Scooter the Wooble Raccoon

My grandson in Oklahoma is really into these crocheted critters. Scooter the raccoon is listed as beginner level easy, but I will admit the fussy parts such as the face mask, the snout the ears and the tail do require a bit of patience as these parts are all crocheted separately and then sewn onto the main egg body. Here is Scooter before his tail and ears are attached and before his ears are embroidered.

This kit had the additional skill of changing colors. The white top on the black mask and the tail are where this skill comes into play. I got extra practice on the gray and black striped tail. Black would not be my color of first choice for a beginner because, being so dark, it is difficult to distinguish the individual stitches. Even the tutorial advised to have good lighting. I persevered, and here is my completed Scooter the Raccoon. I will admit, sewing on the ears and embroidering them took deep concentration, but came out fine.

Scooter is my fifth Wooble kit completion. Here are my other four Woobles with links to each's respective dated blog post. Wooble kits really are fun and can truly be accomplished by a beginner crocheter. Some are easier than others, though, so I hope my descriptions can help you pick out your first one to crochet. 

                    1/22/24 Strawberry the Axolotl Wooble  &  10/15/25 Creeper Wooble

        2/6/26 VAN the Guardian Robot Wooble  &  3/20/26 Chilly the Frog Wooble        

HAPPY WOOBLING!

Pinwheels with My Scraps

Pinwheels! Why all the pinwheels? Pinwheels make me smile. They are cheery and I get a surge of satisfaction every time those eight triangles, four HSTs, all meet at a central point. These particular pinwheels are made from corner trimmings leftover from a quilt I made in 2012 when my first grandchild was born. Making these pinwheels brought back fond memories of her arrival and of making that quilt, Little Witch Girl.  This sewing diversion is also my first overdue step in controlling my scraps. Hopefully this nostalgic approach will lead to success in scrap reduction and scrap recycling.

One of my goals for 2026 is scrap management. I made no progress in scrap management in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2022 I was going to research the best approach. Here are quotes from each of my years of good intentions with poor results.

2022:
"I will develop a method to manage my scraps, a promise I have made to myself several years running. I will go beyond merely reading all the different suggestions for organizing in the media – by color, by shape, by trimming to consistent sizes. Then I will choose a method that, for me, is easy and not onerous to implement. Even if I gather 90% of all my scraps in one place in a designated bin (or bins) I will consider this a victory to start and worry about how to sort, group and utilize them later."

2023, 2024, 2025:

"consolidate/control scraps", "develop a system to consolidate and control"

My ineffective approach, which has been flopping for many years, is to put all the unused fabric leftover from a quilt in a ziplock bag. I have bins full of these bags, deluding myself into thinking I was organized.  Advice I'd read suggested that this practice was wise because the fabrics in each bag already coordinated amongst themselves, but... so what? I now have many bins of zip-locked bags taking up space. I needed a sustainable approach to deal with these scraps —  other than trashing them. For me to persevere, the method needed to be fun and inviting. Hence my pinwheel attempt.

One zip locked bag at a time, I am making the paired triangle trimmings up into pinwheels. So far I have gone through three bags: one for the previously shown baby quilt made in 2012, another for a monkey quilt made in May of 2014, and a third for a nautical quilt made in August 2014. By coincidence purely, the scraps from these three quilts lend themselves primarily to triangles and pinwheels. 

These green and white pinwheels are from a shamrock wall hanging I completed this year. It is unusual for me to deal with the scraps so soon. Ideally I should do it after each completed quilt, but usually I am bored with the fabrics by then. I'm finding it much better to procrastinate and sift through the old stuff, stirring up fond memories. I will not run out of "old stuff" to sift through for quite a while.

Of course there are other shapes other than triangles in the bags. The long narrow pieces I am gathering as strips to possible go into quilt blocks striped on the diagonal. The squares I am stacking and they may go into 4-patch or 9-patch or even 16-patch depending how many I accumulate. Odd shaped pieces are accumulated in a designated bag for dog bed stuffing. At this point I am doing no cutting to pre-determined sizes.

On low sewing mojo days, or on doldrum days between projects, I can boost my mood and jog some pleasant memories by zipping open a bag. Also, in this gradual approach, I am not trashing my sewing room all at once dragging out everything to process. With each bag I handle, I get to review and reminisce about the quilt that generated those scraps. It is far too soon to tell, but a good outcome would be having a bin for pinwheels, one for squares, one for strips, and one for orphan blocks. It is a start. Will I keep it up? Fingers crossed.

