Big Events and Small...

The 'promotion' ceremony for my oldest Grand, Miss E was last night at the local high school auditorium.  One entire section of seats was reserved for the class.  I don't know how many that was but I'm guessing a couple hundred... rows of maybe ten seats and many rows.  I have a program somewhere, I guess I could check.

Her last name is at the end of the alphabet, so we were pretty long waiting to see her walk across the stage, complete with wedge heels and swishy dress and MAKEUP!!  She is a lovely girl anyway but with some mascara and some lip gloss I thought she looked amazing.  Look out, freshman boys!  Prepare to get your hearts broken...

Her dress was beautiful.  She had picked one out at a local department store, and Mom bought it.  It needed a tuck here and there to fit perfectly, and I did that.  But when she came home from school the following Monday, she had discovered that several other girls had purchased the same dress.

Dialog:

A: Gramma, how much trouble is it to make a dress?
G: Depends on the dress... why?
A: I need a different dress.
G: How different?  What kind of dress?
A: Like the dress I bought, just like that but different.
G: OK... why?
A: Two other girls have the same dress.
G:  Ohhhhh, noooo.
A:  Yes, can you make one just like it but with different fabric?
G:  Sure, let's go shopping...

So we picked up some black crochet-type lace for the top, and the base fabric is satin in the preferred mint green color.  I found some chiffon in a matching green and we were off to the races.

 

I am lucky that she happens to be a perfect pattern size, requiring no alterations except for the length.  This is the dress hanging on my sewing room wall waiting for a try-on.  I had added a ribbon belt attached where the pink pin is showing.

 

She looked amazing, and her dress fit her personality to a tee.   I could tell she liked it. 

Here's the proud promote -- holding her certificate!  On Tuesday she officially starts her freshman year taking health and phys ed in summer school.  That's because she has a schedule so full of college prep electives that it was the only way to do it.

Looks AND brains and I am not bragging since it's the truth.

And amazing wedge heels that made her SOOO much taller than me.

...although they tell me that's not hard to do.

I'm so proud of her for her accomplishments.

Rock on!

Six Degrees of Separation Midwest Style

Remember that old film, Six Degrees of Separation?  Remember the game everyone played, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon??  Maybe not... we did it.  We could prove that anyone was connected to Kevin Bacon in six easy steps.  Some of them were pretty ridiculous! 

I had a Six Degrees connective experience that played out over the past year.  It went like this...

I have been going to Nancy's Notions Sewing Weekend for more years than I can count but I'm in double digits beginning with 2.

 Nancy's most frequent guest on Sewing with Nancy is Mary Mulari.  I first met Mary back when I was the president of the local American Sewing Guild.  We'd just gotten some cash built up in our treasury, and she was our first outside speaker.  I picked her up at the airport and got to know her a little.

I love Rita Farro's humor, have ever since I saw her at a Nancy Zieman Sewing Weekend years ago when she presented a seminar based on a book she wrote called "Life Is Not A Dress Size"... subtitled how to dress like a million bucks when you feel like Cher but look like Rosanne or something like that.  So when she started writing a blog, I started reading it daily... I NEED MY RITA FIX!! 

Go here and read it:  http://ritassewfun.blogspot.com/ -- sometimes funny, sometimes serious, always Rita... I have so often felt that she and I are kindred spirits.  When I respond to her sometimes I would say "this is Sue in the basement in Milwaukee" because at the time I started reading her blog, I was working in a suite of offices in a basement in Milwaukee.  (We've since moved to a second floor suite in Milwaukee, lucky me!)

Rita is friends with Mary Mulari.  They call their partnership the Midwest Ya-Ya Sisters (Have you seen the movie Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood??  If not go rent it!)

I try to see MWYYS shows whenever I can get to them, although I'm not one of their official stalkers.  Yes, they have those!

Rita often blogs about her granddaughter Lilly, and I have granddaughters, one just a bit older than Lilly.  Rita and I both have a thing about princesses -- it's a culture that needs updating.  The best princesses don't sit around and wait for the handsome prince, they rescue themselves using their own brains and initiative.  Think "Brave" or "Ever After".

