops out for me.

The most fun of this weekend though was making my first Boot Bash block. Look how cute it turned out! I want this boot! I successfully used fusible web for the first time. Yes, I've used it before, but not successfully! This time I knew what I was doing (more or less!) and the only mishap was that I ironed a little bit of the sticky stuff to my ironing board.



I'm using old men's shirts for the backgrounds. I used brown felt for textural effect. I'll have to look around for some soft pieces of leather for the next few blocks. Wouldn't that be pretty? I also used an old bandana stolen from one of my personal favorite cowboys; my good friend Cactus. Cactus is one of my favorite people: a fabulous poet and a bartender and a terrific dancer who has great taste in music and movies. He's so much fun. I would drive an hour outside of town just to sit at his bar to listen to his stories. He worked at The Bar in Indian Springs, NV. According to Cactus, it was the bar that Garth Brooks sings about in his song "Friends in Low Places," but I have not been able to confirm nor deny that. The Bar was called The Oasis before it became The Bar, and the old sign out front still says that.



Anyway, I used a piece of his bandana for the foot part of the boot. Then I fussy-cut some designs to spice it up. I know there's this odd, floating tear-drop shape in my block, but I decided I like it. No reason for it to be there, but that's okay! I sewed the boot strap to the boot piece to make it 3-D. It sticks out a little bit. I found out I'm not good at blanket stitching. I think I had the wrong setting on my machine. A Blind-Hem stitch is different than a Blanket Stitch, right? I can't wait until the end when I have a quilt of fabulous looking cowboy boots. Yee-Haw!