I haven't been very productive but did get some binding done for Debra and finished a table topper for my daughter. It's machine pieced but I hand quilted it.

Yesterday I finished a dress my other daughter was working on while she was out with friends.

One of my goals today - I set a lot of them and hope one or two get accomplished - is to list some of my old patterns on Etsy, and to get a couple of outfits up on Poshmark, something I tried a while back but got discouraged. I hate letting go of my clothes but I'm not wearing them and no, they do not bring me joy. LOL.

Have any of you watched The Great British Sewing Bee? I stumbled on it on Youtube. Someone named "HappyCat" has uploaded many of the episodes. It's quite interesting, especially the segment where the contestants are given a garment (usually) to reconstruct. In one episode, they had to use all of the waste fabric from their other projects. It is a lot of fun and like me, you'll probably put yourself in their place. I truly felt the panic as they would be within 5 minutes of their time running out, and trying to put in a zipper (or "zip").

It has the exact same format as the Great British Bake-off.  And the prize? A bouquet of flowers and a trophy - no cash.  Just the honor of winning. And the contestants are so helpful to each other. I'm thinking of Project Runway where the rule seemed to be sabotage and back stabbing!

I hope your weather is nicer than it is here -gray, cold, and rainy. I am heading to the library to pick up Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout, which I have been waiting on for months - even though I am just getting into The World We Knew, Alice Hoffman's latest book.

Still, I woke up this morning, so it's a great day!

Edited: I was just looking back at some old posts and on December 31, 2009 I pondered, What will blogging look like in 10 years?  I don't think anyone anticipated the impact of social media. I commented to my daughter a few weeks ago that it looks like vlogging has outrun blogging. She and I have even discussed starting a YouTube channel. Stay tuned.....

What you see below is a laundry basket filled with scraps left over from years of quilting and sewing. I can't bring myself to tossing them.

If they are big enough, I cut them into usable pieces, anywhere from 1" to 5", and into strips if there's enough fabric.  Eventually the really odd or small pieces get stitched into blocks like these below. Sometimes, even if the scrap is big enough, I'll go ahead and use it in one of these crumb blocks.  It really is a lot of fun to just let go and stitch without thinking too much. I have quite a few big blocks like this which I think would make a pretty nice quilt.  These are things I work on when I can't get into the mood to focus on anything else.

I could use your suggestions about how to put these sampler blocks together. That green block in the corner seem really out of place (and seems to be trying to escape) but my aunt made these and gave them to me so I want to do something with them. 

And by the way, Debra, I have some binding for you.

Last, enjoy the first color of early spring. Our weather has been so crazy - freezing and snowing one day; 70 degrees the nest. Poor little jonquils are confused. 

I have an appointment for a massage later today. I have a really sore muscle on the left side of my neck/shoulder. It's killing me right now as a matter of fact. I hope the massage will help. 

Hope you are having a good day.

More Smacking

Join in the fun this August for another Quilting Smackdown. Check here for instructions for a simple quilt that will bust your stash and create a great quilt for one of our veterans. I'm stealing a picture from Debra's blog (which I think she stole from Barbara:

Join the fun and do something for a very worthy cause.

Quilting Smackdown :-)

Right here, on Sunday July 30, Debra Spincic and I will be stitching at the same time, the same quilt top, 700 miles apart. It's called the 1,000 Pyramids Quilt and Debra has a tutorial on her blog. It's pretty easy to do once you get your brain going in the right direction (triangles have the same effect on me as ocean travel: Disorientation). Who will finish first? The drama!

So tune in either here on the blog or Facebook where we will be chronicling our progress and each of us will attempt to finish one quilt top in a matter of hours.

All in fun, of course!

See? I'm smiling.


And while you're at it, visit my Etsy Shop and look at the cozy reclaimed, upcycled, or recycled - whichever term suits you - tshirt quilts that are now on sale with free shipping. These are made from lovely, soft tshirts and quilted onto soft, durable fleece. These things are really snuggly and are great for college students and small kids - no worries as they wash and dry just like a ...well, tshirt. Remember how comfortable those things are? Think about an entire quilt made from well worn, easy to care for t-shirts.

