Happy Easter and a Finish or Two!

I hope you had a blessed holiday weekend, whether you celebrated Easter or Passover.

Hubby and I have been going to early church services for so long, it seems only right that we go to Sunrise Service on Easter morning.  It's very moving and beautiful.  We start outside around an outdoor firepit and process into the beautifully decorated sanctuary.  Our pastor is a very good preacher, and his sermons really always seem to hit the mark.

Normally we go separately because hubby likes to leave right after, and I like to stay for coffee and a bit of visiting.  We went together this week because it was Easter.  We were driving home at 7:40 a.m.  I said "Wow, on a normal week we wouldn't even be getting there at this time!"

After breakfast I took a nap.

The family came over at around 2 p.m. and we had dinner.  Pot roast and ham and roasted veggies and salad and a key lime pie for dessert. 

And of course a few Easter Eggs, carefully crafted and dyed by Miss A and Miss E.  Miss A was the BOSS this year (as she normally must be!) and Miss E was allowed to do some eggs (but not many) by the little tyrant crew chief.  Of course at 13 and a half, one is much too dignified to appear to CARE about those things, but she is artistic and wanted to contribute SOME of her talent!

You would think with three dozen eggs cooked, she could get some of them, but little sister had a PLAN and we just had to go ALONG.  Or ELSE.  LOL!

We have these cute little egg shaped plastic cups for dye, color coded, and the plastic plus the towel saves us from cracked eggs during the coloring process, unless of course they fall elsewhere...

 The "invisible crayon" provided many minutes of excitement while waiting for the dye to become the proper shade.  I used vinegar so the colors were supposed to be 'vibrant'.  If they wanted pastels they just dipped less.

I am SO sorry, this photo will NOT rotate, no matter what program I use to save it!  Can you tilt your head just a bit?  She had stations set up for really wet eggs, dry eggs, and undyed eggs. 

 

And I normally would not post a picture of my grands with their faces showing, but her hair was up and her shirt was just TOO good to pass up... it's one of Dad's that she used for an artist's smock.

One dozen finished!  The green one says 'green egg'.  To eat with your ham...

We sacrificed a car wash towel and it now has a lovely dotted pattern.

I'm sure the dye will wash out of the towel, and NO dye got on my rug or on the Crew Chief! 

The youth auction quilt and pillows were delivered.  The auction is in two weeks, that was cutting it short!  I sewed a lovely label on the back.  The throw pillows were donated by a lady who was cleaning out her sewing room in order to move. 

The quilt is 50x60 inches so the perfect lap or dorm quilt, with two coordinating but not matching throw pillows that I made from the left over pieces.

It was expertly quilted by my friend Suzi with fans, and a straight line pattern in the border.

The back, before the label.  Of COURSE there's no photo of the label...  duh me!

Head tilting is required... sorry.

The top is on the right side... sigh.

Pillow No. 1 has a flange around the edges, which was a challenge to get under the presser foot!

Pillow No. 2 is a simple log cabin pattern, featuring the cherry fabric in the center. 

My last finish this week was a doll dress for a cabbage patch-sized doll.  The dress was made from the lining and overlay of my cousin's wedding dress.  She gave it to our cousin Amy to make pillows from after her wedding a couple of years ago.  She doesn't know my aunt decided that this doll she has and wanted to give to her should have a wedding dress (or that I should make it!)  So if you see Kelly, don't tell... but since I doubt she reads this blog we can take a look.

Full front view.

Detail of the collar.  That's the corner of the overlay at the front.

Skirt detail.  The edge is one piece, and the flowers are all separate pieces, sewn down individually.

 

I could not find a piece of the overlay large enough to cover the whole skirt without cutting off many of the lace flowers and beads.  Lace is just motifs such as the flowers sewn onto netting, so I cut the netting away and just basted the motifs right to the dress.  This was LOTS of hand sewing, so it took for.ev.er... and with all the pins needed I poked myself a LOT.  With all the beads and sequins, it could have been a disaster in the sewing machine.

I supposed I could have sewn them down to another piece of netting and THEN applied that to the dress, but that would have been too easy or logical, or would have required planning.  Such as doing that before I put the dress base together...

So this just needs a closure and it can be delivered.

Two things crossed off my project in process list! 

Sew on...

Tuesday News

I'm very excited about Tuesday this week!  First it's not Monday, which can be so stressful.  I read somewhere that more heart attacks happen on Monday than any other day of the week.

My Monday was stressful.  I had a rather adversarial conversation over 40+ emails with a person in our finance department over a project I set up that said person thought was not correct.  At the end of two days of back and forth and a couple of phone calls Person said 'I'll have to look at this and call you back'.

No call back ever came, but I expected that.  No additional email happened either and I had to discover for myself that the project got approved.

Bless me for a fool, but if I am wrong I say so.  Person in finance cannot do that.  My project manager and I were thinking that we'd have to go to lunch and have a very large adult beverage after the 40+ emails.  Instead we had a commiseration laugh, did a fist pump and moved on.  We were right, yay for us!  Get back to work... lol!

