995 and Weekend Accomplishments

I am happy to report that I had a wonderful five whole days off work, and I spent some time in my sewing room!

Ta DA!!  Last Friday I put the inner borders on the Bargello wall hanging from hell... all I have to do is sew on the outer 4 inch border and it will be ready for a backing.  How to quilt it is the question.  It's got nearly 2000 pieces in it, some of them are only showing 1/4 inch.  I am not an experienced machine quilter, nor do I enjoy it.  Hmmmm, this one will bear some contemplation.

I have to say, I like the colors.  It goes from darkest brown to cream and from light teal to dark.  I have a space in my upstairs hall where it will be the perfect thing to brighten an empty cream wall.

There hasn't been much time for the Phone Guy's Wife blocks recently, but I did finalize my layout decision.  I'm doing 'sashing as you go', which looks very nice and not so busy when you lay them out.  I cut 1 1/2 inch sashing strips from white, and 1/1/2 inch squares from dark green.  This is just a section of the new layout.  My design wall is too small for much more, but you get the idea.

I need a big spot to lay them out so I can make sure the colors kind of balance out.

995, what's that about?  Tonight that's how many views my blog has gotten!  I have posted 88 blogs before today, and I have three followers.  So someone must be reading without following or else I come here a lot!!  Anyway, thanks for the visits, however many you may have made.

Last thing for today... I went to the big chain to buy some stash fabrics for our church quilt group.  They had cottons for 40% off, and I had some cash.  I picked up some things that will hopefully make our big bin of calico florals into some interesting combinations.

Big Bin

New Fabrics

I realized when I took this photo that I was going to pick up some pink and rose colored stuff too, but I must have been distracted by the person at the cutting counter.  She was literally telling the customers her life story and offering high fives when someone said something she agreed with.  Lucky for me the person who was doing my cutting was paying attention to what she was doing.

Also over the weekend I cut a ton of stuff for kits for the church ladies.  I start with a group we've decided looks cool together.

Then I read the 'recipe' and cut the pieces.

Obviously NOT the same bunch as above... but you get the idea.

Then it all goes in a Ziploc bag.  Ready for transport, with the name of the pattern on the bag or a copy inside.

Everyone's building their own portfolio of patterns and they have their favorites.  As long as I have the cutting directions, I can keep people busy.  I wish I had a photo of the last batch of finished quilts to show you.  Next time we have them laid out, I'll try to remember to do that!

Here's my batch for this Sunday's get together:

Now to get to that pink dress...

Sewing Again!!

I am so happy to report that I actually did a little sewing tonight after work!!  Yes, I turned on the machine (since I can now see it on the table, it's no longer piled with stuff) and sewed two blocks for my Phone Guy's Wife collection.

First I finished up the Maple Leaf block that I had cut out about a month ago.  It's a spring maple leaf, bright green like the tree in my back yard was before the heat wave.

Then I did a block called Northern Lights.  I think it was supposed to be a lower contrast, but honestly I don't think I like blocks where the colors sort of mush together.  What is the point of doing all that piecing and not have it show, you know what I mean?

So this block looks very nice but I must not have been careful sewing because one side is slightly less than the full 6 1/2 inches, I think you can see the offending corner.  I might have to un-sew, and re-sew this one.

I also pressed some more hearts onto some more muslin.  I'm trying to convince my oldest Grand that she can do the sewing around the edges.  Right now they're just held on by Wonder Under.

Also I am ready for a marathon sewing weekend, (since I have taken vacation the two days after the coming holiday) having cut many small pieces into usable strip sizes...  I have a bin of two inch strips

and another of 2 1/2 inch strips...

just ready and waiting for some production sewing.

Also ready to go is one little girl's dress for the smallest grand

All that is needed is a zipper, and some facings or bindings on the neck and sleeves.  I guess I didn't hang it too well, did I?? 

Oh, and I got a 'housewarming' gift in my new office today.  It matches exactly the green of the guest chairs and the wall and ceiling in the break room.  Thanks went out to the generous guy who sent this to me from Overland Park, Kansas.  What will they think of next??