I'm off to check in on the patient who just had all four wisdom teeth extracted. She's sleeping off the anesthesia right now but was begging for a Chik Fila milk shake on the way home. She's on total Facebook/texting restrictions for 24 hours.

New Etsy Posting - Bias Binding

I've just listed this in my Etsy shop. If you 've got UFOs you want to finish but making the binding is holding you up let me do it for you. 10 yards of 2" bias binding is $8.99 plus postage. I can have it done within a week of receiving your fabric.

Wonderful Embroidery

Annie Beez Folk Art is a great site. She's currently featuring a free Halloween BOM embroidery block which I should be able to finish by October. I love to combine embroidery with quilting. I'm thinking I'll do the embroidery in black and use Halloween and Fall themed fabrics. She also has fabulous patterns you can buy, embroidery, quilting, and dolls: all good things!

Civil WAr Bride Quilt

I saw this (scroll down to see the CWBQ) and I started having heart palpatations and my eyes rolled back in my head, like they do when I'm confronted with a math problem. Applique! History! And even better, there's a blog for people who are making the quilt. Too much!

Oh, so beautiful!

Fall Inspired Quilt Swap

Finished:

In case you wondered...

Here's a closeup of the quilt I'm making for the fall inspired quilt challenge, which I'm not linking, because i'm too lazy and I already linked in a previous post. Link is on the side bar, too, so I don't need to link here. I hope this thing turns our all reight. I have this nightmare that the person who gets it will hate it and blog about hating it, linking to my blog and i will be inundated with cruel and humiliating comments. I should stick to the traditional. I am not now and never have been an artiste.

See that pile of blue/white scraps at the bottom (once again, too laszy to readjust the photos). Really not into bloggin just at the moment.

Well, here is an example of what I've been doing with them. Making small quilts. About four so far.

Here's one or two:

Here's the apron I talked about in a previous post. I love the fabric but my pattern drafting skills need honing:

Last but not least, fabulous challah french toast casserole. Yum. I could eat this all day. In fact I usually do eat it all day when I make it. It's delicious with syrup and butter, just like the French toast you fix in a frying pan. You can put the butter you saved not frying it on top and then smother with syrup or preserves. About the most wonderful breakfast-comfort food I can think of.

This morning our director provided breakfast for the admin staff and a few other scraggly folks (like me) who don't fit in anywhere else. The spread included bagels, muffins, pastry, donuts, fruit. I managed to limit myself to a bagel and one of those entirely empty caloried small white sugar donuts. Oh how I lurve donuts and coffee. I drank three cups and under the influence of mammoth quantities of caffeine, regaled the group with stories of my depraved relatives who reside in Miami, need I say more?

Oh: I did go to the gym yesterday (40 minutes on the treadmill/bike, weights) and tonight (40 minutes on the treadmill, a few weights).

Debra Spincic

If I'm the first person to nominate Debra for this award, I'll be amazed.

I don't know anyone who works harder at her art than Debra, or anyone who is more creative.

Not only that, she is the most amazingly generous and thoughtful person I've ever known.

Debra leads the way and inspires the rest of us to contribute to causes such as Quilts of Valor for injured servicemen, quilts for a local homeless women's shelter, Homeless Teen Quilts, quilts for the Teen Pregnancy Program at a local high school (you can click the link on the sidebar to see the posts).

I wanted to nominate her for this blog award for her leadership and inspiration to others, as well as her generosity with her time and resouces. When she's done with one service project, she goes looking for another one.

And on top of all that, she's incredibly optimistic, forward thinking, and supportive of other quilters' efforts at not just quilting but.. blogging.

(Debra might be my last and only blog reader. I hope to meet her in person at the Houston Quilt Festival one of these days and thank her for sticking with me.)

Thanks, Debra, for helping to bring out the best in us quilters!

UFO City

It's not like I've been completely idle. I made this jacket:

Then I uncovered these UFOs:

A Hamsa that needs embellishment and quilting.




A school house wall hanging that I began so long ago I'm embarrassed to tell you.

This might be the mother of all UFOs. This is from back in the 1970's when I was doing crewel embroidery (be gentle. I was young and new at it back then).



