Stash Report

OK, I am never going to actually tell anyone how much fabric I have in my stash because

honestly... I have no idea!

Seriously, no idea.

I know I have one large bin of each of blue, green, red, black/white, tan/cream quilting fabrics, and the green one overfloweth into a couple of small bins. I have what for me is a tiny bin of yellow, purple and orange.

I have what probably amounts to one large bin of Christmas fabric, and one more of multi-colored things that just could not be categorized.

There's a small bin of fruits & veg, and another one with florals I was always going to use for a landscape quilt. Honest. I bought the book and everything!

There's a half-sized big bin of batiks too. That came in handy when I took the class with Jan Krueger in Reedsburg a couple of years ago. Hey, I should get that top quilted, it's quite a stunner...

Honestly, I am never going to be this organized... wish I were!

Oh, I have a big bin of tops that are either ready for quilting or might need a final border before they're ready for quilting.

This is why I never count my stash.

I'm not going to tell you how many bins of garment fabrics I have. One of these days I have to get back to sewing for myself. Things I make fit me so much better than things I buy. Well, it is officially spring (according to Miss A) so it's probably time for cleaning out the closet anyway.

I spent so much time sewing and knitting doll clothes this winter that I am afraid my own spring wardrobe will suffer. Although in Wisconsin, we're still wearing winter coats every day. Some spring, huh? Who thought we could get so excited about 53 degrees!!

I did embroider the rest of the communion linens over the weekend, and while the embroidery machine was running I cut pieces for my eventual Flying Geese quilt, and also used my new template/ruler from Miss Rosie's Quilt Company, The Crumbler, to cut some tumbler pieces.

Oh, and because I used red thread instead of white (bad direction or a personal hearing problem, I don't know) on a dozen I have do to make some more, so I ordered a couple of yards of white linen from Fabric.com. See, the stash grows even when I'm not intending it to grow.

Now I need to schedule some vacation time to sew. And sewing would go so much better if I could spend some time straightening up my room. I was cutting and making kits for the church sewing group, and it gets kinda messy when I'm doing that! I know, clean up as you go, right? Easier said than done sometimes.

Plans are coming together.  I guess spring is here, mentally if not physically!

Sew on...

Commuting in the Midwest

Tuesday on my commute to the office, it was slow going.  I left early and allowed extra time, but not nearly enough.  Here's the car in front of me...

The freeway sign that was hanging above traffic said "Icy road ahead.  Reduce speed."

OK, it's not going to get much more reduced, unless I can stop...



So I got off at the next exit, and took one of the major arteries through the city.



Be careful what you wish for...

Sew on...







My Collection of Rulers

Someone asked me what kind of rulers I use for quilting and sewing.

Well...

A better question would be, what kind do I not have??

I started out with an Olfa rotary cutter, and not surprisingly, an Olfa ruler. The first one I had was long ruler, because when I first began quilting (and thus cutting fabric) I was taught to cut the fabric just as it came off the bolt, that is folded in half, so about 22 inches wide. Very quickly I decided that it worked much better to fold twice, so my next acquisition was a three inch by twelve inch long ruler.

From there it went to a six inch square, and then to a 9 1/2 inch square.

At some point I started taking the quilting seminars at Nancy's Notions, and a whole world opened up before me! I discovered Eleanor Burns, who over-cut things and trimmed them down. Quilt in a Day -- yes, I could do that! I learned lots of short cuts from Eleanor... and Kaye Wood (I started out life as a 'pointless person') and many others.

Let me pause here and say I am a dedicated strip quilter. Yep, a stripper. It NEVER occurred to me to use a quilting template. I once bought an apple core template from Shar Jorgensen because I loved the pattern. Did I ever make one? Nope.

One year I went to a class given by Trudy Hughes. She approached things differently, to say the least. Her background (dad maybe?) was geometry teacher inspired. She said if you measured right, cut it right and sewed it right, there was no trimming down. Being math minded myself, I had to agree. Who wouldn't, right? And it would save TIME if you measured, cut and sewed it right the first time.  She had some rulers that were supposed to help you do this. I bought those too. I still use them. Great combination of markings, one in black and one in white. A great size, small enough to lug around.

Enter Marti Michel and her log cabin rulers. Who needs a ruler for log cabins, right? Oh boy, can I tell you about log cabins I have seen where to blocks ripple when they get bigger because they're stretched when they are sewn? Plus Marti said the lengthwise grain is sturdier so try using that.  So why not cut exact sizes and match ends, rather than sew, cut, sew, cut, oh, don't forget pressing.