Saxophone Mesh Bag

My teenage granddaughter started playing the saxophone so I looked for saxophone fabric online, Once I found some, I ordered one yard, the minimum. It is not 100% cotton — I am so used to quilting fabric — but rather it is a cotton polyester blend, 54" wide, with a heavier weight and velvet feel. I decided to make her a mesh project bag with a pattern from byAnnie. The pattern Piecekeeper only calls for a fat quarter of the feature fabric, so I will need to be inspired as to what to do with the rest of the 54" wide yardage. I combined the saxophone fabric with a fat quarter in yellow for the lining, and a fat quarter in gray for the binding and handle. I also bought an embroidered saxophone patch just for fun. Here is my assembly journey in stages. All went smoothly; directions were excellent.

Back and Lining
The first step is to sandwich the feature fabric, a foam center, and the lining fabric and quilt the sandwich together. I decided to angle and space diagonal stitching lines to minimize crossing the saxophones. Serendipitously, the lines came out fairly evenly distributed. Initially, I marked the quilting lines with a white chalk pencil on the black, but they were very hard to see. I increased visibility by sticking tape ¼" away parallel to the lines and stitched beside it with my ¼" foot. I used black thread on the top and pale yellow thread on the underside. Here are the outside and lining views of the bag back. The edges have all been "sealed" by a stitching a line ⅛" from all four edges. The puffy look is appealing and not overdone.

The circles on the yellow fabric seem to echo the gray circles on the black. It reminds me of champagne music like used to be on The Lawrence Welk show and the song I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles. Now I really am dating myself! I googled if Lawrence Welk had saxophones in his band and learned... 

Yes, Lawrence Welk absolutely featured a strong saxophone section in his band, which was a core component of his "Champagne Music" sound. The reed section, often featuring five men, played saxophones and frequently doubled on clarinets, flutes, and piccolos.

Front, Zipper, and Mesh

Making a tweak to the pattern for the bag front, I widened the front band from 3" to 4" so more of the fussy cut saxophone fabric would show. Subsequently, I subtracted 1" from the mesh height to offset that extra 1" of the band. The yellow fabric lining for the band has iron on interfacing. I picked a yellow zipper to go with the yellow mesh.

Binding and Handle
The binding is cut on the bias. I usually cut my binding across width of fabric, but bias is necessary for navigating around the curved corners. The directions say not to press the binding in half prior to application. That tip is so true. The binding goes on more smoothly and the outer visible layer can be a tad wider than the inner concealed layer. I really should try this technique instead of my cross cut bindings. Hmmm, I wonder if bias binding would be problematic with mitered corners.

Here is the handle before attaching. The handle is also interfaced. I widened the fabric strip for the handle from 4" to 5" so that when folded in fourths, the 1¼" width would accommodate the embroidered saxophone patch. I made sure to clip the handle out of the way when adding the bias binding.

Completed Bag
Applying the gray bias binding was the last step. I took my time and used a stiletto to help when rounding the corners. It was slow but relatively easy going. The completed bag came out snazzy as well as jazzy. Here are views from the front and the back.

Pattern
At the byAnnie.com site the Piecekeeper pattern is only available in packs of 25. The pattern is one glossy sheet printed front and back. I suspect quilt shops buy them in bulk and offer one with fabric as a promotional item. That is how I got my first copy, as part of a bundle of three coordinating fat quarters to make the project bag. But individual copies can be found for sale on Etsy. That is where I had to go when I could not locate my original copy, though I had made many projects bags from it. I made twelve of these bags in 2021: seven in my post for 4/9/21, four in my post for 6/6/21, and one in my post for 6/15/21. Just this year I made a Rainbow Brite themed one for my daughter (saxophone player's mother) seen in my post for 2/19/26. They really are fun and make good gifts. Maybe I will make one for myself; I have not yet.

March Shamrocks and Irish Chains Completed

In my previous post I compared a kit option versus using my own fabric selection coupled with a pdf pattern. Loss of flexibility in design freedom is offset by the convenience of a kit. Once the top is assembled, however, this distinction vanishes when it comes to the FMQ. Here is how I FMQ'd the featured blocks and the sashing and borders that surround them on the Shabby Fabrics Pieceful Patchwork banner for March.

SHAMROCKS
I did nested hearts internal on each of the three leaves using the 5" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 2 Set of 3  and the 2½" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 1 Set of 3. I put scallops along the stem, using my HandiQuilter Mini Scallop Ruler. The leaves still looked a bit naked so I added scallops also along their perimeter. I struggled with what to do with the background and decided on stippling. I do not so well with stippling, so I guess that means I could use the practice. The areas surrounding the shamrock were small enough, so I gave it a try in those triangular spaces, and it worked out OK.

IRISH CHAINS
I used the 3" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 2 Set of 3 template for the four lobes of the diamond. To echo the concept of Irish Chains, I used the outer diameter of the 4"circle from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Circle Set of 5 templates to make the arcs of my chain smooth on the two diagonals. In the background area I did parallel lines to echo the shape of the diamond using my Angela Walters Slim straight ruler.

