Current works in progress

I've been working on several things at once recently, and keep forgetting to write about it!  For one, I have had a couple of special orders from a new customer, and that always takes priority over things I'm doing for fun.  Got the second one in the mail this morning, so I'm clearing the deck to return to other things.
Another side trip - I do blog visits first thing each morning after I feed the cats and while I'm having my first couple of cups of coffee or cocoa... recently, Deb Lacativa posted about dyeing embroidery floss here and it finally inspired me to get off my duff and give it a try... dug through my tangled mess of floss and pulled out a bunch of white or ecru floss, and dug into my stash of dyes to play:

Here are the first 2 - I've already used some on a project where I'm embellishing a batik fabric:

I've done more on this piece since I took these pictures, but figured I would get it done before I take more.... the swirl at the lower left is done with the yellow/orange/red variegated thread, and the small circle to the right of the swirl is outlined with  some of the blue/green.

Another project I have been working on is a piece I'm calling "Snippets and Scribbles"

I used scraps I accumulated from other projects and just made an abstract composition with them.  Normally, I would have fused them onto a foundation, but I decided to stitch them down this time.  I have used free-motion stitching to attach and do some quilting.  Now I'm looking at how I can use some of my hand dyed floss to add embellishments.  These 2 pieces are quite different for me - I generally do landscape quilts, but since my theme this year is "PLAY", that's what I'm trying to do!  And you know what?  I'm having lots of fun!  More to come...