I'm sold on those log cabin rulers! You can kit up log cabins and no matter who is doing the sewing, they should come out right every time, barring gross negligence on the seam allowance.

So now that I've come to enjoy using Marti's methods I bought some templates. I have sets A and B and some other miscellaneous templates, mostly the ones that are used with 2 1/2 inch strips. That's the size I try to cut all my leftovers into. Good size for bindings and other random piecing.

The debate is whether yellow lines or white lines or colored lines are better. I say it depends. How's the light in your space? Is it day or night when you're cutting? What color is your fabric?  To quote someone famous, the choice is yours. Use what you like, I promise you the Ruler Police have taken the day off.

 My favorite ruler right now is one that has multiple colors and lots of markings. And I had to replace it recently because I discovered that, even covered with carpeting, a concrete floor and plastic rulers do not make for a happy situation if they accidentally meet at the speed of gravity.

Since I started doing the scrap therapy whereby everything gets cut into predetermined sizes or tossed, I have discovered the joy of small rulers. Really small. I have a 1 inch by six inch, a two and a half inch, and believe it or not I bought a three and a half inch square twice. :-)

I have Olfa rulers, Fons & Porter rulers (love the point trimmer), triangle rulers, a ruler that adds a quarter inch to things, and one with slits where you can cut multiple times without moving either ruler or fabric.

I need to get these rulers organized now. I have a drawer, and one of those wood blocks with slits. I need more of one or the other, or maybe both! I saw some excellent storage ideas the other day. Just have to get down to the sewing room and get organized. Again.

Sew on...

You Should Write A Book...

People always say that. Some people actually think it! I think it sometimes. I SHOULD write a book. If I wrote a book about my life I wonder if people would think it's a complete work of fiction...

But I AM writing a book, of sorts. You all know about baby books, right? I'm afraid I wasn't very good at that when my own kids were little. I guess it was too time consuming when I had actual kids to deal with. It was much more fun to hold them and play with them than it was to write about them. Although I'm so sorry I didn't write down some of the funny stories so I'd remember them later.

When Miss E was born, being the first grand, we took lots of pictures. I tried to put together a scrapbook and for a while I was pretty good at doing the pages. I got up to about 18 months of age, recording the milestones as I saw them...

She's 12 years old now.

When she was about 4 or 5 years old I bought some of that writing paper with the blue solid and dashed lines that kids used to practice their letters. I printed some pictures and started writing The Book of E. I wrote simple stories in language a small child could read and understand. There was one about her favorite stuffed animal, and one about a Halloween costume we made together.

I put ribbon through the holes in the paper and put the book on the bookshelf, and always intended to go back and finish it.

Enter Miss A, now aged six and a half. Curious as all get-out and a good crafter, she's always writing books and drawing pictures to go with them. Last week she discovered that Book of E on the shelf. Reading it one morning, she yelled from the bedroom "Hey Gramma, what's this book?" I told her the story and she went back to reading.

Miss A: "Gramma, why aren't there any stories about me?"

Me: "Well, you weren't born yet."

Miss A: "Oh, OK."

A bit later: "Gramma, here's one about me. Why isn't there a picture of me?"

Me: "Well, I guess I wasn't finished yet."

In a few minutes I could hear her talking to the teddy bears and she was pulling papers together. "Gramma, I need you to make some blue lines on this paper."

To Be Continued...

Sew on!

I'm COLD!!

I am TOO COLD today! I suppose if you live in the Midwest you're in the same boat. Or sled, as the case may be...

This Polar Vortex thing really bites. When I see the kids waiting for school buses in the morning with no gloves on, shivering in the wind, I think to myself this is nuts! Why do people live here?? Or maybe why do we go outside if we live here??

Just kidding about the living here stuff. Where else would I want to be? The west coast is always in danger of sliding into the ocean or burning up from wildfires, the south gets hit with hurricanes, the east coast sometimes has worse winter storms than we do, all we have to deal with is blizzards and the occasional tornado. And the vortex.

Seriously, the spring and fall in the Midwest are glorious. There are so many shades of green in Wisconsin in May and June you can't count them all. For someone like me who loves green there's no place else to be.

But right now it's cold.  So when I leave for work in the morning, the only thing I want to do is get there and get inside.  But sitting at my desk can get chilly.  The ceiling in my part of the office is two floors up, and I'm sure the heat on that side of the office is up at the top.  So it's cool down where people dwell.