This is actually a very functional tape dispenser!!  What a hoot!

Sew on, and I mean it!!

It's All In the Prep Work

I am part of a group of quilters through our church, the Loving Hands Quilters.  We make baptism quilts for the babies in our congregation and those who are baptized in our church.  We donate quilts to various charities both local and worldwide. We enjoy working together.

Everyone has a task they like best, but we all do various things.  Over the past couple of years I've become the "kit maker".  We pick various patterns to sew, and I cut up fabric from our stash and pack each kit in a zip-locked plastic bag.  I label the bag with the pattern name, and everyone works from their personal copy of the pattern.

We cleaned and organized our stash recently.  I ended up with a large tub of fabric, tied into bundles of fabrics that go together.  Now I have to start cutting.

Normally we're what we call 'self-funded'... that is, we are on our own for finances.  This has been OK for a long while, because we have donated fabrics to work from, and we've made do with things from our various personal resource centers.  Once in a while we get some money and go pick up the things that we're missing.  Most of the time we buy solids or tone on tone fabrics, and batting.

This month I have the pleasant task of spending a few dollars to fill the gaps in our stash.  We have a lot of floral calicoes, and we need some coordiates and some muslin.

The ladies requested that we do a couple of heart applique patterns.  I picked up a bolt of Wonder Under at Joann's with my 40% off coupon.  Then I used my ASG discount for another 10% off.  I spent this afternoon tracing my heart templates onto the paper side, and ironing them onto swatches of the various florals and other small pieces of fabric. 

Then. I. Cut. Them. Out.  Wow, even when watching reruns of The Gilmore Girls, that makes for a long, boring afternoon!!  Then, more ironing onto 6 1/2 inch squares of muslin. 

I hope someone else wants to sew around the edges of these hearts.  I think I may be tired of looking at them...

The Move is Over!!

The move is finally over, and we're putting our stuff away!  Today was the day to empty the totes and carts in preparation for the movers to come and pick them up.  I have a whopper of a bruise on my left knee area, and a smaller one on my wrist..

Bruise, also called a contusion, a type of relatively minor hematoma of tissue^[1] in which capillaries and sometimes venules are damaged by trauma, allowing blood to seep into the surrounding interstitial tissues.

A bruise is a common skin injury that results in breakage of blood vessels under the skin. Blood from damaged blood vessels beneath the skin collects near the surface of the skin resulting in what we recognize as a black and blue mark.  The shades of color of a bruise are red/blue when it's fresh, turning blue/black/purple after a day or two, then going to greenish-yellow and finally fading away.

I should try to coordinate my outfits with the color of the bruises I got while moving stuff in our office.  Or maybe that's a little crazy! 

Our new office is much bigger than the old one, well at least it's wider and longer.  We were on three floors before, and now we're on one, so it would stand to reason that it looks bigger.  The acres of space between me and, say, the ladies room, is huge!  So my feet are feeling the effects.  Anyone know a good foot massage technique??

And all the bending and stretching!  I washed down about 75% of the work surfaces and shelves and conference tables on Saturday.  Oh, my aching back!!

But things are getting there.  Today when I left the office I didn't feel that my cubicle was in any way horrible or disgusting looking.  :-)  It's starting to feel less like a storage space and more like a work station.  Progress indeed!

Now I only hope I can get motivated to work on some of my sewing projects this weekend.  I have to finish the bargello from hell

and get back to the Phone Guy's Wife blocks

Happy sewing (I hope!!)



Stash, Resource Center, and Other Miscellaneous Terms

Our office move is done, and during the move we discovered how much stuff we had accumulated over the 25 years our company had been in the building.

We donated enough three ring binders to my granddaughter's school to provide all the incoming kindergarteners with their portfolio binders at no charge, plus binder clips, book ends, file folders, pens and pencils and paper for the teachers.  My SIL drove over twice with the back of the station wagon full. 

This was not surprising because we had over 100 people in our location two years ago, but when we moved out we were down to about 60.  So there was a lot of stuff sitting in desks and file cabinets.  The other location we merged with was about the same.  So putting things away yesterday involved cramming and being creative!  All conference rooms have their own supply of supplies... is that a redundancy or an oxymoron?  Oh well, we don't have to buy some things until next fiscal year!

