Journey to Nebula

I am so happy that I will be making projects with my Tula Pink Collection and Jaybird Rulers. The Projects start in September and go through December. Then the Nebula Block a Month starts in January 2021 

I'm really that I will be learning how to use these fancy Jaybird rulers as I bought the super Jaybird Sidekick and fabric a few years back to make the one block wonder quilt for my sister and was to chicken to try and use it. I somehow had missed the opportunity to take the class.

I have built up quite a little stash of Tula Pink fabrics over the past few years after I first noticed them in a cute little fabric store in Plant City, FL called Inspire Quilting. I also picked up some in Lakeland at Fabric Warehouse, along with gathering a few from online stores in Etsy. I just love the vibrant colors of Tula Pink.

A New Year, a new Me, A different Blog

It's been almost 3 years since I last wrote anything for my Blog. I have tried to keep my personal life out this and only write about the crafts and such that I enjoy and keep me happy. It's been 2 years come May 25th that I had open heart surgery. My problems had started almost a year before, I even went to the ER and checked out of the ER AMA (against medical advice). Me being the stubborn person that I am chose to ignore the symptoms. It caught up to me just over a year later.  I was tired all the time, had no energy and sometimes I felt like my heart was straining to beat.
So…I went to my doctor who did three EKGs. He didn’t like the looks of either of them and sent me to the ER.  No, I didn’t have a heart attack which was good. A Cardiac Heart Cath done the next morning showed that I had a 95% blocked main artery that was blocking two of the three arteries that supply the heart with blood. I had a widow maker. Scary huh? Yes, but for some reason I was very calm when told this. The next day I had surgery. I ended up with what is known as a CABGx2 (pronounced cabbage). It was a rough few days, weeks and months. It’s also been hard these past two years. I still have good days and bad days as I also have other health issues.
The main reason I wanted to put this in my blog is because Heart Disease is the number 1 killer of women. Most of the times our symptoms present differently than men’s. Doctors don’t always take us seriously when we complain about chest pain or numbness in our arm, or even back pain.  (Oh, it’s just gas or a strain).  We as women are always so busy taking care of our families that we don’t stop to take care of ourselves or listen to our bodies. So, please if you notice that you aren’t your normal cheerful or bitchy self, just pop in to your doctor’s office and tell them you want your BP checked. And don’t balk if they say to go to the ER and have it checked out. Just do it. It may be nothing, but then again it could save your life.

365 Quilty Group

I have joined a group on FB and the challenge is to do one circle block a day for 365 days to make a quilt. It's been one month and everyone seems to be staying on track. SS is making square rounds and the initials of her loved ones, HB has started adding yoyo's to her grouping. CS has added fishes of the sea, JS is doing black and white, and SG is using a red background. I am using white on white, white on cream and tans as my backgrounds. I just started doing reverse applique this month. It's definitely different. I think I am really going to enjoy doing this as there will be a group of us keeping each other on track. You should be able to see my progress in my Flickr album. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sewripandsewagain/

HEXIE TO GO BAG!!!!

Well, for some reason I can't for the life of me think why I haven't written about making this wonderful bag before now.   Last year I was in an ornament swap for Christmas, but I decided that I wanted to do something a little special for the friend I was sending to. I had found this wonderful instructional tutorial over on The Zen of Making  on making hexagons and this adorable bag to carry them in.

This is the one I sent my friend. From what I understand she loves it and takes it with her traveling.

I got to thinking a while back, that I could use one of these to carry with me to the hospital and all doctors offices I seem to be waiting a lot in lately. Last year I started making the Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. It seemed everything I carried was to bulky, to small, to open and everything would fall out.  So here is the one I made for myself. 

I really love these colors. I used them as one of my blocks and for a block swap that I'm also in. 

I kind of went all out on this one for me.
I painted the altoid tins to match, made a scissor
case and needle book too.

Here you can see the items I have chosen to put
in the tins.

And yes everything fits nicely inside for traveling and fits neatly in my carry all bag.