I've got extra sweaters in the office and I wear layers, but my legs and bottom get cold.  I have to remember to make myself a chair cushion or pad, because the desk chairs have mesh seats and backs, and they get cool.  I'm usually sitting on one of my sweaters. 

Once I leave the office and get my cold car warmed up, the only thing I want to do is go home to my warm house.  Last night I blew off an errand because I didn't want to get out of the car twice!

At home, I don't want to leave again because it takes me so long to warm up.  And after dinner, sitting on the couch can get chilly due to lack of movement.  So I have a fleece lap robe, and I've been knitting while watching TV.  Usually a good-sized project will pool in the lap and keep the knitter warm.  But here's what I've been working on:

Doll sweaters

Now they're fun to do, and they knit up fast, but they don't cover much of my lap so they're not much good for warmth!

I've been cruising ravelry.com looking for adult sweaters that I could do in a couple of hours but despite the wealth of patterns available there, both for sale and for free, nothing knits up as fast as these little beauties. You'd think someone in the Midwest could come up with a speed knitting class or something!

     

Or how about one of these?  Hey, maybe I need a hat, and then I'll stay warmer.  They say the most extreme amount of body heat loss is through your head!   

But then I'd have hat hair.  Ugh.  

The only alternative is walking on the treadmill. I bet that would warm me up, for a while anyway.   Or I could consider turning up the heat -- and paying that bill! OK, maybe not.

For now, I'll stick with the lap robe.  Or maybe I can get some quilt tops finished and start sewing on the binding by hand at night. That could take me until spring, with the box of UFOs I have. Hmm, that's a good idea, stay warm and finish some projects! Let's see how long my resolve lasts.

Sew on...

The Blue Screen of Death

My favorite saying from the 1990s always was "To err is human, to really screw up takes a computer".

Don't get me wrong, I love technology, and I really do use computers alot. At work, I'm on it 9-10 hours a day. I can do research with the best of them, and when anyone looks for a phone book or asks how to find something I am the first to say Google it!

In fact, my son was over on Saturday and mentioned wanting to know how to do something and I said "Google for the instruction manual". He said "Oh yeah! Why didn't I think of that?"

So last week I was working on an embroidery project for church. I already embroider the baptismal napkins for the Altar Guild, so they asked me to do some other napkins for communion service with small crosses. Easy-peasy, right?

In 2009 I bought a small notebook computer with the idea that I could store all my embroidery designs on it for transfer to sewing the machine I have. I have a low-end Brother embroidery machine that takes either a custom disk or will attach to a computer with a chunky connection like you have for a printer, but not a USB port and not a computer disk.

I didn't do much computerized embroidery at the time. Long ago I gave up the idea that embroidery had to be done by hand, but I am not a fan of the multi-colored big embroidery designs that some home sewists seem to love. I like a little motif on children's clothing or doll items, and I love tone-on-tone embroidery for myself. But I can live without embroidered clothes for myself. Just add jewelry! But that might be another post...

My oldest granddaughter likes using my embroidery machine. She was going to help me out with the napkins one Sunday afternoon. We cruised the Internet and picked out a few tiny cross designs, which we downloaded to the laptop upstairs. 

I opened up the notebook and logged on to transfer the design.  THAT'S when I got the big surprise... the Blue Screen of Death.

You know this one, right? 

Well, when you get this one, it's bad.  Sometimes Very Bad... but it IS a pretty color.

The error I got was not one with which I am familiar, so I googled it on the laptop.  It said something about reloading your operating system with disks.  Oh my goodness!

I lugged the laptop downstairs to the basement and loaded the design from there.  During my sewing time, my poor hubby was not able to play Solitaire or check his bank statements, things he likes to do at regular intervals.

On Monday, I asked one of our crack IT guys at work what the error was.  He offered to check the notebook on his lunch hour, and came back with this diagnosis:

"The computer has to be rebuilt.  For what that costs, and your operating system is not going to be supported after April, you might as well just grab out the hard drive, and buy a new one."

UGH.  I had PLANS for my tax refund that did NOT include a new notebook! 

I have two tower computers in the basement in various stages of operation or lack thereof.  Maybe I can trade them in toward the purchase of a laptop for my sewing studio.  Keep your fingers crossed!  Because lugging the sewing machine upstairs is not fun and borrowing hubby's favorite toy isn't far behind on the joy-o-meter.