I brought all my personal things home because the movers would not be responsible for lamps, pictures of relatives, or chotchkies.  Combined with the fact that we're painting the two upstairs bedrooms and having carpeting installed makes our garage look like a warehouse.

SO--- imagine what I was thinking when I got this call last weekend:

"Hi, Sue, what are you doing Tuesday night?  Can you come to church at 6:30?  Someone donated 11 boxes of fabric to the quilting group and we have to go through it."

Hmmm...  11 boxes.  Big boxes or small?  Of fabric.  Could be anything.  Could be good.  Could be junk.

So I met the other ladies in the Loving Hands Quilt Group after work, and got the answer.

Six of the boxes were pretty good sized.  The other five were wide but only about six inches deep.  They were all full of samples of drapery and upholstery fabric.

OK, not what we normally use for quilting!!  I guess when some people say fabric, it's a generic, all-encompassing term like paper or fish.

There were some poly-cotton pieces that can be used for general use quilts.  We do make some to send to charity that need to be sturdy.  Some of the recipients of our work live in less than ideal conditions and normal quilt fabric wouldn't last or keep them warm.  So one box was filled with small pieces that can be sewn as is, and one was filled with larger pieces we may cut up later.

A quantity was designated for another group who can turn them into crafty projects, and some was set aside for a lady who makes small purses and tote bags.  Some of the pieces were backed with some sort of coating that would surely gum up the average sewing machine, so a bunch was tossed out as not suitable for anyone we know.

But I am the lucky owner of several stacks of things picked out by the group as likely candidates for tote or travel bags.

These are a few of the things I came home with, and now I just have to find a place for all of this while I finish up a few other projects to make room for the NEW projects that will surely come to mind when I take the time to tear all the tags off these pieces!!  <sigh>

Today we worked on our quilt projects after church, and Jean came in to look through the boxes we set aside for her.  She kept commenting on how pretty things were, and asking me if I didn't want to look at some of her rejects.  Nope!!  Not looking!!  I know they're lovely but I cannot.  I. Cannot. Bring. Home. One. More. Scrap.

For now...

. 

Progress being made....



ALL the file drawers are empty!!




We still have plenty of totes...

 By 5 p.m. today when they shut down the phones and the computers, I should be exhausted and very dirty!  True to form, my boss had to travel today and will be out of town until Monday.  He's not a pack rat so his stuff was all packed yesterday.  He'll come to the new location on Monday.  What luck, huh?

Moving the Office

In case any of my three followers were wondering why I haven't posted since last Thursday, this is why:

Our office is moving!!    

We have been in one location since 1987, and believe you me, there is a LOT of junk that has been accumulating over the years!  We've been going through a major records purge, sending a ton of boxes to off site storage, and shredding a lot. 

Well, we haven't shredded, a company called (appropriately) Piranha has been providing big blue bins into which we have poured our paper lives from closed projects and expired archives and all the nooks and crannies of our work life.

We're down to the wire.  There are two more 'in office' work days this week.  Then Friday the big moving van comes and picks up all our our totes, carts and boxes, and drives us the seven or eight blocks over to the new location and unloads it all.

Saturday those of us on the moving committee will be putting everything in the new space.  I'm responsible for our joint venture project and all the office supplies and kitchen supplies.  Other people will be moving the garage, the machines, hooking up computers and phones, all the other lovely things that go into making a 100 person office function.

about half of what needs to go into my new cube!!

After an open house on Sunday, the only thing remaining will be for each person to put away their own personal office stuff and settle in to work.

Pros to the move:  two locations will be combined so instead of two rents there will be one, and instead of two offices half full, there will be one nearly full.  We'll all be in the same spot so we can spend less time on the phone with each other.  Our new location has many amenities in the building including food vendors, a workout room, a big lobby with tables and a TV and the parking is attached.  We'll be in an office building that caters to professional working people.  A building built in the 20th century as opposed to the 19th.  One with heat that works and AC the same, and an elevator that does not take two minutes to go one floor!