Last year I won a Babylock Sewing Machine at MWYYS evening performance at Sewing Weekend!  My name was drawn by none other than Rita Farro's granddaughter Lilly.  When Rita read my name off she said "Hey, is that Sue from Milwaukee??"  Yikes!!  Yes it is!!  We had a lovely chat, Rita and Mary both signed my programs and the pattern I purchased and I felt like the luckiest person in the world that night.

One year I signed up to see Fons and Porter at Nancy's and sat in the front row.  Liz admired my vest, and so did Marianne.  Some conversation lead to a commission for me to sew a similar vest for each of them, and they went back and forth in the mail from Wisconsin to Iowa.

Liz retired and Marianne's daughter Mary joined her on their PBS show Love of Quilting, eventually taking it over.  This year, Mary Fons came to Sewing Weekend and I signed up to attend her seminar on Contrast.  It was AWESOME!!  I so enjoyed it.  Her sense of humor is amazing, she knows her stuff, and is highly entertaining. 

 

Mary blogs too.  Her blog is called Paper Girl.  She's a writer from way back, and I've been reading that daily too. 

 

http://blog.maryfons.com/  Read!  Be enlightened and entertained!

Are you with me so far??

I'm about to connect the dots.

So I'm reading Rita's blog about how she's taking her granddaughter on a trip to Chicago, and she emailed a friend who lives in Chicago for some suggestions on places to go.  She was invited to meet said friend for breakfast or some joint activities, i.e. Tour Guide stuff, you know, my city-let me show you around kind of stuff.

A few days later I'm reading Mary's blog about how a sewing friend contacted her and she's planning a super duper surprise for that friend and her granddaughter when they get to Chicago...

Oh yeah!  When I read that at first it didn't click.  But some days later, suddenly, there on Rita's blog are photos of MARY and on Mary's blog there are photos of LILLY and POW just like that, I can see the connections.  Duh, it should have clicked sooner but I have lots of sewing friends, so why would these ladies not have the same??

I guess my brain was slowing down or something.

So we're all connected I guess, in some way, shape or form.

Oh, and I completely forgot to tell Mary that I have a single son who is very handsome, very nice, recently divorced and I could totally fix them up!

Laugh on...

So Much To Do, So Little TIme...

This weekend was a lovely three day weekend that I stretched into four by taking Friday off. 

Of course you know what happens when you do that, don't you?  You work extra hours in the four days you DO work, and that makes Friday so much more glorious!

We (daughter, granddaughters, self) did some fun stuff.  I am nearly finished with Miss E's eighth grade graduation dress.  Pictures to come soon.

On Saturday I found a completely intact Chinese Checkers/Checkers/Chess tin at the Amazing Goodwill, and we spent the afternoon on Monday teaching Miss A how to play the marble version (Chinese) and how to strategize with regular old checkers.  You have to let them win sometimes when they're learning, or there are tears.  And Miss A might cry too...

You know you have to start out all your checkers on black squares, right?  It's amazing how many things you take for granted that everyone knows and that eight year olds don't know!

I picked up a bagful of books at AG too.  I counted the books I haven't read yet on the shelf in my bedroom, and it's over 80!  Yikes!!  But who can resist a paperback for 89 cents?  NOT ME...

 

The lady next door had a baby in May.  I want to find out what gender so I can finish a baby quilt and send it over.  I did complete the sewing in of the zipper in a sweater I started in the winter, and it's a neutral color.  Maybe that will go next door too.

Today is Miss A's spring concert.  Postponed from Friday when it threatened to be raining.  Which it did not.  However, one weekend evening, and I don't remember which, we had major thunderstorms that sent the family pets into hiding and quaking mode.

On Memorial Day, DH asked me "would you like to go out for lunch?"

I looked at him and asked him "who are you, and what have you done with my husband?"

He NEVER wants to go OUT for lunch!!  But we did, and it was lovely.

Now I'm back to the salt mines, trying to cram a week's worth of work into four days.

It's like deja vu all over again!

Rock on...

When I Retire I Want To Live In Beaver Dam, Wisconsin!

O.M.G.  I love Sewing Weekend!!

I tried to figure out when I first attended Sewing Weekend at Nancy's Notions in Beaver Dam, WI.  I have souvenir pins going back to 1996 but I might have gone a year or two before that.  I don't know when they started giving the pins, but I have a big pile... this year's pin was an adorable little red 'beetle' car that looks kind of like a VW. See it in the little announcement for 2017?