Tiffany

I have a new vintage machine that I found on CL a few months ago. Her date of birth is Jan 20, 1926. She was really dirty and in a really ugly carrying case. I have since cleaned her up and changed her motor out. I took the motor and foot pedal from Granny the 66 and put it on the Tiffany. I took the 66 out of the Sears cabinet and put in the Tiffany 15-30. This is the before picture. 

Here she is after being all cleaned. Wow! There was tons of nicotine and crud on her. Her decals are beautiful and multi-colored not just gold. I used to want a 66 Red-Eye, but I think this machine is so much prettier. The motor I changed out is super quiet too.  I had to chip out a small area for the slide plate to slide away to access the bobbin area. Since this picture I have stained the area to match better. Some day I hope to find the perfect treadle table for Tiffany that will do her justice.

Kennie and Mr. Kenmore

What? More machines? You say?  Yes... I have quite a few more. It seems that I have started a small collection of sewing machines. Do I use them all? Well, currently I am not using them all. I am trying to rotate them through and use them after they have a good cleaning and oiling. 

Kennie, My first Love...I got him brand new in the middle 70's, either 75 or 76, I don't quite remember. It might have been our first Christmas together ( my first husband and me) The Kenmore, as I always called it is Model no. 158.19410  DOB 1975  freearm and heavy as the dickens. It still has it's original plastic case that was bought at the same time as the machine. It has feet galore. I would go to our little Sears store just to see what kind had come in. I bought every one that I could find and afford at that time, walking foot included. I made everything on this machine for many many years. Clothes for me, maternity wear. Clothes for my children. Toys, curtains, a bridal gown, baby blankets, any thing I could think of. He has been passed around to be used by different members of my family, but he always comes back to me. He was my first and I'll never ever let him go. He still sews as well as the first day I brought him home.

Mr. Kenmore, now this is a machine. See the pictures below. Sear Best Kenmore it's called, Model no. 158.19142  and DOB 1976/77.  He is also a freearm. I never knew this machine existed until one day I was looking through Craigs List. $45.00 was all the lady wanted. It had belonged to her mother. I had to drive to Pinellas Park to pick him up. I missed the exit and got lost . I ended up in St. Petersburg. lol I finally found my way to lady's house I brought Mr Kenmore to his new home. There were three large boxes of accessories and attachments that came with the machine. It looked like most of the accessories had never been out of the box, much less been used. He does need a little bit of TLC. I cleaned him up and he sits on top of the Kenmore cabinet with a Singer in it. Unfortunately he won't be able to sit in the Kenmore cabinet. Here is Mr. Kenmore, he takes cams and does monograms. Isn't that cool? I have really got to take the time to get him up and running. So he can be put into the rotation to be used. 

  

Just look at all those built in stitches, plus cams, monograms and buttonholes. This is one awesome 70's machine.

Look at those accessories and feet. I am in love with all of them.

Oh and by the way there are a few more machines to come. ;)

Treadle Quilters Quilt-A-Long

I have joined a group on Facebook called "Treadle Quilters" They are doing a mystery BOM. One has to make the blocks on a treadle or a handcrank machine. I have both, but I chose to use this machine as I am using Civil War Reproduction fabrics. I plan on this to be a quilt for my son and his wife.  They are into doing Civil War Re-enactments. This is January's block. I made two so that the quilt will be big enough to fit their bed. This will be more a scrappy style quilt using many different fabrics. It will also be a type of sampler quilt too as each month the blocks will be different.

For now I am piecing this quilt on my "New Domestic Treadle". I bought it last spring while visiting my sister in Darien, GA and brought it home with me. It took me all summer and fall to get her cleaned and up and running. She has a beautiful stitch.

This is what she looked like when I purchased her.

 Here she is in my sewing room plus two extra drawers that I found on eBay. Isn't she just  as lovely as she can be?  She has been given the name "Dominique"

.  

