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!