This year I agonized over what emphasis to take, quilting or sewing or embroidery or warehouse shows or a mix... what to do, what to do? 

I scheduled myself for some sewing, some quilting, and of course, Nancy's class.  Hers had some of everything.  It was a great time. 

Sewing:  This was probably Sandra Betzina's last trip to Wisconsin as she says she is retiring next year.  She says she's 75 -- but boy she still can give a class to make your head swim.  Lucky for me I have most of her books so I can hit the index and look up anything that I need.  I ordered her Power Sewing Tool Kit books 1 and 2, because they were mentioned in the seminar, and they were on sale, and looked like a good value.

I will use this book as a backup resource for all the notes I took.

Nancy showed some of her new McCall's patterns.  One of the jackets was in a reversible knit fabric that she said she got at Joann's.  That was a surprise.  (She said you have to support everyone... she's too nice!)  It was a stripe with a dot, and I really liked it, so I went on line and ordered some.  It was a three yard minimum, but I'm sure I can use it.

Reversible knit fabric

The display for Nancy's class, here we are waiting for the star to appear!

Quilting -- I got to meet Mary Fons!!  She is adorable, perky, funny, and she did a great presentation on contrast in quilting.  Boy just when you think you know everything along comes Mary to teach you new tricks.  If you get the chance to see her somewhere do not hesitate... she wrote a wonderful PowerPoint (as you'd expect, because she's first a writer, see her blog Paper Girl.) and one of the slides said "Kill the mango" or something.  It was about three colors she was using to illustrate that contrast is relative, but it broke us up laughing.  Well, we laughed all morning between revelations.

Later in the warehouse Mary was sitting in a booth sewing.  We stopped to chat and while we were talking about the Klutz Glove from Fons & Porter, a nice lady came up with a big bandage on her finger.  She started talking about how the glove would have saved her finger because she lost a huge chunk of it.  Eeeuww!

I started turning green, as did Mary, and I was literally backing away from the conversation... My friend Suzi, who's a nurse, was deep in discussion on the whole thing. Much to my chagrin.  I said to Mary "I have a book signed by your mom and Liz, it would be so great if you signed one for me too". 

She graciously agreed and we successfully ended the gory descriptions of the injury.  Thank the Lord!!   And now I have a matched set of autographs, one from Marianne Fons and Liz Porter, and one from Mary Fons.  It's a dynasty...

Embroidery - Nancy was showing a new set of tee shirt embroidery patterns that she and Eileen Roche wrote called Simple to Chic T-shirt Remakes.  They were gorgeous.  I would have picked up the DVD but I haven't done the first one they did together and I've had it for two years.  I want to get back to that though.  I really dislike crew neck tees on me.  I always prefer vee neck shirts or a semi-wide scoop neck for myself.  This embroidery software does it perfectly and makes it easy.

I shopped a bit, but not as much as in years past.  I'm happy with all my purchases and cannot wait for the next nice long weekend so I can unpack and start working on some projects!

Quilt-embroider-sew on!

Quilt Show in Jackson WI

I stumbled across another quilt show in SE Wisconsin last weekend.  I was looking for information on where you can rent time on a long arm quilting machine, which led me to a quilt shop in Elkhorn WI, which led me to the quilt show in Jackson WI!

Serendipity.  Gotta love it!

I texted my friend Suzi and we made a tentative date to go on Sunday.

With my upcoming (at the time) milestone birthday approaching, Saturday was kind of chaotic with kids and grands in and out, lunch making and card reading, and all that, so by Sunday I was ready for some quilty goodness.

The drive to Jackson is normally easy but there was a bit of drama at the first major merge we passed, because a squad car had someone pulled over and one of those "I gotta get there no matter what get out of my (*&*ing way" people went tearing by.  You know what I mean...

NOT southeast Wisconsin, and the jam wasn't nearly this bad!

The show was at the Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School, a beautiful building.  Students from the school provided lunch and refreshments.  It was just a perfect setting.

I have to say the ladies in the It's A Stitch guild did a wonderful job on the show!  It was so well organized, everything from scissors sharpening to Grannie's Attic resale was available.  And the quilts on display were amazing.  I left feeling inadequate.  Again.