My Beautiful Singers

It's time for me to start blogging again.  So sorry, I know I haven't been here writing in quite some time. I guess you could say that I have been lost in lala land for a while. I have Fibromyalgia and sometimes I get what is known as fibro fog. It really is a pain as it keeps your brain in a fog to the point that it makes it difficult to think or concentrate on any one thing for very long, plus it makes remembering things a real pain too.

I thought I would share a few of the machines that I have acquired over the past two years. 

I will start with the Singers.This a beautiful 1927 99K hand crank  that I got from a friend. It has a lot of history behind it, meaning the lady that previously owned this wonderful machine used it for 20+ years during Civil War Re-enacting. After cleaning her up really well and redoing the case she is just beautiful and stitches really well. Those are ruffles I made using the ruffler foot that came with her. I have named her Robin.

This is my baby. Yes she's a  1949 Feather Weight 221-1 something I have wanted for 30 years and never had the opportunity to purchase. Onyx came to live at my house two years ago. I really didn't have to do much to her, just give her a good polish. I did however refurbish her case that came with her.

This my dear friends is LaLa a 1926 128 LaVencedora a 3/4 machine. When I got her she was in terrible shape and her motor no longer ran. 

I cleaned her up and put a hand crank on for a little while.

Here she is all shined up and pretty.

I am so proud of her now. Isn't she a beauty to behold?  Plus she sews a beautiful stitch too.

This is Granny a 66 Godzilla / Crinkle finish born in 1952. I used to think she belonged to my grandmother, but she did not. I currently don't have her set up to be used. Maybe this summer or next I will get to working on her and cleaning her up so she can join the herd.

Decisions, Decisions

Decisions, decisions. What to do and how to do it?

I have been doing some rearranging in my sewing room. I just couldn't "see" the fabric that I have because it is all in tubs and plastic drawers. I have decided to take some of it out and put on shelves so I can see it. I am trying to come up with a way to organize the bits and pieces so I can use them in a quilt.

I have been searching pinterest and the internet sites and really just haven't come up with a really good solution to my problem. I have a 5 ft tall metal shelving unit that is full of books that I really don't need any more. I am thinking of putting them on etsy or ebay. What do you guys think?

I read where a lady bought the cardboard for comics to wrap her fabric around. Since I am trying to be very frugal and use what I have or not spend much money, I went to the USPS and picked up a few of their large priority boxes. Once cut where all the folds are they are the perfect size for wrapping up my yardage fabrics with no waste of the box. I guess if you want you could go through the dumpsters or ask at the stores when they are emptying boxes. I found it was to cumbersome and difficult the get the sizes I wanted. Plus I spent a lot of time cutting and not doing what I wanted to do,  organize.

A couple of years ago I went through a bunch of my patterns that no longer came close to fitting me. Some of them were 70's style and vintage 50's that I had aquired. I met this young lady that liked vintage style clothes so I gave her all those patterns. I did keep about 3 or 4 that were Vogue and designers. I have all the patterns I left organized in almost perfect fit plastic stackable drawers. It makes it very convenient to find a pattern. The only problem here is I can't get to them because of the tubs of fabric that I have collected over the years are in front of them. Some of the fabric is clothing that I wanted to make something out of long ago and don't remember what now. What should I do with it? Keep it, donate it? I'm sure most of you know how hard it is to let go of your stash. I also have some vintage fabric (pieces) I got from a friend and I'm not sure what I want to do with them either.

I welcome your help and ideas, any suggestions or tips ya'll would like to leave would be a great help.

Still Ripping!

Oh my GOSH! I am still ripping. I got the quilt sewn back together and what I felt was squared up to the best of my ability. I worked very hard to make sure that all the layers were nice and flat, no wrinkles. Then pin pin pin. Marked the center quilting area in a diagonal pattern with a yard stick, ruler and chalk. Quilting that went really well and fairly easy. Surprise!