Cons:  well, I'll be in a cubicle instead of an office with a door, but I've done that before. 

So if you don't see a new post for a bit, you will know what I'm up to... and say to yourself "I'm glad it's not me!!"

Nancy's 30th Anniversary Show

Today I had one of the most enjoyable days of my life, and certainly one of the best days of my sewing life!  I was part of the live audience at the taping of Nancy Zieman's 30th anniversary on public television.  I cannot begin to tell you how special that was. 

I took a day off work and purchased one of a limited number of tickets to attend a taping of one of my favorite shows on TV, Sewing With Nancy.  I think I started watching SWN about halfway through the first year she was on public TV, or maybe the second season.  I taped it the old fashioned way, on VHS tapes.  I watched them over and over.  Every year at Sewing Weekend I would buy the full season of booklets that Nancy wrote to accompany her shows.  She even autographed a few of them.

So how could I not attend the event marking three decades on public television?? 

The drive to Madison where she tapes was uneventful.  The WPT volunteers were there to help us find the studio.  We walked past carpenter shops and prop rooms into a studio with black walls and lots of cameras and ceiling lights.

 


I was early enough to get a good seat.  I choose to sit on the right side in an angle row where no one was sitting in front of me, because it usually happens that the tallest person in the place will sit in front of me and block the view.  Think dance recitals where I don't get to see the dancers in the center...

There were desserts and beverages, and a wonderful WPT volunteer whose name escapes me but I know you've seen her during pledge week gave us the housekeeping rules.  We were able to take photos before and after but not during taping.

Nancy had her family there.  I recognized her husband from past Sewing Weekends where he once offered to rent me a trailer to help take my loot home, and her oldest son who once shuffled a big box to my car for me. 

Taping was done in two sections for the two part series.  The show will air in the fall schedule, but you might see it sooner (during Pledge prgramming) if you get Wisconsin Public Television on your cable (as opposed to Milwaukee Public Television, which is a different station).

There were a couple of retakes of a few things, but things went very smoothly.  Nancy has a great crew and she's a total professional!  She had guests  including Mary Mulari (her most frequent guest at 46 shows so far), Gail Brown, who she called most versatile, Eileen Roche, Natalie Sewell and her two 'right hand women' Donna and Pat.  These ladies are some of my favorite sewing professionals and it was a joy to here them reminisce about their years of working with Nancy.  They are genuinely nice people in addition to being such good teachers.

Left to right Donna, Gail, Pat, Nancy's director I think, Nancy, Natalie and Eileen.

From the other angle you can see Mary Mulari, third from the left.

A staff member with a video camera was filming the audience, making a video for Nancy, and I waved and said hello.   I should have said congratulations, but I was kind of tongue tied!  Duh!  I used to be better at thinking on my feet!

There were great door prizes.  Gosh, you can't even believe it, but someone won a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR BABY LOCK SEWING MACHINE!!  <sigh> it was not me.  I also did not win the Amazing Designs 25 CD design pack, or the Madeira Thread Chest (which I've been lusting after for so long) or the Oliso Iron or the Clover Notions gift packet. 

However, I am the proud owner of a lovely Baby Lock coffee mug, some Madeira thread and a Mary Mulari pattern that came in the goodie bag we all received on our way out.  And I had the privilege of attending an awesome event with one of my sewing heroes.  Did you know that Nancy was the first person inducted into the American Sewing Guild Hall of Fame?  Yes, she has done THAT much for the home sewing industry and sewists all over America!!

There were lots of audience shots, so hopefully I'll make it to public TV...  and not be left on the cutting room floor.  When you watch in November, look for me.  This is what I was wearing:

It's a Sewing Workshop pattern, made with Japanese cotton I bought at an ASG conference a few years ago.  I sewed it faster and more efficiently with techniques I learned by watching Nancy.

Thanks Nancy and WPT for 30 great years, and I look forward to many more to come. 

If you're not a supporter of Public TV, IMHO you should think seriously about becoming one!  And by all means watch.  You're sure to find something you will enjoy.