Warning!! Check the ball & chain.

For the price of admission we got three free patterns and all the eye candy you could take in.  One beauty after another was displayed.  We even managed to catch one of the bed peels (there were two on Sunday), and I can't begin to tell you how inspired we both were to bring back ideas for both our guilds and our personal sewing.  I didn't learn until later that the trunk show was done by Kathy Doman of the Quilt Factory.  We came in when the show was already in progress.

We looked at all the vendor booths, picked up a thing or two at Grannie's Attic, where a bag of laces and ribbons, a couple of Christmas napkins to embroider, and a chunk of fabric with apples in the print set me back $3.


Bag of lace, 2/3 yard of fabric, and a roll of lace.  $2.

Napkins to embroider.  $1.

 

Then we managed to get Suzi to try a long arm quilting machine from

http://stores.longarmconnection.com/

which is the shop whose web site I stopped at originally that started this little junket!  The machines were wonderful and the stuff that Suzi was doodling, even though it was her first time, looked amazing!  Maybe someday, right?  And interestingly the shop owner was another Sue.  Go figure!

We saw a couple of ladies from our own guild there.  Everyone enjoyed the show very much and I'm putting it on my calendar for next year too.  Although they may also have a winter show, I'll have to do some research. 

I'm looking forward to leaving on Thursday for Sewing Weekend in Beaver Dam.  I signed up for a class with Mary Fons, and I'm anticipating that a good time will be had by all.  How can it be otherwise.

Sew on...

Sewing With Nancy and Other May Activities

I have a milestone birthday coming up.  It's one of those awful things where you look at the date and you go "really, that's me?"  Or someone says to you as I wrote in a previous blog "you're lying about your age".

Funny how I don't always feel any different on the inside than I did when I was, say 24 or 35.  And then again on other days I don't want to put my feet on the floor in the morning or go do my treadmill steps in the afternoon. 

So says Mark Twain.  Although another version, less grammatically correct, has been attributed to Satchel Page, and some say Jack Benny said it.  Maybe they were just paraphrasing Mr. Twain.

This year a couple of things happened to me, one was I started getting all those stupid ads from health insurance companies who are trying to sell you policies that supplement or replace the one with the dreaded Medxxxxx name.  Then my current insurance company sent me a letter saying that they were dropping me the last day of the month before my birthday.

To add insult to injury, my work benefits include some life insurance and that company sent me a letter saying that as of the month of my birthday my premium was going to increase by $10.  Per WEEK.

Happy birthday to me!!

The good news is my health insurance is going to cost me less but I'll be spending the savings on the life insurance.

I'm getting psyched up to attend Nancy's Notions Sewing Weekend.  It's the first time I'll see Mary Fons in person.  I read her blog (Paper Girl) all the time.  I met her mother, quilter Marianne Fons back when she was touring with her then-business partner, Liz Porter when they came to Sewing Weekend, and I've heard her speak in a couple of other venues.  I actually made Liz and Marianne each a vest way back when.  I wonder if they ever wore them??  I never saw them wearing them on TV...I digress.

.. if you're not going to Sewing Weekend, the question is why not?  It's the most fun you can have in Beaver Dam on May 5-7 this year if you like to sew.  It may be the most fun you can have all year, anywhere in the US! In my humble opinion anyway.

It's a great big sewing party, and I'm excited to be seeing Mary Fons, Sandra Betzina, and Nancy Zieman on successive days. There are other sewing experts there and sometimes I can't decide what to sign up for.  Some other years I can narrow it down pretty easily.  For example if there is someone talking about upholstery I'll probably skip that, but you can always count me in for Nancy and Sandra.

There's plenty of time for shopping the warehouse.  I might stop by the Babylock booth and see if I can find anything that Miss E needs for the machine I won there last year.  And I always look in the warehouse for Mary Mulari and Rita Farro.  If either is there I have to stop just to say hello.  Who am I kidding, if Mary's got a new product I have to buy it! 

Speaking of Miss E, she graduates from eighth grade this year and wants me to make her a dress.  She found one she really liked and her mom bought it, but it turns out about five other girls bought it too... so we're making the same style in different fabrics so she doesn't see herself coming and going.