Ugh, then I started on sewing around the borders. I "thought " I had done a pretty good job until I started doing the FM stars and loops on the larger outer boarder. My border started to lump. Take it out of the machine and look at the back. I couldn't believe what I saw. Wrinkles and lumps everywhere from sewing around the borders. So I ripped and ripped. Put it back on the board and stretched it as best as I could. This time I used spray glue. I love this stuff. I used it on Tyler's quilt with no pins whatsoever. I had minimum wrinkles to adjust while quilting it.

Using the spray glue for basting worked. I got around the borders with minimum wrinkling underneath. So I am now ready to get back to FM on the large border. So...what do you think?  I space out the stars with a ruler, then freehand them with chalk.  Do the swirls and loops up  to the star and very carefully do the star, come back the beginning and work my loops over to the other side of the star and on to the next star. I actually think it worked out pretty good, so far.

The Alphabet Walk

2012 Handmade Christmas

I thought this was a cute game my DIL and granddaughter made up for the fabric alphabet letters I had made for Christmas. I hope these will help her learn her letters easily. I read something the other day about the children knowing the large alphabet when they got to preschool but not knowing the small ones. So, I think I need to get started now with the small letters for next year so she will be ahead of the game.

 These are made with fabric, fleece, sewn around the edges and can be thrown in the washer when dirty. I found similar sets on Etsy costing mega bucks $30-$50. Making them is somewhat time consuming. So I can really understand why they cost so much.

I was waiting to publish this until I had a little more to write about. But, my brain isn't thinking clearly lately. So, on with the blog.

Rip, Rip, Sew, Rip

Rip, Rip, Sew, Rip. That's what I've been doing for days now. After deciding to remove the outside border of the "Buckaroo Stars" quilt and measuring it, I found that I needed to remove all the borders surrounding the main part of the quilt. I measured everything that I could possibly be measure so when I got ready to start adding the borders back on it would all match and be even.

Rhea's quilt in pieces. If she saw this she would probably call me nuts.

I did remember when I had originally made this quilt I had made it unusually long for a queen size quilt. I took off two rows of blocks. In doing so I ended up removing two of the stars. I had to remove two squares in different places to put the two stars back in the quilt.  My original goal when starting this quilt was to have fifty stars representing all 50 states in the quilt which meant I had to add about 30 more stars to the original pattern. While the quilt is in pieces, I noticed that I had accidentally put some of the same squares right next to each other. Something I hadn't notice before. I have taken the time to remove those pieces and replace them with other squares. It is slowly coming back together and looking like a quilt should.

While visiting another quilter's website http://lalaslovelys.blogspot.ca/  I saw the back of Lala's Lovely quilt back. It looked so neat and pretty I thought at first it was the front of the quilt.  I looked at mine and decided that I had better do some trimming of some threads and press it.  OK a lot of the threads. Not as good as hers but it does look better than it did.

Tools of the Trade- Starch

I have decided to write a couple of posts about the tools we as sewers use most often and those that make our sewing lives much easier. Today we have more tools and gadgets to use during sewing than those of our parents or even when some us began in the 60's.

Starch. Do you use starch during your sewing or quilting? I have only just started using starch since I have started quilting. I rarely if ever used it while making clothing or other projects like stuffed animals or dolls. I am not a starch person. It's just one more step I like to avoid so I can keep on sewing.

I am most familiar with canned spray starch. My mother bought Faultless, Niagara, EasyOn what ever was on sale. I grew up using spray starch on clothing after they were washed and dried before permanent press and everyone had a dryer in their home. I even remember ironing my dad's undershirts for work, but I digress. I have found that with canned spray starch it leaves a glossy residue on my cotton fabric and eventually gums up the iron. It doesn't seem to matter as to which brand you use they all seem to gum up the nozzle so it doesn't always spray in a nice even spray but instead squirts out a big mess or foams up all over the can even if the nozzle has been cleaned with hot water. The cost varies from .97 to $1.50 per 20oz can depending on where you by it. While writing this I have also found out Niagara has a non aerosol bottle brand. Might look into it sometime. Next in line is powder starch.