Sew on...

Weekend Projects

The past weekend was spent trying to get some projects finished.  That didn't start too well on Saturday because I had a visit from my son and grandchildren.  They live about an hour away, and I don't see them as often as I see other family members.  So it's a pleasure to see them when they do come, but all other things kind of go on hold when they're here.  After all, I'd much rather visit than clean or work!

Note to son:  If you're reading this blog, let me know a few minutes before Friday night that you're coming on Saturday!

After lunch and fun with kids on Saturday afternoon, and a brief nap, I checked my sewing studio again for what is in progress, to see if there was something I could do in a few hours.

Fabric from the church quilt guild that has to be kitted (pick a pattern, cut and bag).  There must be 30 pieces of fabric in this bag alone... nope, too big a job for Saturday night.

Stuff I started and should finish, there are a couple of table runners that could be bound...  no, maybe another day.

Read some patterns and pick a couple?  Maybe...

Make a couple of doll dresses to match a couple of sweaters I knit?  They're already cut out.

Yeah, maybe this fabric matches more than one sweater.

So I looked around the sewing room and it was SUCH a mess that I decided to go back upstairs and read a book instead.

I read a few pages of the new Louise Penny novel I bought from the used book store.  I must have been too tired to read.  I love these books but I could not stop yawning.  I'm sure it's because I stayed up too late on Friday night.

I picked up the needles and worked a few rows on another doll sweater.  That was tiring too.  So after dinner, I watched some programs I had previously recorded.  I discovered a program called Quilting Arts on PBS and record it daily.  Some of them were very interesting, but most of it is not your traditional quilting with fabric, etc.  There was a lot of painting and dying going on in the ones I watched.  Not bad stuff, just not up my alley.

By this time it was 8:45 p.m.  So I went to bed.

This morning after church and Sunday School, I took another short nap, and spent about two hours on Amazon trying to decide what to get with a gift certificate I was given.  After much transferring things from the cart to the wish list and back, I ended up with Nancy Zieman's biography Seams Unlikely, a book of quilt patterns and one more Louise Penny - A Trick of the Light.

Now it's early evening, and all I've done is give myself more stuff to do!

And my sewing room is just as messy as it was Friday evening.  But luckily no MORE messy than it was then.

Sew on...

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Winter in Wisconsin is always an adventure, and almost always too cold and too long.

Yesterday the temperature in Milwaukee was reportedly 47 degrees F. I couldn't swear to that because I was indoors from 8 a.m. to after 6 p.m. But my desktop gadget was showing 40s, which was amazing. The last time it was above freezing was mid-December!

Today I gave my granddaughter a ride to school. As I was watching the kids get out of cars and walk up to the school, I could not help but notice a small pod of middle school boys wearing SHORTS!!

Yes, winter in Wisconsin does make you a little crazy. 

The reality is that when it's warmer, it snows or rains.  We had about 6 inches of new snow on Monday, then yesterday lots of it melted.  So from white and pristine to melted, black and ugly in a day.

There's a young mom who comes to pick up her kids from Sunday School and she has recently been wearing shoes without socks and a light jacket. I said "oh boy, looking at your feet makes me cold!".

She said "I just can't do it anymore! I can't stand wearing those big winter boots!" (Her kids are always dressed warmly, so since she's an adult and not my daughter, I can sympathize and I don't need to approve or disapprove. But it still makes me cold to look at her bare feet in those shoes!)

I am wearing several layers of clothing today and I'm still chilly... socks, shoes, three layers of tops, and a scarf around my neck and shoulders. Where the heck is a hot flash when you need one???

Calgon, please, someplace warm today? Hmmm, maybe a nice hot bath would be good.

Sew on...

Nancy's Latest Book - a Personal Journey

I started to write this post on February 2, when I first saw the announcement of Nancy Zieman's biography, Seams Unlikely. Nancy Zieman has been my sewing idol (and in my opinion a Sewing Rock Star) since I discovered her program on Public Television in the 1980's.

I don't remember when I started watching, but it was before TIVO and DVDs... I would set up the VCR with a VHS tape to record it because I wasn't home during the time it was on, and I would watch it later, marveling that someone was making a television program to teach home seamstresses as we were known at the time.

At the time, I knew nothing about the industry as it existed then, wasn't aware of any organizations outside of the high school FHA groups and 4H.