Fortunately for me I found this crewel yarn at the quilt show this weekend. This entire batch cost me $4.00. Maybe I can actually finish that picture, which will cost about $500 to frame...



This little quilt was an experiment. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'm not very good at experimentation. I'm glad the picture is fuzzy so that you can't really tell what is going on (or not going on) here.


Another useful purchase: wooden spools.



Look! I can see the face of Elvis in my jacket:

Wisdom of the Fathers

The , Pirkei Avot,or Ethics of the Fathers, is a well known Jewish text containing teachings and sayings of of the Rabbis of the Mishnaic period of Judaism. Here is one that seems to speak to us quilters:

You are not required to finish the task, but neither are you allowed to desist from it completely.

Pirke Avot, 2:16

Seems to be talking about UFOs, doesn't it?

East Cobb Quilt Show

Best of Show - beautiful.

I have this book (below). This makes me want to dive in and create this beauty.

Made from the rusted fabric technique.

One of my favorites.

Images from the East Cobb Quilt show. Will upload more as time permits. There were lots of very beautiful quilts this year.

Sigh.

There are not enough hours in the day.

A few months ago, I was given a new-ish position at work, "head" (I'll tell you why I use quotes in a minute) of Collection Development.

I say "head" because I'm not officially head, I'm kind of de facto head. I did not get a promotion but I am coordinating all adult book and audiovisual selection for the entire system. It's a big leap from what I was doing, and my duties are system wide.

So I'm very busy at work, both doing a job and learning more about the job, and working with the associate director in the department to revise policies and procedures for collection development.

I love this new job and I put a lot into it so I am exhausted when I get home.

In addition, when people were shifted around it was in anticipation of a new manager coming in, which hasn't happened yet. As a result, I still have responsibilities on the public desk every day and weekends.

As I said: exhausted.

I simply cannot drag myself upstairs to sew during the week. I started doing some redwork embroidery to keep my hands busy at night before I become unconcious, which usually happens around 9 pm.

My sewing time has been spent making garments, both for myself and my sister in law. After the girls were born, I did not make many clothes for myself, but did enjoy sewing for them immensely. It's great to get back into sewing. It's something I've loved to do since I was thirteen and now the Internet has opened up all kinds of options for fabrics and ideas.

My younger daughter is looking forward to college this fall and wants me to make her some skirts. I'm thrilled. I've always loved sewing for the girls but as they got older, it as jeans, jeans, jeans, although I have made special occasion dresses for them.

I'll be making a denim skirt for DD#2 and talking to the amazing Debra about doing some embroidery on it to make it more special. DD#2 liked that idea.

So that's it. Work, sew, sleep. Once the new manager comes in, my schedule will change and I will be working a normal, 8 to 5 day with no weekends! Hopefully that will give me more time to be creative in the sewing closet.

QOV

Here's the QOV I have just about completed. I think it needs a border, and I need to tweak a couple of blocks, but overall I'm pleased. It's very scrappy but that's what these quilts are pretty much about.

The star blocks in the corners, and the embroidered Lady Liberty in the center were donated by Debra, as was much of the fabric.

It's really been fun and an interesting challenge to make quilts using only donated or stash fabric. I did buy fabric for the Lone Star but it just evolved into that kind of quilt. I was luck to find more of the same fabric that had been donated.

My stash has really been reduced but it was great to find a use for all that old fabric I'd been hanging on to for years.

As much as I've enjoyed this, I'm going to take a quilting hiatus for awhile and do some garment sewing.

My SIL is such a generous person, and all I can do for her he make her some clothes. Also, I love to make clothes!

I'll be sending this to Deb later this week. Thanks for all you do, Deb! You inspire us!

Oh What a Night

I don't usually work Mondays (and this is my last month to work evenings/weekend! YAY!) but swapped so that I could be off on my regularly scheduled evening. To make a very long, tortuous story short, we had to deal with a very agitated, mentally ill individual who, by the time it was all over, was either going to sue me or report me to the highest person in the county he could find. All because he interpreted my questions as refusing to give him information. By the time it was over, I was ready to go over the desk and throttle him but one must not give in to impulses in these things.