I remembered my grandmother using starch from a bottle. You know the type it's in the coke bottle with an aluminum shaker and cork stopper. It sits in the frig until ready to use. After sprinkling the clothes, she would wrap up the clothes and put them in a plastic bag in the frig to be ironed at a later date. I believe she mixed the starch herself. I found out from a past pick up and delivery job I had several years ago that dry cleaners use 25 lb bags of powdered starch. I have no clue as to how it was mixed and used. I searched the local grocery stores and found Argo Starch a powdered starch that you could mix either by cooking it or mixing it with hot water. I tried the cooked method first figuring the starch would dissolve better in boiling water. I ended up with a rather thick paste that I diluted down and put in a spray bottle and the rest in the frig. It can be diluted to not be so heavy a starch.  I found that it spoils quicker than I was using it as I never returned the bottle to the frig after using it. I tried the hot water method and found that I had to shake it up really really well before using. This method still left shiny spots on my fabric. When looking at the box closer it actually says it's "glossy". I believe this is also the starch she used on her crochet to make the really pretty hats and baskets that sat on the dressers or tables. The cost of this box is about $1.80.

I found Mary Ellen's Best Press non-aerosol spray starch @ 7.95 for a 16 oz bottle. She has several scents to chose from. I chose the unscented brand as everything these days has some kind of fragrance added to it. Sometimes all those smells can be nose numbing and give those of us that are scent sensitive headaches. I like her starch. In fact I have bought it twice. I like it, but geesh it is expensive if you use it liberally and I like to use it liberally. The shiny spots are also minimal and my 15 y/o Rowenta didn't get gummed up as much. I did find that the fabric just wasn't has stiff as I would have liked it to be.

Last on the list of starches and my favorite I have used thus far is Sta-Flo liquid concentrate at $2.92 for a 64 oz bottle. I found this very easy to mix and pour into a non-aerosol bottle. If I want a really stiff piece of fabric I can add just a little more to the bottle. So far the only real problem I have found is the spray bottle I use does not have as fine a spray as I would like. So I end up having areas with no spray on it. Once I have sprayed the spots I missed I let it sit for about two or three minutes. This allows for the starch to soak in to the fabric. I iron my 100% pieces of cotton on high with no steam on the back. That way if I should get some shiny spots or flaking it won't be on the finished side of the fabric. I should mention that since I allow the fabric to sit and soak in the starch I have very little residue left on my fabric or my iron. Which is good because it saves me from having to clean my iron when I am really busy pressing and sewing.

ARRRRGH! The Perils of a Beginner Quilter

No, I'm not pretending to be a pirate, even though Gasparilla was held in Tampa this past weekend and the pirates invaded the city.  My arrrrgh! is because I have to do some ripping. No, a lot of ripping. I layered and pinned my daughter's quilt top this past weekend. I kept coming up with one side that just wouldn't lay properly. So...I ripped out the side and sewed it back up again. I thought maybe it was out of whack because I had stitched the length of grain of the border on the bottom and the stretchier squares on top so it made the side shorter. Nope...that didn't work.

I decided to measure both sides of the top. It is almost 1.5 in longer on one side than it is on the other. Then I started counting squares to make sure I had the same amount on both sides... why wouldn't I?  Duh... but, these squares are on the outside of the first border that goes around the quilt. Apparently since this was my first quilt I have made I added 1/2 a block to one side to make it "even". Yeah, I did. Who would do such a thing without measuring first? I guess me.

This quilt was from a book that I had bought. The original pattern called for it to be square. My daughter wanted it to fit her queen size bed in her spare room. So I decided to tackle my very first quilt. My mistake was in thinking that making a quilt was the same process as making a dress or pants. You can fudge on a sewing pattern, add piece here, if it's to short, take some away if it's to long. Not so with quilting. You really do have to use quarter inch seams. You can't fudge on them and take a little here or leave a little there. It screws with the consistency of the quilt pattern. Apparently so much that I added half a square to make the seams meet. HA.

