Sunday, January 26, 2014

Yay For More Time Off

I can't believe my lay off was about to be over!  I got my new schedule the other day and found out it was extended by 2 weeks!  Yay!  I feel like I got a reprieve from the warden.  I've got so much to do still!  I deleted one of the games off my phone so I would stop wasting so much time.  Between phone games, flu, Rich and Bethany's birthday and wrangling teenagers, I'm not getting much sewing done.



I made this Turning Twenty quilt  a LONG time ago but stopped before I put on the borders.  I had myself convinced that I didn't have enough to do the inner border.  So, I waited and waited until I could buy some more fabric.  Then, the other day I got it back out and realized I had plenty to finish it.  Doi!  I don't know what I was thinking!  I guess, sometimes you just need to step away from something.  It's Alice In Wonderland for Sierra.  She's always been a big fan of the original story.  Not Disney.  That was important to her.



I've also been doing some organizing.  I labeled my fabric boxes and added a few more (the picture shows about half).  This took WAY longer than it should have.  My first batch printed wrong and I didn't have any more labels.  So, I waited to get more.  Then, they printed wrong two more times.  Geez!  The labels have little butterflies around them.  Much ado about nothing, I just keep doing these crazy little things that suck up all my time.


Not to mention, the couple of hours I took to re-design my blog and set it up on Bloglovin.


I've also been organizing my DMC thread.  I'm slowly adding to my collection every week.  I did try to buy an American brand, the one they sell at Hancock's.  It was terrible!  Really rough thread.  Won't be doing that again.  At least I tried to give them a chance.  But, the French know what they're doing when it comes to embroidery thread.  I'm interested in trying Cosmo brand some time.  It's pretty big on the internet but I haven't seen it local.

Then I finished two more tulip blocks.  It doesn't seem like much again this week.  I did some painting, too but I'm not ready for  pictures yet.  I took 3 large wooden circles and drilled holes into them to make giant buttons.  I did this like, a month ago and just painted them today.  They are a HUGE mess.  I'm just not sure what direction to take with them.  We'll see.


Friday, January 24, 2014

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2997612/?claim=g37z3s7kqmb">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Lazy or Productive, I Can't Tell

It's funny, just yesterday, I was berating myself for not getting enough done last week.  My lay off is half over and I have a big list to get through.  Then, I downloaded my pictures and realized that I wasn't quite as lazy as I thought.  What a relief.

Rich bought this table runner pattern for me for Christmas from Shabby Fabrics.  The mystery package I found with a Shabby  label was patterns!

Lesson learned with the rickrack.  Do NOT trace pattern with Frixion pen when you really need to glue down the rickrack and heat set before sewing.  Yep, next time, I will definitely think first.  Yep.  Next time.


There were a few things for work as well.  I made Lemon Angel Food cupcakes with a raspberry topper.  They were cute but didn't taste that great.  Honestly, I don't get everybody's fascination with angel food cake.  Not my favorite but several people request it at work.  I thought the lemon would jazz it up some.  Nope.  I tried to get root beer extract yesterday for Root Beer Float Cupcakes but our local store didn't carry any.  I ended up making a peach dump cake.  I was good but not blog worthy.
I finished Chad's baby quilt.  His baby girl is due in February and they're naming her Ruby.  I've had this pattern for years just waiting for a reason to make it!  I love the way it turned out.  He even said they considered doing her room in ladybugs.  Ahh, babies.

Our guild had a challenge this month to finish up to 2 quilts.  You only had to finish a project that you had about 30% done.  And, really you didn't even have to have it quilted.  You could just finish the top.  I quilted this HST quilt from before.  I think I should have gotten points for having it quilted.  Everyone said they liked it but I didn't place in the challenge.  A couple people were surprised it was mine, thinking the colors weren't me.  I guess they are pretty subdued.  I was thinking it was pretty grown up for me.  I guess nobody equates me with grown up :)



I also made this little needle wallet for my secret pal.  Her nickname is Lollipop.  I love it.  I have the same one but in cupcake fabric.  I was tempted to keep this one, too.  Hopefully, she will liked it.  It's a new week, a snow day, and I've still got a half dozen or more projects to finish up.  And, Rich's brother is expecting a baby girl in April.  I'd like to have that one done before prom season, so I best get to gettin'.  Hope you're all having a creative New Year!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Excuse Me, It's Rabbits. Not Bunnies.