Keep on sewing.

Princesses and Dinosaurs

We don't have the normal kind of princesses in our family.  No looking for the pea under the mattress for us!  We're kind of a rowdy bunch, girls who work and fix things and help their husbands with projects or do their own projects and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty sometimes.  We are womanly women, make no mistake about that!  We like to get dressed up and wear cool shoes and all that.  We can do anything we want to do.  We are woman, hear us roar!! 

However, we choose what we like, and we like whatever that might be whole-heartedly!

Some of my girls like animals more than dolls and dishes.  I like to think they may be budding veterinarians or something along that line.  I think one may be a future archaeologist or paleontologist. 



Sitting astride a T-Rex

Our county zoo has an awesome exhibit of mechanical dinosaurs that make lots of noise and movement, set in a corner where the vegetation has been made to look Jurassic.  The vignettes are very lifelike, and if these dinos aren't truly life sized, they're pretty darned big! 

We went to see the dinosaurs last Sunday.  It was very hot and for me the walk was torture.  But to see the enjoyment on the faces of these three sisters was worth the discomfort.  I drank two bottles of water on the trip up the hill.  The girls put me to shame on the walk, or should I say walk/run?  They ran, I dragged my sorry butt as fast as I could without coming out of the flip-flops.



Can you tell they have a sense of humor?

I took the first picture at the beginning of the exhibit.  Nicely posed, sitting properly on the small fiberglass dino.  After a second, more candid shot (self-posed) we toured more of the exhibit.
There was a nest of some sort of babies that made a lot of noise, and the mama posed behind it made lots of threatening noises in response to their squeals.  It was pretty authentic-looking!

But no one was afraid, at least not in our party!  The smallest of us was possibly the most intrepid.  She wanted to touch all of them, but the exhibit had enough barriers to keep her on our side.  The dinos move their heads and limbs but they don't leave their spots, being anchored pretty well to the ground.



The nest of babies

So real you think it might eat you!!

Dinosaurs!

It's going to be hot tomorrow in southeast Wisconsin, so we're going to the zoo. 

DH bought a zoo pass again this year.  You pay a set amount and you can go as many times as you are able.  I think we have a parking pass too. 

They have a dinosaur exhibit this summer.  I'm not sure what's there, but Miss A desires to go in the worst way, so we're taking a family part tomorrow.

She knows the names of nearly every dinosaur there is.  I think she owns all the dinosaur books in the tri-county area.  I know because I've ready nearly every one of them to her at least 275 times!

She also has a corner of the market on dinosaur toys.  She has so many they make their home in a large plastic bin with double handles for hauling!  She sleeps with about five of them, her favorite is named T-Rexy, and he has a friend named Triceratopsy.

So this is how a five year old celebrates their birthday!

Ah yes, girls are different than they were when I was little.

But then, her big sister was the same way with dogs, and has never played with dolls.  Although some day I will show you all pictures of the nifty sweaters and scarves I made for her stuffed dog collection!

Keep on sewing.

Blahhh!!

Disclaimer:  I am generally a healthy happy person. 

This past week I've had either a flu bug or tummy problems perhaps relating to a new brand of pain reliever I take for the arthritis I have in my hands, elbows and knees.

I used to take Brand X a couple of times a day.  It never bothered my tummy at all.   Then the industry came out with New and Improved Pain Relievers Brands A and B and C, and they were just as effective and they promised to be so much safer for your tummy...

After a couple of years of taking Brands A or B or C (generally whatever was on sale or had a coupon!) I developed a pain in my tummy that hurt more when I was hungry than full, and other assorted ailments related to that area of anatomy.

Hmmm... Dr is concerned.  Let's go get an Upper and Lower Endoscopy!  Oh Joy!!

I won't go into that whole thing.  Suffice it to say, not fun!  But the results showed lesions that would have become ulcers.

OK, back to Brand X!  Plus pick up some of that Not Inexpensive OTC Stuff That Prevents Stomach Acid From Forming!!  Take that for three months, they said.  At about a dollar a day this had become my biggest medical expense. 