BORDERS and SASHING
Initially I was going to put scallops in the border as I had in the shamrock blocks but scallops seemed on too small a scale for the space. Instead, I stitched two rows of half circles with the 1.5" side of my HandiQuilter Multi-Clamshell ruler, the smallest side. Collecting rulers from different brands, I appreciate that Angela Walters and Amanda Murphy rulers have both white and black markings. I do wish HandiQuilter would adopt this design. It really does promote better visibility.  

In the sashing, I really wanted those leprechaun eyes to peek out, so I free-hand stitched straight lines under each pair of eyes and no where else in the sashing. For the horizontal sashing I waved the lines a bit to look like an undulated water surface in case the little green guys were hiding in a pond, or wavy like mild hilly terrain, in case the leprechauns were tucked behind mounds of dirt.

BACKING
For the backing I had one yard of a bold lime green and white stripe that I had been saving to use in some clever diagonally mitered situation ... an opportunity that never seemed to arise. I repurposed the stripe for a happy backing. even cutting is crosswise for the hanging sleeve. I used my domestic Pfaff to  machine embroider my usual labels on grosgrain ribbon. This time, however, the unimaginative —  but accurate — name was so long, I needed to use two length of ribbon to make it. In retrospect, I should have named the banner something shorter and more clever, like Leprechaun Levity for example. But staying with the custom of the other banners, it stayed at Shamrocks and Irish Chains. The label with my initials, the year, and intended month for the banner is in one lower corner. The label with the quilt name is in the the lower corner.

COMPLETED BANNER
I have a spot right next to the entrance to my sewing room where I can easily trade out a banner each month. Here is the March banner Shamrocks and Irish Chains displayed. I am going to keep it up for a while since the April banner stole some of its time in March. I am all set to be in sync for May and June, though, since those banners are already completed.

Here are my completions thus far for this series from Shabby Fabrics.

• JAN    Snowmen and Snowflakes (2/10/26)
• MAR  Shamrocks and Irish Chains (4/6/26 this post)
• APR   Bunnies and Carrots (3/6/26)
• MAY   Roses and Pansies (9/11/25)
• JUN    Strawberries (9/6/25)
• AUG    Bees and Sunflowers (9/21/25)

I still have six yet to start: February (a pdf not a kit), July, September, October, November, December. I may not do them in month order, but rather in the order of which colors I am in the mood for. Sometimes, with my quilting, I am more productive if I listen to my heart, rather than my mind.

March Shamrocks and Irish Chains

Instead of a kit from Shabby Fabrics' Pieceful Patchwork Banner for March, I bought a pdf for the pattern. "I have plenty of greens," I told myself. "I can pull and use up some of my own fabrics." Well that I did, and what chaos I created in my sewing room trying to get nine different greens as called for in the pattern. Yes, I did have that many greens, but none were the correct "emerald" green illustrated in the pattern cover and associated with St. Patrick's Day. Some were too olive, and some were too yellow, and some had non-subtle prints that did not read like a solid. I did cave and pick up three fat quarters from my local quilt shop In Between Stitches to fill in my "emerald" green gap. 

This is the set of colors I was trying to imitate followed by a photo of the nine greens I did decide upon. I decided that a pure green hue, my shamrocks (colors 1 thru 5) could have a dash of yellow and be more lime and the Irish chain blocks (colors 6 thru 9) could have a dash of blue and be more teal.

I had to choose my background fabric and, although I could have chosen white, I wanted something with a bit more interest. I considered a white with tiny navy dots, an ecru subtle stripe with green eyes peeping out, or a soft ecru with subtle same-size-but-random dots. I really like the eyes fabric. I remembering buying it in Cinnamon's Quilt Shoppe in Jacksonville, FL during a Country Heritage Tour in March of 2019 as one selection in a fat quarter bundle with an alligator theme. Put in an Irish banner they would become leprechaun eyes in my imagination. I decided against them as the background because with the flipped corner triangles, the orientation would be in different directions and pretty hard to control. To be logical and make it easy on myself, I chose the subtle dots as the background. I still "eyed" those green eyes with longing though.

After sewing three four patches for each of the two shamrocks, I "rounded" each leaf with corner flip triangles of my background subtle ecru dots. A completed shamrock is the last in the following trio of photos.

I took no in-progress photos of the Irish Chain block, but here a closeup of an assembled one is shown in the second of the following pair of photos. The Irish chain block is made up of five four-patch blocks and four two-tone blocks that look like picket fence posts.

There was still some fussy cutting in this banner's future. I decided that the sashing between the blocks could still be the eyes of the leprechauns hiding amidst the shamrocks. I cut the sashing on the straight of grain or across the grain so all eyes faced the same way. I did cut all the tile-like print outer border on the straight of grain, and I centered each  petal image along the border strip. 