 I finished all the blocks for Rabbits Prefer Chocolate.  I've been calling it Bunnies Prefer Chocolate all this time.  Oops, how embarrassing.  Not really.  This one is Rich in his little race car.  The car number qualifies for the diamond shape of our President's Challenge.  I asked him what number he wanted, he asked for 24.  I guess that's the number of a famous Nascar driver, which is funny, because he does't watch Nascar.  Whatever, man.  I embroidered the number in Emerald before I remembered that my other bunny is supposed to have an emerald necklace.  Oh well, it looks fine anyways.  Besides, there's no telling if I'll actually remember to buy the emerald necklace.
Here's another 3 blocks that I've finished recently and not blogged about.  I don't think I have anyways.

And, here's everything put together.  I'd like to mention, all my pieces fit together appropriately.  Thank you, thank you.  No applause, just money.   I really should have planned better and gotten my border fabrics first and then worked them into the main part.  Hind sight and all that.  The picture shows a dark pink inner border, a brown outer border with pink scallops appliqued on it.  I'm pretty sure I can still get the brown and white polka dot that I used for a few of the bunnies.  There are't any pink pieces left big enough to do either of the borders, so I'll have to buy that.  I don't know if I want to applique a border.  It's a lot of work.  But, I fear the cuteness factor will be diminished if I don't.  Le sigh. Le pout.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Just When I Feel Like I Know What I'm doing




I volunteered for layoff this year.  It's such a great deal for me, I couldn't resist.  Rich isn't a huge fan but he's living with it.  He really likes having a stay at home wife.  Old habits die hard, I suppose.

Layoff started the week of Christmas so, I didn't feel like I'd have tons of extra time to make presents this year.  That totally stressed me out last time.

Instead, I did something for myself. I made this kit while I worked at Sweet Annies' using some of my all time favorite fabrics from the shop.  It's sat in my cupboard for years.   I did the center applique earlier this year and finally finished the rest on my first week of layoff.  And, like all my well laid plans, I jacked it up royally.  Just when I feel like I know what I'm doing (quilting wise), I prove myself wrong in the worst way.  First, I mis-cut those rose colored pieces.  Naturally, I only had just enough and I'm too cheap and lazy to go search for more.  It's from Moda's Aviary and is probably 10 years old.  So, I pieced the pieces and fixed the problem  Then, when I put everything together, I cut off my corners like crazy!  Squares in squares suck!  Seriously, I did such a terrible job!  The picture doesn't give enough detail to see how bad it is.  I've never been good at them.  I followed all the tricks.  I made sure my 1/4" allowance was a scant.  Nope.  Most of my corners are gone.  Good thing this one if for me.  It's embarrassing.  But, honestly, aren't the colors pretty?  I wish I could live in a world colored like this.


Then, because it was Christmas, I started a fun Christmas project.  Again, Carol had given this to me years ago as a gift.  It's so pretty.  The pattern shows it in pinks and mauves but I chose to do blues and greens.  It's gonna be great.  But, now that the season is past, I find I'm not so motivated for this project.  Well, at least I've got a whole year before I'd use it.  And, yeah, I'm going to regret embellishing it before quilting but I just couldn't help myself.

I've also been doing some much needed organization in the basement.  It seems like we do this every year and it never sticks.  This time, I put away all the Christmas decorations in red/green bins.  Then the fall/ Halloween decorations went in purple bins.  I need one more blue bin for Easter.  Valentine's Day, St. Pat's Day and Americana already had their own bins, they just got labeled better.  Labeling the quilt boxes and sleeping bags is going to help a lot when I'm looking to change out my bed quilt.  I also found an old glass bowl that was my mother's.  I'd been afraid to have it out when the kids were young.  So, that was a nice treat to come across.  Now, if I can only get people to put things away where they belong!  The other half of the basement is still a disaster, but that's for another time.

Rich's niece, Megan is graduating this year.  I started worrying a few weeks ago that I didn't have a plan in place.  She likes Peter Pan but no one answered my request for PP fabrics from their stashes.  The only stuff out there in Etsy/ Ebay land were really childish.  So, I settled for her school colors, red and white.  The pattern is called Money Business.  I'm thinking about calling it 12 Monkeys Sitting on the Bed.  It took one day to cut.  I wanted to do only one piece of each red in my stash.  I needed 144 and I only got to 98 before I had to double up.  Dang it!  Now, I need to find the outer border for it.  The pattern suggests 2 yards but I'm having a hard time believing I need that much.  The inner border is 2" and the outer is 6.  And, not that I've been staring at the picture, I realize I put the wrong blocks on the top row, last two blocks.  Dang it!  Insert head explosion here.  I do NOT want to tear into that thing!  But, that does explain why I ran out of the right type of blocks in the end...  Again, just when I feel like I know what I'm doing.