If you've read my blog, you know I love to sew, and I love to read. Combining the two seems like heaven to me. In fact, I have several bookshelves in my house that are filled to the brim and overflowing with books and magazines about sewing, quilting, you name the craft and I have it. Many, many of those books are by Nancy Zieman.

Nancy was the first person inducted into the American Sewing Guild Hall of Fame. It's a virtual hall, but there isn't a person I can think of who would make a better inaugural inductee. It set the bar for future hall of famers, in my humble opinion.

I was so lucky to be in the studio audience the day that Public TV in Madison, WI, filmed Nancy's 30th anniversary shows. I was even on screen for about five seconds, in EACH episode no less!! So I guess I've had a taste of my 15 minutes of fame. :-)

I don't have a copy of the book yet, although that will be remedied soon. But you can and should go to the Nancy Zieman blog (link at the right side of this post) to read Nancy's introduction, and click through the blog tour of people in the industry who have commented on her book. Then go get it and read it... really!

I was taking business classes at the local technical college back in the 80's and had to write a paper. I made an appointment with the Nancy's Notions' advertising and publicity manager to discuss how the business started. I drove to Beaver Dam, and Kathy was gracious enough to give me an hour of her time and filled me in on how the company started and grew into a business that at the time was the largest woman-owned business in Wisconsin. So I knew some of the story before the book was published. But it illustrates so well how far back Nancy's business philosophy of sharing with everyone really goes!

I got a B+ on that paper, and if I had added my bibliography it would have been an A. But what I really got from that exercise was a good, solid lesson in how to do well while doing good.

Nancy has lots of admirers, tons of fans, and the loyalty of nearly everyone who has ever met her. And yet, she is the nicest person, so genuine and sweet.

I still want to be like her 'when I grow up'... and we could all take a page from her book. Rock on, Nancy!

Sew on...

Choices

Need I say more?

Oh my goodness, some days my visit to Rita Farro's blog is enough to take my breath away!

Well captured, Rita!

Sew on...

Groundhog Day!

OK, not until Sunday...

From Wikipedia, I read that according to Groundhog Day organizers, the rodents' forecasts are accurate 75% to 90% of the time. However, a Canadian study for 13 cities in the past 30 to 40 years found that the weather patterns predicted on Groundhog Day were only 37% accurate over that time period—a value not significant compared to the 33% that could occur by chance.

In Wisconsin, if you see a shadow on February 2, it means the sun is out and the temperature is probably low. Counting six weeks from February 2 puts you in the middle of March.

Still winter, people!!

OK, maybe mild winter versus cold winter, but winter none the less.

Sounds like a good time to curl up with a good book, or maybe put that quilt in your lap and do the binding by hand while watching some stuff you recorded on TV, or a good movie on DVD.

Tomorrow our quilt group will be meeting at church to kit things up for the year. Susie B and I sort the fabrics into sets that go together. Then we'll haul out our patterns and see what we can make from each pile. I bring our reusable zipper gallon bags and we get to work. Then the ladies who want to make a top will take a bag and a pattern and bring us back a finished top.

Other ladies take the finished tops and matching backs, sandwich and pin, and pile up for the quilters -- Susie and Barb, but mostly Susie.

Bonnie and Shirley finish bindings, and sew on labels. Then we distribute to whatever charity projects we choose or where the greatest need is.

We also need to do some baby boy quilts for our baptisms.

That's what I'll be doing the day BEFORE Groundhog Day. The afternoon of the actual day I plan to work on a project or two of my own, maybe whittle down the UFO box. I still have plenty of those!

Sew on...

The Joy of Winter

Oh the merry joys of winter, especially in the Midwest!

Since the Polar Vortex has been visiting, we've been enjoying below normal to nearly record low temperatures.  Even being near the Big Pond hasn't been the usual insulator.  There's been a lot of below zero wind chill (something I would much rather NOT know about).  Somehow it's so much colder when you hear '25 below' than '1 above', although anything below 60 is unbearable to me lately, so I'm not sure why.

Today, we reached 17 degrees.  Above zero!  It was nearly a heat wave.  I had on so many layers of clothing that it took an extra five minutes to put myself back together every time I had to visit the facilities.

One of the project managers I support 'had' to go to Florida today.  Yeah, I know, poor fella... 

He called me from the airport because flights were being cancelled.  Seems that the deicing methods weren't working too well at 6 degrees above zero this morning.  Combine that with delays from other parts of the country and that made four hour delays and overbooked flights the norm.