My fabric selection for the binding was a solid teal, referencing back to the solid teal of the Irish chain blocks, but I did not have enough of it. I seamed it lengthwise with the second color hidden within the binding and made it work. To make the binding 2½" wide I joined a 1¾" strip of teal with a 1¼" strip of another green. Calculation: 1¾" + 1¼" - ¼" - ¼" = 2½". In the following photo the upper image of the seamed binding is shown from the inside, before folding in half. In the middle image, the folded binding is shown from the back, which will be concealed inside the binding when attached to the quilt. In the bottom image the teal binding is shown as it will look before sewing to the quilt.

All these decisions took time. When I mull things over I am not very speedy about it. After March's experience with a pdf pattern using my own fabric selections, I appreciate even more the convenience of a kit. Also, kits generate fewer scraps. I now have quite a few partial fat quarters in the green family because I used only a fraction of each one. Do these go in my fat quarter drawers to frustrate me in the future when I think I have a fat quarter but a chunk is cut out of it? Or do these go into oblivion in my scrap bins? Ah, more decisions even once the top is constructed!

Next up is sandwiching, quilting, labeling, binding, and adding a hanging sleeve. Stay tuned for the completion blog post.

Chilly the Wooble Frog

Today I finished the Wooble named Chill-lieve in Yourself along with his Tiny Buckle Backpack. My ten-year old Grandson in Oklahoma loves these little critters and puts in his requests for Grandma to make them for him. This is the fourth in his collection after Strawberry the Axolotl (post for 1/22/24), Creeper (post for 10/15/25), and VAN (post for 2/6/26). The main body generally works up very quickly and then I stall and procrastinate making the appendages or accessories. This time I moved right ahead to do the belly and eyes on the frog.  He came out amusing and huggable. The backpack is tiny and easy, but fussy to do. After the bright turquoise and rich gold, the dull gray and black color combination was uninspiring. I dragged my feet to complete the Tiny Buckle Backpack. Once I started it, though, it was no big deal at all. I kicked my self for delaying — yes, kicked myself with those very same feet I had been dragging. Here are the frog and his accessory completed. They are both incredibly adorable.

The Chill-lieve in Yourself Bundle came in a series of packages. I worked from a tray to keep all the components organized and together. The illustrative teaching videos are excellent. I am right-handed but it is good to know that there is a left-handed learning option as well. For those with enough crochet background, there is a straight text pattern option to follow also, so your pace is not constrained to video speed. Though, as a perk, the videos themselves have selectable speed options. Another feature to be praised about these Woobles is their customer service.  I had trouble locating the directions for the backpack. I did not know that they were separate from the frog itself and needed a different designated password. I texted the customer service number provided in the kit; within an hour I got a reply! After a couple of exchanges over the next two hours, my issue was completely resolved. I was given a password to move forward, and I went merrily on my crocheting way. This occurred on a late Saturday evening — now that's service!

Here is the promotional photo for advertising the completed project on the left, next to my own version of Chilly on the right. The stitches attaching the belly look different, so I either misread the directions or the video described a technique for attachment other than the photo. When you cook up a recipe, it is alway gratifying if your creation looks like the picture. The same is true of needlecraft. Close enough and still cute... I am pleased. I also strongly believe Isaiah will love them.

Walker Bag

When you are between projects and you need inspiration to renew your sew mojo, sometimes a short project is just the trick. I made a bag for a friend's walker using the free online pattern available from Spruce Crafts. After quickly skimming it, it seemed to me that it would be straightforward. I downloaded the pattern to a pdf  so I could print out just what I wanted. Before beginning, I read through the pattern first, and was confused. After scratching my head for a bit, I figured out that the file had advertisements superimposed on parts of the directions, so my printout was incomplete. Once I went back to the source, and read about those "missing" steps, all was well and the pattern was accurate and straightforward.

Since I had a sufficient amount of the gray/white/blue fabric I opted that the lining be the same as the main body. I added little notes on the cut out pieces so I could distinguish when the directions referred to lining or body. The photo with the directions used a contrasting fabric for the pockets and they show up well. Since I did not do that I added the blue ribbon to make it more obvious where the pocket edges would be for inserting stuff. The front and back of the body has different width and varying depth pockets to accommodated varied sized things such as a cell phone, a pen/pencil, or ear buds.

If I had it to do over, I would have made the top tabs and side ties ties custom-sized for a particular walker. As it was, they were extra long to provide versatility. Given their extra length, I would have also put longer strips of Velcro so the tabs and ties could have been configured in a shorter way with more overlap. Overall, this was a satisfying, quick project that came out well.