Good thing I didn't send this off to be quilted by a professional. First off I think she would have sent it back because it was full of threads. Nope, I didn't trim off all or any of the threads. What was I thinking? I guess I wasn't. Boy would she have gone nuts trying to get the quilt to lie straight for the long arm. She would have definitely  sent it back then. I am hoping it won't take me more than a week to get it straightened out so I can get started on getting it quilted. I know my daughter is anxiously awaiting it's return so she can finish decorating her spare room.

My First Block Swap

Back in December I joined my first ever block swap. Not long ago I signed up for Strip piecing blah blah... You give it the measurement you want and the length of the fabric and it tells you how much to buy and how many strips to cut. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. There are no instructions that tell you what order to sew the squares and triangles. This was to be my first time making something with triangles. As you have seen my past three quilts are all squares or rectangles.

I had this really pretty blue fabric that I have had for several years. It was supposed to be the lining of a blue velveteen vest, but I changed my mind. Anyway back to my squares. I picked out what I thought might look like a snowflake.

As you can see the concept was a pretty good idea. My problem was I had no clue how to put this together and keep it square. The first time I sewed the four large triangles together to make a square. The I sewed the the white triangles to the blue square only to realize there was no way I was going to get it put together in the order I was sewing it. Needless to say I gave up on the above square. After playing around with the triangles a day or so I came up with the square below. But, as you can see in the top square things just don't match up like I would like them to.

I eventually settled on the block below. It's not the Friendship Block that I started with and it doesn't look like a snowflake, but I think I did a fair job of getting my points to be points and the square to be square. It is about 10 in.that should give everyone some leeway at cutting the square to 9 1/2 in.

I am getting excited to see what everyone else has made. I am thinking this will make a nice winter snuggle quilt to use during the winter months. Only in Florida do we rarely have anything below 40F.

New Ideas

Good evening, it's been over a month since I last blogged. Sometimes life intervenes and other things are more important. Given that, here goes...

I think I might have mentioned that my daughter gave me back her quilt top that I had made last year so I could quilt it. After quilting my grandson's quilt, I felt more confidant that I would be able to machine quilt her top.

I have this really huge ironing board that I made several years ago, so I placed some light weight luan paneling on it to clip the quilt so I could pin it together. To get a better idea here are a couple of pictures of how I used my large ironing board to layer and pin my quilt.

 Doing it this way I don't have to crawl around on the floor and tape my quilt so I can pin it. It also saves my back.Tyler's quilt was a little smaller and I just laid it across the bed and spray basted. While sewing the basting spray gummed the needle a little bit but it didn't take much to clean it off and keep sewing.

How the board is attached to the ironing

board.

This is what the ironing board looks like when I was ironing the back of the quilt. As you can tell I am really tight quarters. I eventually plan to remove the computer

desk to someplace else in the house and having more room.

This is the luan that I got from the Lowe's. It's really thin. That way the clips will fit the quilt layers and the board. Also another reason for the luan is the wood layer adds the firmness that one would get if the quilt were taped to the floor. I read that one lady taped her quilt to the wall. The wood on the ironing board is 3/8 in thick plus the layers of padding added for ironing. I would have had some difficulty in pinning the quilt. I would probably pinned the quilt to the ironing board.

I think I should have bought it as one big piece and had it cut to fit. I would like for it to have been about 5 or 6 inches deeper so it would have hung over all four sides and I wouldn't have had to keep sliding it back. It is the same width 24in as the ironing board itself. The ironing board is 60 in long. Much longer than that and it would be more difficult to handle than it is. When it's not being used with the cutting mat ,ironing or used as a cutting table it folds up neatly and stores in the closet. Out of the way. C-clamps hold the main frame to the ironing board. I have a very small bedroom which is used as a craft, sewing and bedroom.  I have another iron and ironing board in the bedroom that I use for regular laundry.