Here's the pattern I bought:

She wants View C in black lace on top and mint green chiffon over lining on the bottom.  Vogue Fabrics had the very thing and I ordered it today.  I have until the beginning of June to make it, so that shouldn't be too hard.  All I'm waiting for is the UPS man!

My daughter has a birthday and I bought her some pink shoes.   Shhh, don't tell.  She doesn't read my blog anyway so it's our secret.  I gave her some socks I knit that had pink in the yarn so I guess it's a theme.  Pink Footwear.

This coming Monday or Tuesday is girlfriends night out at Red Lobster.  If you see a group of ladies of a certain age enjoying each other's company, that will probably be us!

I just wish the weather was nicer.  The high on Monday was in the 70s, today is supposed to be in the 40s.  Brrr!

Memorial Day is coming up soon and I would really like to spend the whole weekend in my sewing studio.  I want to put up some shelves and sort out my excess inventory.  Maybe I'll have an 'overstock' sale, see if I can recycle some of the stuff I don't love anymore.  I have a giant shopping bag full of patterns, some never used, that need good homes.  Not to even mention the fabric I bought with good intentions!

Sew on...

Loving Hands Quilt Guild

Our church in New Berlin, WI, has a quilt mission as part of the Women's Mission groups.  As my co-leaders Suzi always says, we're "small but mighty".  We have about six or seven core members, and sometimes we pull in other people for a project here or there.

We always have a bag of quilt kits in our resource center, but sometimes our 'parts department' gets a little low.  We love making string blocks, and putting them into quilts, but we stopped making them for a while so we ran out.

This year we wanted to spend a day sewing together, and it seemed like getting some string blocks done would be a good project for all skill levels. You know what string blocks are I'm sure... but here's a sample just in case:

I made these 3 1/2 inch blocks of leftover pieces a while back. 
Our blocks at church are usually 9 1/2 inches. 

We had a whole bag of 'strings', which are the cuts that are left over when you make a project.  Sometimes they're large and can be used again in a quilt, and sometimes the pieces are short but can be sewn together and used, and sometimes you wonder why you didn't throw them away to begin with!

Suzi brought her bucket of strings too, and that turned out to be a BIG pile of goodness! We ended up with a crew of nine or ten, including one teenager and my own Miss A, who is almost 9.  So we went all the way from 9 to 90+!

We work on foundation blocks, pieces of fabric too light to use in an actual quilt; we had a ton of those precut.  Several of the ladies and the two youngsters had never made a string block before.  It's a good block for beginners to start with because it's so forgiving.  A demo of the process was made and we were off to the races!

At various points during the day we ate, played bingo with quilt words and gave away prizes, then returned to sewing.  By the end of the afternoon we had over 30 blocks, 9 1/2 inches square, sewn, pressed and trimmed to size.  Next time someone is looking for a project, this could be the one they pick up!

Sadly I took almost NO pictures during this wonderful day.  Next time, for sure...  A good time was had by all.  I hope we made some new friends, and that they come back again next month.  Our 'parts department' is full again!

Sew on...

Craft Lovers, Unite! We're Expanding Our Skills...

I can't decide which craft activity is my favorite.  I love to:

• sew garments
• make quilt tops
• knit
• crochet
• bead
• make cards
• draw
• color with crayons or other medium
• paint things like small furniture items, fabric or paper
• dye things
• embellish things
• refashion things

I sometimes wonder if there's anything I won't try at least once.  I tried flower pounding at a quilt shop years ago.  Smashing the leaves and petals into treated fabric made interesting designs, but I thought it was a lot of work for results that could be less than stellar.  Although it was a very good way to work off some calories, and maybe some aggressive tendencies!  If you're interested there was actually a booklet on the subject... try googling it to see if it's still in print.



Pounded flowers from someone else's project.  Mine looked nowhere near this good!!



socks I knit...



Miss A and I colored on fabric with markers.



I refashioned a jacket and got many more uses out of it!



I love doing these mindless art projects.

 

all my yarn ends made a warm couch blanket.

The girls painted rocks...

and I painted a flower pot.

My problem is, where do you stash all the craft supplies?  My resource center is kinda bulging.

