Slow Progress

My rearranging and organizing is coming along slowly, but it's coming along!  I'm really happy with it so far.  I moved my beading stuff to this corner:

You can't see my painstakingly tedious job sorting of the beads, but it's there. It only reminded me of all the neat, cool stuff I have. Note my totally awesome porcelain table.  $7 at a tag sale.  

I moved my fabric, once again.  The boxes on the bottom need to be upright because of a pesky cat who has no qualms of burrowing herself in them.

This is what I have to contend with.  If there is an inch of space, she will find it and sit there and then most inevitably, take a bath.

 I even sorted my buttons!  I know it sounds crazy, but it was actually fun.  I still have a few more to go, but this is the bulk of them:

 I saw this on Pinterest and I SIMPLY MUST MAKE IT!!!!!!  Soon...

Thanks for looking!

Unfinished Projects

I haven't posted anything in a while because I really haven't finished anything so today, I decided to show off my unfinished projects.

I love, love, love how my crocheted blanket is coming along.

I am making it extra-wide and hopefully, extra-long.  I love it!

I've been experimenting with knitting lately.  I figured out how to knit the continental way.  It's soooooooo much easier.  I wish I figured it out long time ago.  

I saw a scarf knited with the linen stitch which is k1, yfwd, sl1, yb then the second row is p1, yb, sl1, yfwd.  It's a nice look and all but it entails keeping track of each row.  I started to experiment and came up with this:

It's two layers of knitting, front and back.  All I did was do the first row over and over.  No concentration.  That's the way I like it!  

I cut out all my pieces to my "sunflower" quilt and put up on my design wall:

It's going to be great when I finish it.  I'm going to appliqué sunflowers on it. 

I saw on Pinterest a video from Missouri Star Quilting on herringbone half hexagons soooooooo, I needed to try it.  I used a jelly roll and came up with this so far:

I acquired a blue pin stripe king size flat and fitted sheets at a tag sale last summer for $5.  I'm thinking of sashing between each row and doing my favorite quilt-as-you-go.  I experimented quilting on an old quilt top, (no picture, sorry) and discovered I need a lot of practice, but it was fun.

I'm almost finished with this little project.  My fiber journal quilting club meets Tuesday night and this month's theme is "love."  This is what I came up with:

I'm happy with it.  It's got all the stuff I love; doily, handkerchief, lace, buttons, beads, crocheted flowers, embroidery, cats and bright colors.  

These last few days I've been feeling rather anxious.  Not sure why.  I've been wanting to organize all my neato stuff but found it too much of an overwhelming task.  This is quite ironic because when I was working, my job was to be very organized and I was damn good at it.  

Today was an awesome day.  I jumped in and made a total mess of my studio.

I'm rearranging and making a terrible, terrible mess.  It took time to make this mess.  I took things off of the shelf, read a couple chapters in a book, moved a table, had a cup of tea, moved more stuff around, read some more, put everything on the floor and then had supper.  I'm calm.  I feel good. Tomorrow is another day.

Last year, I was going to enter a contest with "Timeless Treasure" fabrics.  I was very excited.  I was very naive.  I was in way over my head.  The other day, while surfing Pinterest, I came across this quilt:

It's stunning!  I have all this fabric!  My ideas, and I had many, many ideas, was along this line, but I just couldn't make it happen.  My hat is off to the person who made this.  I hope she (or he) won because it's wonderful.

Ok, last photo.  This is my Molly, taking a nap with me:

She's so cute!

Thanks for looking!

Hey, Look What I Made!

I took a class yesterday at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts on how to make V blocks.  I don't have the patience to make a full blown quilt, but I will make a border and bind it.

Ok, now I'm ready for some football.

Post Quilting Retreat

Whew!  I got back yesterday from my first sewing retreat at Camp Hazen in Chester.  It was awesome!

This is the view from where I sewed for three days with a total of about thirty hours:

The lake was fogged over all day Saturday but it was wonderful looking out all those windows.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love windows!  I met so many wonderful people.  I can't wait to go back.  Maybe in March...

First I worked on this quilt.  I didn't realize the HUGE mistake I made until today when I put it up on my design wall.  Ugh!!!!  How frustrating!  I guess it would have been worse if I added the backing and stitched up the binding. I'm going to have to frog it.  I do like it though.  

I experimented with a technique from Ann Brauer I saw in a Quilting Arts magazine. It was going to be a wall hanging, but then I made it into a project carrier.  I love it!  The picture doesn't do it justice though.

Each strip is a finished 1/4 inch strip.  I braided the remaining fabric for handles and stitched in ziploc bags.  Love it!

I made a snap bag:

And I cut out thousands of teeny tiny one inch half squares.  When I say teeny tiny, I'm not exaggerating.

There are four sets of different colors.  I have an idea in my head that I'm not ready to share or even start yet.  It's on the back burner for now.

I worked on my crocheted blanket for a couple of hours in front of a fireplace.

Someone dropped off a few blocks at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts the other day.  Lisa gave them to me and I made this cute little quilt:

It's a bit old fashioned, but all I had to do was come up with this neato design and sew them together. 