I have heard that necessity is the mother of invention. Maybe this is true. I bought two packages of the medium size basting pins. I'm glad I bought that size because I ran out and had to use the small ones I had that I had bought many years ago. Gosh! those things hurt your fingers while pinning them, which means they will hurt too when taking them out. Any way.... I ran out of basting pins altogether. Now what am I suppose to do?

Pinmoor 50 pk for 21.99

 I found these awhile back on the internet a while back and thought that this is a really cool idea. I have searched the hardware and craft stores to come up with something similar to use with the pins I have and not cost a small fortune. I've even thought of buying cheap toy erasers at the dollar store and trying them. I like cool tools to use in sewing and crafting especially those that you can create yourself and not cost a fortune.  I'd rather spend my money on fabric and other fun stuff, like patterns, books,etc... You get the idea.

After seeing the Pinmoor pins I came up with my own idea at the spur of the moment so I could finish pinning my quilt.

 No it's not food. It's corks from wine bottles. What do you use your leftover corks for?

Make sure you have a very sharp knife, be careful. Start the slice then roll it to finish the cut.
Then all that's left is to cut into quarters. I throw away the one that split because of
the corkscrew hole.

Do you drink wine and throw the corks in the draw? I do, I don't why, I just do. Not long ago I through away about 30 corks about 5 or 6 years worth of corks. Nope I don't drink wine every night. Although there are times I think I should.
Ha ha. :)

Since I remembered having seen the pinmoor pins I had this really cool idea to slice up some of the corks, quarter them and use them on my pins. WhaLa! It worked just perfect and didn't cost me anything but time. OH, have I mentioned  I like purple?  I got the purple clippies at Staples and I have several of their tiny purple storage boxes to keep the clippies in. I even have some purple binder.

Two bags of the clippies were plenty to clip the fabric to the boards.

I always have a hard time starting and ending my blogs. I am not an elegant writer like most of the blogs I read.

The Holiday Season

It's been almost a month since I have written anything or posted pictures of my projects. This is the time of year that my depression really kicks in worse than any other time of the year. This year I have tried to do everything in my power to not go into such a deep depression as in years past. I have been trying to keep busy doing something, anything.


 I made Christmas ornaments this year.
These photos don't do them any justice. They really turned out a lot cuter. I use toilet paper tubes to hold the ornaments after I paint them and I use soda bottle caps to hold the flat painted items off the surface of the table. Here is the link for the cute little Santa stars only I used wood cutouts instead of the heavy plaster ones. Star Santa Ornament and the Snowman ornament Textured Glass Snowman Ornaments . I also made some cute little glitter and mod podge bluebirds from some little wood cut outs I bought last year.

I also made some presents for my grand children. I found these cute I spy bags online and decided to make 4 of them. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of them. They really did turn out cute. This is the link where I found the original idea HomeSpunThreads: Eye Spy Bag Tutorial (a year in the making)

Here are the cute alphabet letters I made for the girls. I also made a small bag to put the letters in. I saw these on Etsy ranging in price from $25 to $40. Just type in "fabric alphabet." If you're not to sure you can do them yourself.  I found they were pretty easy to make. I used my word perfect program to find the type of alphabet I wanted and enlarged them to the size I thought they should be. I used fat quarters that I had on hand and ironed on fleece between the layers before sewing and cutting out. I also used a fat quarter to make the bag.

I got all my presents wrapped and mailed out yesterday. At least this year I got everything sent out to their appointed destinations in time for Christmas.

I realize it's probably early, but I am already starting to look for new Christmas ornament ideas for next year. Thank goodness for Pintrest, a place I can locate all the ideas I find and can located them in one place.

Decluttering My House and My Life

I saw this website a couple of weeks ago that said "40 days 40 bags". It was an older post about a woman decluttering her house during Lent. Well, I know this isn't Lent, but it is the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving just a few days away and  Christmas just around the corner. Now I'm not nearly as enthusiastic as that woman was, but I am eager to get rid of a bunch of stuff that is cluttering up my house, my closets and my life.