However, I justify what I'm doing by the following list from Highlights Magazine's website:

Here are just some of the developmental skills your preschooler learns while working on crafts:

1. Following Directions

2. Focus and Concentration 

3. Fine Motor Skills 

4. Patience -- personal note:  I am still working on this!!

5. Early Problem Solving Skills 


So really, I'm contributing to my own education every time I start a new project, right??

Craft on...

Lily or Lilly?

Last fall, one of my coworkers, a man I know well and respect but who is also a friend, became a first time grandfather.  He and his wife and family were then and still are very excited about the baby.

He told me she came unexpectedly early, and he spent quite a number of months going back and forth between home and hospital, in cities that were many miles apart.  But baby is fine now in spite of the difficulties of her early months.

When he told me her name, I loved it.  Of course I'm not sure how they're spelling it, Lilly or Lily, but whichever way, I'm sure she's beautiful!  All grandbabies are beautiful.  It's a fact!

So began my quest for lily fabric.  I checked local shops, and you could find multiple florals of every variety, but the lilies were day lilies or tiger lilies, or God Forbid Easter Lilies... which I do not like and I don't care for the smell they give off!

You would think that in my mountains of fabric I'd have something appropriate!  Sadly, no...

What to do?  Google, of course... I did try several on line fabric shops, and Etsy and eBay.  I found a lovely fabric on Etsy but when it arrived it was heavy drapery type stuff.  Then I found some fabric with lilies that ended up being much less attractive in person, and was nearly impossible to coordinate with anything to make it so.  Maybe someone else could do it, but  not me!

Not that attractive, and hard to match...

Pretty but a very heavy weight

Ta Da!!  At last!  Something I can work with!!

After receiving three or four packages in the mail, and getting the evil eye from DH a couple of times, I landed on a web site that had what looked like the perfect lily fabric, and when it arrived, it WAS the perfect fabric.

 

The pattern is called Five Easy Pieces.  I'm not sure who the designer was, but it appeared in Quilty Magazine and in one of the Quilty books, so I'm thinking Mary Fons had at least looked at it!  In fact she had made one with a monkey print as the focus fabric.  It's basically a large-centered, abbreviated log cabin.  The pattern comes from alternating the logs around the center block.

 

 

I named it the Lily Quilt.  Because, why not and what else?

 

I actually finished the top in January.  By then I think Miss Lilly was home from the hospital.  I thought "Self, better get going"...

 

Before Easter, I laid the quilt on the table and pinned it up.  Ready to go, right?  Fear struck!!  OMG I have to quilt this thing!!  I'm not a good free motion quilter. I admit it.  I consider myself a piecer, and when the top's done, I'm done.  The only really finished finished quilts I've worked on have been quilted by others.  AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!  But I wanted to do this one myself.

 

Why??  I don't know.  It was completely irrational.  My friend Suzi asked if I wanted her help on it so I could finish it before Lilly starts college.  I declined.

 

Why?  I don't know, it was irrational and if not irrational then silly to say the least!

 

It sat rolled up on my sewing table for several weeks, nagging and making me avoid my sewing room.  Oh really?  Really...  but then I started getting the urge to sew, and dang it, that quilt was NOT going to stand in my way.  I'm bigger than it is, right?  Who says one little quilt is going to stand between me and my Baby Lock??  Ha!

 

Saturday Miss A came over and I said "We are going to sew today!"  Whoo-hoo, let's get down there!!  I gave her a project to work on and got myself set up.  The first stitch was the hardest, let me tell you. 

I was aiming for large, meandering stitches, but it wasn't long before I was crossing myself up so I decided to go loopy.



Those rose shaped just begged me to go around and around... I had this fabulous variegated thread too.

This is the back of that rose shape.  Hey, I'm impressed!

Getting adventurous, I put in the date on one of the sashing strips.



I quilted my name in too, but on the front it's in the patterned block so it's hard to find.  I also put the name LILLY in another spot.

So to those of you like my friend Suzi who do fabulous free motion quilting work, don't worry, I'm not about to give you any competition yet, but I can say I did this one all by myself!

The one thing I forgot to do thus far is take a photo of the whole thing, quilted.

And I did label it.  Don't forget to do a label especially on quilts you're giving as gifts.  I'm so guilty of not doing that.

Sew on...