Let's see...  What else?  We were fed morning, noon and night.  I ate morning, noon and night. I read a few pages from the latest book I'm reading, For Time and Eternity by Allison Pittman in my sleeping bag on a bunk made for little kids. 

As much as I love my Isabelle, it was nice to be away for a couple of days.  She's punishing me, 

I mean loving me:

All in all, I had a wonderful time.  It was good to get away for awhile.  My dear friend Kitty was supposed to attend, but she came down with the flu.  We all did think of her throughout the day.  

Oh, my second amaryllis bloomed nicely.  You can't tell, but there are five red flowers.

Thanks for looking!

Brrrr!!!

Man, it's cold outside!  My boys are out ice fishing.  I think they are the only ones happy it's so cold.  Tonight they will be coming over for a nice turkey dinner.

My amaryllis is finally blooming.

And my geranium.  I never expected to see flowers on my geranium in winter.

I've picked up yet another crochet project.  This is my mindless, zen blanket.  When I'm feeling a little anxious or need to do some serious thinking, I crochet something.  I'm loving this so far.  Every row is a different color.  I'm using up my cotton stash.  

I'm procrastinating.  I need to go to the supermarket.  I also need to fill up the bird feeder for my poor freezing birds.  How do they do it?

Today or tomorrow I'll be organizing my future projects.  That's my new goal.  At least organize each project into a box or project bag so I can just pick up and move along.  

Thanks for looking!

Prepare to Be Amazed!

Ok fellow sewing buddies, prepare to be amazed as to what I just discovered!  Quilt-as-you-go Dear Jane blocks!  Yippee!  I've been kicking around this idea as I'm making my Dear Jane quilt and then I saw a blogger on Pinterest with directions on this awesome idea.

First, square up your blocks.

Quilt block, then square off.

Make two sets of strips the height of the block for sashing.  Front sashing is one inch and the back is 1 3/4 inches.  Fold and press the 1 3/4 inch strip wrong sides together.

 Place one inch strip right sides together on front.  The back strip is placed raw edges out, folded side in.  Sew 1/4 inch seam.

 I forgot to take a picture on adding the second block.  Sew the second block right sides together to the front strip only.

The back strip then gets hand sewed down.

First row front:

First row back:

 Then sew the rows together using the same method.

 It's better to sew the strips down before you sew row together.  I was too excited to see how it works.  

Now bind as usual.  Isn't it just an awesome idea?  I'm going to do this on my Dear Jane quilt.  I think I might use different backing blocks so it'll look like a patchwork quilt on the back.  I simply love it!

 Oh Lisa, I hope you are proud of me!  

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I last posted because I really didn't think I had much to share.  I have absolutely no plans on going anywhere for the next two weeks so I am taking this opportunity to organize, (ha), and focus.

First, look at my twinkly lights!  

I don't have any Christmas decorations up but yesterday I put little twinkly lights up in the kitchen.  I turned them on at dusk and when I came back into the kitchen an hour or so later - ohhhhh, I felt a little nostalgic.  My dear sewing friends, please don't judge my curtain.  I take it down during the day. I'll get to making a neat one soon.

My amaryllis' are springing to life!

I bought a second one because the first one didn't seem to be doing anything and then viola!  I swear, they grow about two inches a day!  I love, love, love the anticipation.

My kitchen gets a lot of sunlight.  I wish it were big enough to have a kitchen table in there so I can spend my time in glorious sunlight.  

Look - my geraniums from the summer have little buds!  Yes, I'm excited that I may have little red geranium flowers in December.

Isabelle is watching over them.  Actually, she chomps on my begonia blossoms so I'm hoping she will leave these alone.  I bought some catnip yesterday.  I'll make a couple of catnip sachets for my girls to roll in.

It is beginning to look like this new year will bring new creative challenges for me.  I never was much of a knitter, but all of a sudden, I feel like knitting.  I went to the library and took out a bunch of books and this one so far is my favorite:

I love the simple, straight out directions of different stitches.  I've decided to try out each and everyone of them, (yeah, sure), by making sampler blocks.  Oh sometimes I just wonder about my enthusiasm.  Who knows.  It may be a long winter so there is a chance I may just do it!  We'll see...

I do have a couple so far.

Just the fact I'm happy knitting surprises me so I'm already ahead of the game.  

My scrappy rug is coming along slowly.

I also learned to make project bags.  I don't like the colors, but I like the idea. I bought more screen from a local hardware store, (black of course).  A guy had to go in the basement to get it.  What I like about these is there is really no set size. 

So I'm off.  I'm going to clean up my sewing room.  Pick out my next projects, organize and put them in a proper place for easy access.  Whew, tired already.  I need a cup of coffee.  

This is the view from my sewing table.  

It may overlook the parking lot, but it's a window, (I only have two - oh, and a slider door).  Still, I'll take it.  I so a couple of teeny tiny snow flakes floating around.

Ok, two more photos.  I guess I'm in a photo sharing mood.  I'm procrastinating.  I do this sometimes.  I bet no one else out there knows what I'm talking about.  Anyway, this is a squirrel eating from my squirrel-proof bird feeder:

One more picture of my neato plants in my kitchen:

Ok, I'm out-of-here.  Time to get serious.  Oh yeah, and have fun!

Thanks for looking!