But, I would rather talk about this: making lanyards and keychains out of scraps of fabric! This is why we save every inch, isn't it? You just never know when some creative, bright person is going to come up with a way to use them.

I can't wait to make myself one of these lanyards, since I have to wear an ID badge, keep a couple of keys and a flash drive handy at all times. Right now I'm using the one I bought at the Houston quilt show, but this would be so much more fun. Maybe even embellish with some beads? I love it when I stumble on another quilter's extremely creative ideas that they are willing to share. And aren't we the most generous bunch of artists around?

Sewing Expo

You'll have to wait for pictures of the loot. My batteries died - in the camera that is. My own batteries are pretty charged.

Vogue Fabrics was there and I could have spent hundreds. Beautiful, affordable fabrics. If only I had time to sew as much as I want to! and space! Wonder if I could convince the girls to double up, and i could have one of their bedrooms? Didn't think so.

It was fun, we walked until our feet were little bloody nubs; stuck around for the prizes but didn't win. SIL went crazy buying patterns and vintage buttons. And fabric, of course.

More later, when the batteries are renewed.

Wednesday Quilters

The center block for the QOV. Coming along.

A blanket I'm finishing up for hospitalized soldiers. It's a fleece blanket lined with some fabric Debra sent me. It's turning out pretty nicely. Please don't mind the body parts in the background.

Wednesday Quilters

Debra sent me a box of patriotic fabrics & miscellaneous blocks for making Quilts of Valor. Many possibilities here.

Here's a UFO from the wayback machine. I participated in a friendship block swap in 1997 - that's the date on the blocks - and just now getting it put together. That is shameful. I still have enough blocks for a second small quilt.

This is DD#1's cat quilt started, oh, two or three administrations ago. I debated about putting this together with sashings but didn't have enough of any one fabric that would coordinate all these scrappy blocks. My goal is to get these UFOs done, not agonize over their artistic merits. DD#1 thinks it's a great, funky quilt because as she said, "YOU made it, Mom." I like that. Still needs a border, though.

This is Dexter. When he crosses one paw over the other like that, I just crack up.

I'm meeting my goals of moving the UFOs along, even though they are not completely complete. That will be when they are quilted and bound; however, they're not languishing, I've pulled them out and I'm putting them together.

I will be more thoughtful about a few of them, like the appliqued Baltimore-style basket blocks I did a while back. But these are moving right along.

I feel like it's been a fairly productive week. I could have done more, but most of my sewing is done on the weekends. I'm just too worn out after working all day, usually. I prefer knitting or embroidery in the evenings. However, this past Sunday I helped my sister in law do some downsizing. They are doing some work on their house in anticipation of selling (one day). SIL's mother is a long time pack rat

collector of all things, including every piece of paper she's ever laid a hand on ;-), beanie babies (about 200), coins, stamps (thousands, all unorganized and in boxes and envelopes). SIL desperately needed help going through all this stuff and deciding what to keep and what to pitch. Her mother is 92 years old and had a fall about a week ago. She seems to be okay, but will be needing some in-house care. SIL felt her room needed a makeover before that happens so I was glad to lend a hand. Still, it took all day and we did not finish, so it cut into my sewing time on Sunday.

Hope you are having a creative and productive week, and thanks to Debra for her generous fabric donations

Wednesday Quilters - blogging from work

Welcome to my messy, disorganized sewing room.

Of all times for my DSL to go down at home - I'm having to post from work - don' t tell anyone.

Today I'm posting pictures of some projects I've been working on for awhile.

The top picture of the body parts are dolls I've been working on. Dolls are a great deal of fun - they allow all sorts of creativity.

Second picture shows the various cowboy/horse fabric I've been collecting for a quilt for my daughter who will graduate high school in May. I would love to get it done by then - hope springs eternal!

Last picture is a quilt top that's finished and will be a QOV, one of several I hope to make this year.

I felt the urge to do a lot of giving this year. I found a group called Soldiers' Angels which also collects blankets for wounded soldiers. These don't have to be quilts necessarily. They can be made of flannel or fleece, can even be a "no-sew" pattern. You can read more about it on their web site.

I'm glad you stopped by -- please leave a comment and link to your projects. We can all inspire and cheer each other on.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!