I take a few vitamins, probably fewer than I actually need, and one daily medication for blood pressure.  And if I'd just lose a few pounds I could probably stop taking that!

So one day, I found out they recalled Brand X.  Not being able to find it in a store was the first clue.  Then I Googled and read the whole story.  So now I had to find something else to take for old Arthur-Itis.

The guy at the pharmacy told me just what to take.  Yeah, yeah, coated and everything!  Safe for your tummy!!

Until this week that is.  Ugh, I remember this feeling.  Better go back for OTC STPSAFF...

I wish they had a pill like this:

Not Blogging This Weekend

I had lots of lovely plans for blogging this weekend, and Sunday after church I was hit with the most awful bug.  I don't know if it was something I ate or some kind of flu, results being nearly the same, but I felt horrible and did nothing that took me too far afield.

Needless to say, blogs are deferred for a little bit, until I feel better.

I know you'll find something out there to read instead, all three of my followers!

Keep on sewing!

The Painter and the Project

Before we painted, this room was the brightest blue you'd ever seen, and the ceiling was the same color!!

The AFTER color is sage green.  The closet will be green and will have a new organizer with poles and shelves.

I can hardly wait for the blue to be gone!!

'Tis the Season -- for Graduations!

Last week the preschoolers in the four year old class where my youngest grand went to school had a graduation ceremony.  These are children who are attending a local private preschool affiliated with the church our family attends, so they'll be going off to kindergarten in other places next year.  The teachers wanted to make it a memorable occasion. 

And they did!

I had taken the day off work to attend.  The two classes marched into the sanctuary of the church in lines, to a recording of Pomp and Circumstance, just like you're supposed to at a graduation.  They had risers set up, and there was more than one set of eyes filling up and more than one throat with a lump in it when they entered. 

They had made mortarboard hats with those Styrofoam plastic bowls and some kind of square cardboard, and each little graduate had a red tassel hanging from the center.

The Graduates!

There were songs instead of a commencement address.  There were no valedictorians.  But there was an actual reading of names and each graduate got a certificate of completion.  They moved their tassel from whatever side it was hanging on to the 'other side' and shook hands with their teacher.  There was not a dry eye in the house when they were done.

Then the winners of the Q is for Quilt raffle were announced.  A's best friend won the quilt that I made for the other class, and a girl in her class won the one that "Andy's mom" made for A's class.

Of course we had cake!  And punch and lemonade. 

This week E graduates from elementary school.  Next year it's on to Middle School.

Congratulations, ladies!  Good job.

Sow Along - May 28 Progress!!

I have to admit, I'm not really sewing ALONG with anyone, I'm just sewing along, making progress once in a while and getting behind at other times.  But I counted some progress this memorial day weekend.

I hemmed five pairs of pants for DD, fixed some pants for the eldest grand and did some minor sewing to a blouse and a swimsuit.  I cut a pair of my own slacks too short, and now I guess I'm making a pair of capris out of them.  And a couple of evenings I let myself be seduced by the bin of green fabrics and a couple of pattern books!

Remember back to our first basket block, how some of us didn't really LOOK at the templates and decided this basket didn't have a handle?  Clearly there WAS a handle, but without instructions some of us missed it.

Well, I decided to go back and put the handle on.

This is the result:

The handle is straighter than it looks.  And the color of this picture is actually more true.  I'm not sure what was wrong with the first picture... it could be that it was the camera or phone or whatever I took that picture with. 

I have 45 blocks done, but my design wall holds less than that.  Here's a photo of the current wall-full.

Six rows and seven columns... I think I'm going to do sashing and corner stones as a setting.

They look more restful with white space between, don't you think?

I started out with 2 1/2 inch strips, which will finish at 2 inches.  But I could just decide to cut that down to 1.5 inches finished.  It just depends on how many I have when I stop.  Although these things are like potato chips... you can't stop making 'em!

The three above, with the no-longer-handle-less basket, are Waterwheel, Tall Pine Tree, and a variation of Flying Geese that I saw in the book 501 Rotary Cut Quilt Blocks.

I hope you're having fun with your blocks!

Sew on!