I love crafts and doing them. I love to knit, crochet, sew and paint. I just love doing fun stuff. But I have found that I seem to have yarn, paint, fabric and scrap booking stuff all over the house stuffed in a closet, foot stool, cedar chest or storage boxes. I have sewing patterns that are over 20 years old and now to small for me or my daughters who have grown up. I have magazines that are almost as old and books that I never use anymore.

A couple of years ago I went through some of my craft and quilt magazines and gave some of them to my DIL and my niece. A couple of months ago when my DIL and son were here I gave her one big box of fabric and a small one with Threads magazines in it and I still don't know what to do with the ZigZag magazines and Sew Beautiful. I still have my school stuff from taking facial and nail classes. Plus I have a year or two worth of Nails magazines.

Today I cleaned out the cedar chest of all my yarn, various loose pieces and a couple of UFO's that I have had for twenty some odd years and never finished. This stuff is in my trunk to be donated to charity tomorrow.  I did however keep all my knitting needles and crochet hooks. That's a small investment over time and I might still want to work on a project or two now and again.

My main problem is I enjoy doing all this stuff and just don't seem to have enough hours in the day to be able to do all them. So I end up with projects half started or not quite finished and have lost all interest in finishing it like this really pretty purple afghan that I started 6 years ago. It's just shy the size of being lap size, but my dog Sadie has found she likes it.

Two years ago I wanted to make doll clothes and sell them. I have bunches of patterns, the dolls to fit them to, the fabric but inclination to do it. I am gradually selling off the dolls and keeping a few to give to granddaughters. They aren't really old enough yet to want to keep the clothes on the dolls. So I will keep the patterns for now and in a couple of years I can make clothes for their dolls. I remember my grandmother making me Barbie doll dresses out of the scraps from her ball gowns.

I have all kind of zippers, buttons, snaps, ribbon. A very good collection from 30 or more years of sewing and crafting. Wow, I am getting way off track tonight.  I still have closets and dressers to go through to clean out clothes I can't or won't wear anymore. I don't have a big shoe collection anymore. I got rid of most of those when I stopped working and having to be dressed up all the time. I know it's going to take me awhile to "Cleanse" my house, but it will be well worth it. I have found that I really liked making the couple of quilts I have made. I plan on just concentrating on doing those and maybe some small quilts to hang up or place mats.

Then maybe I will have some small control over the chaos that has taken over my house.

Tylers Quilt

It's finished! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to have it done in time for Christmas. I have worked really hard on this. I should have taken a better picture of the border and binding. I added my own special touch to the binding. Originally when the binding was cut it was also cut from the same fabric as the border and therefore wouldn't would show up very well. I just happen to have some extra fabric leftover from the backing so I cut it up and used it kind of like putting piping on but without the cording. I hand stitched the binding.

I had quite a bit of extra fabric and squares leftover that I decided to make two pillow case covers to match the quilt.

If I have to say so myself, I do believe I did a pretty good job for my first big quilt.

I have other projects in the works. Time to get them finished in time to send out for Christmas. I also got a new toy that I will blog about next time.

Busy Busy Busy

I've been really busy the last few days working on Tyler's quilt and getting ready for Christmas. I have actually finished quilting the quilt and the borders. I decided to stipple the borders. Now all I have to do is trim the quilt and put the border on. I am thinking of doing a dual colored binding. I saw it on a board in pinterest and I think it will solve my dilemma of the border and the binding being the same fabric.  I have enough of the backing left to put between the border and the binding, kind of like an edge or flat piping.

This is a close up of the stippling on the front

You can see the stippling better here on the back

I dont think I did half bad quilting.  I'm really excited about getting the binding put on and sending this off to my grandson. Since I will have it ready in time it will be a Christmas present for him.

These really werent that hard to make

I am in the process of making Christmas presents for both of my granddaughters. I also saw these Fabric Alphabet Letters on pinterest and went to Etsy to see about buying some. After looking at the price that some people are charging I decided just to make them myself. It only took me a little over a half a day to make the first set.  I think the girls will like them.