What could I do?  Not that I was feeling much sympathy for him.  Poor guy...

I booked him a flight out of Chicago instead, and suggested he get his baggage onto the Airport Shuttle, which is a large bus that runs between Milwaukee and the two Chicago airports.  Enjoy the ride, buddy, while I sit in the parking lot tonight waiting for the gauge in my car to move off "C".

Brrrr.  I am thinking about making myself a fleece maxi-skirt and fleece fingerless mittens to wear in my office.

Or not.

Fleece is not exactly the fashion statement I wish to make at the office this week.  Although I am SO TIRED of being cold or being over-dressed!

I totally get why people become snowbirds.  Hot flashes notwithstanding, winter in the Midwest can be the pits.

Until it snows and the neighborhood looks like a photo from Currier and Ives.  :-)  Then it seems nice, at least while the snow stays clean and unmarked.

Let's all remember this time when it's August and the very thought of movement makes us perspire.

"Man is a fool, when it's hot he wants it cool.
When it's cool, he wants it hot,
Always wanting what is not."

Grandma, you were so right.

Sew on!

New Projects

Yesterday when I opened Blogger to post, what I had in mind to talk about wasn't what I posted. Does that ever happen to you, you intend to do one thing, then do another?

I spent time with the grands over the holidays when I was off work. We did fun stuff like baking and crafts. One of the things that Miss A loves to do is color. Her mom doesn't enjoy the smell of crayons, so she colors a lot with markers at home, and more with crayons at my house.

I love crayons. In September when school supplies are everywhere, I just can't fight the urge to purchase a new box. Most of the time I buy the biggest box I can find. The more colors the better, right?

That used to be 64 but now it's 96.

OH HO!  Turns out it's not...  witness the Crayon Ultimate Collection, when did they come up with this?? I want one. NOW!

(Sorry the picture is so little, if it's larger it gets pixalated!)

One of the things we do with these lovelies is to make a picture of colors.  My mom used to do this with my younger siblings -- she said it exercised the imagination. Here's the plan: you take a large piece of blank paper and draw a doodle, crossing lines and filling the page with an outline.  Then you start to color each space.  You can make a pattern or what is the most fun for me is to use a different color for each space.

I like to play with the colors so they go from one spot to another, or they flow from blue to green to whatever.  This is one I did with A and we used the markers she made with her Christmas gift, plus the other markers we had around the house.  January in Wisconsin seems to be calling out for color.  It's either white, gray or black here this time of year.  I was thinking about how I could translate this into fabric for either a wall hanging or a quilt top.  It would involve a lot of fussy cutting, but wouldn't it be fun? 

Maybe I should think smaller... place mats?

Oh, the choices!

Sew on...

Inspiration for 2014

Casting about this week for a project to start has been fun. Saturday our church quilt group actually sewed shorts for a mission project using tee shirts. One of our members owns an embroidery business and also does screen printed tee shirts. Someone didn't pay for an order of blue shirts and he donated them to us for materials.

We had a handful of extra ladies and two tweens helping. We set up stations and went to town. The shorts were pre-assembled by another member with a serger. We were cutting the discarded bottoms of the tees for waistbands and hemming the legs. If you're interested in the pattern, it's at Nancy Zieman's website, and it's called Britches for Boys, to go along with the Little Dresses for Africa.

I had my serger and was using it to attach the waistbands to the shorts bodies. This prompted lots of interest from the tweens, one of whom is a future sewist I am certain! We discussed the functions of the various threads, and how fast the machine goes. And of course how with a serger you never, never, NEVER sew over pins!

On of the ladies wanted to see how the blades worked. She has no serger herself and the idea that the machine was cutting was fascinating, so we pulled the front case off the machine and watched the slivers roll out onto the table.

This was SO much fun for me, I love teaching people things I know and it's more fun when they are truly interested. We decided that we're going to set up a youth sewing day and make pillow cases, using the burrito method. If you're interested in that, google Pillow Cases Burrito Method and you'll find dozens of sites and tutorials. My favorite is the one put out by the 1 Million Pillowcases project.

What with dusting off the serger for this project and the interest in pillow cases, I'm inspired. I need to get sewing, and get some finishes in for 2014!!

I hope to make this my first finish this year.  It's a Christmas family quilt project we did a couple of years ago, and I'm among the last of the family members who contributed blocks to get mine done!  And I have TWO to do!!  Wish me luck...

Sew on!