Today, however, is going to rock!

A woman who took my card at the December craft fair, with a promise to call me about a doll clothes project, actually called this weekend.  She had requested a quote for a dress made from her wedding gown for her granddaughter's doll, but her granddaughter requested clothes she can actually play with.  Sensible woman that she is, she decided her granddaughter is right.

She's coming over tonight to shop.  Yay!!  I finished up two dresses and sewed buttons on sweaters last night to be ready.  I hope she buys the pink corduroy coat because I made a dress with the same fabric I used on the lining.  It's the perfect outfit for Easter!  Now if I can only find a pink hat...

Over the weekend I spent about two hours looking for my husband's military discharge papers.  He can sign up for something with them, and they were not in the briefcase.  In the process of searching the closet in the den I reorganized two bins of yarn and updated my inventory on Ravelry.

I had previously bought some hanging bins, filled two, bought two more. Filled those.  In addition I have the above mentioned two large plastic bins and a laundry basket overflowing with balls wound from partial skeins left over from other projects!



You can get these hanging bins at several places on the web, just Google 'yarn organizing ideas'.  They are priced anywhere from $9.99 to $14.99 each. 

I am up to over 100 yarns in my inventory.  Ladies and gentlemen, it's embarrassing to discover what you have stashed, and then come home to a box of new yarn on the table...  my grandchildren were over on Saturday and I had some yarn in the kitchen.  They are learning about money so they asked me how much it cost.

We had a discussion about how some yarn is $3 or $5 in stores but some special yarn is $20 or $30 because it's different fiber or it's specially dyed.  Eyes opened really wide at the thought that something could cost $30!

I am glad I'm doing an inventory on Ravelry because if God Forbid my house ever burns down, an insurance company would not BELIEVE how much yarn I have in that one closet!


I'm thinking I might have to de-stash.  Sell on Ravelry?  Have a rummage sale?  Decisions, decisions!  And then someone gifts me with their stash and I can't say no.  I can't knit as fast as I buy.  I am going on a yarn diet, I swear.  Maybe.


With stuff this gorgeous, my resistance is very low.

I was pleased to discover that I had several batches of yarn in large enough quantities to make some sweaters for myself or the grands.  I normally just buy stuff to knit accessories or doll items, although my addiction to the Loopy Ewe may change that.  The yarn I got from there this week feels so nice I might make myself something!  That is after I finish the February sweater still in process.

And the Ninja Turtles...

The one on the upper left is from the pattern I have.  I found some orange tee shirts at the Goodwill that will be cut up for the mask.  I should have three done by Saturday and there is one more base in process.  Then I have to make one for my grandson.

Happy Tuesday to all.  Sew and knit on....

Lots Going On

"Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says...."Oh crap! She's up!" Unknown

There has certainly been a lot going on in my life this week, but not much I could or would have wanted to blog about.  Let me just say this:  get an annual mammogram, do the follow up, and when someone tells you that you don't know what you're talking about, question that.  Get a second opinion.  Everything turned out fine, (I was right) but there is one radiologist I will never, ever see again if he's the only one in the state, and one that is my hero.  'nuff said.

I also bought a new car this week.  I had a car that was going on 14 years old and had a LOT of miles on it.  It was in very good shape and I probably could have driven it for another two or three years, but DH was getting nervous about things going wrong and that was that.  Note:  Nothing was GOING wrong, he was just nervous about what if.  Then he decided that I probably needed to have an incentive to keep going to work every day.

So off to the dealership we went.  Four hours later I drove home in the 2015 model of the same car I've been driving for the past 20 years.  So I got some nicer amenities, such as heated seats and a moon roof, but it's a Corolla, the same as my last two cars.

I love the new car smell.

I also have been working on a quilt for a fund raiser at church, along with some matching pillows. 

Suzi has it all quilted and bound, now I am doing a label and finishing up on the pillows.  It will be auctioned off to raise money to send the high school kids on a mission trip to a Minnesota Indian Reservation.  It is beautiful and someone will get a treasure!

 

Someone called me and wants to look at doll clothes this week.  I didn't have much left after donating some of THOSE to the auction too, so I ran up a couple of dresses.  I need to get some more buttons for some of the sweaters I knit but didn't finish, and then she should have a pretty decent group to review.  I also made the most darling little coat with some pink wide-wale corduroy.  I lined it in pink and white stripes.  Of course my phone was dead or dying so there is no photo yet.

 

Happy Monday!  Sew on...

And That Reminds Me...

 

Saturday being National Quilting Day... we actually did QUILT!  That is, Suzi quilted and the rest of us sewed, organized, cut and otherwise offered moral support to her.  She had some foot surgery last week so she's somewhat confined to the chair anyway.

 

This is an awesome I Spy quilt that's now finished.

This rainbow zig zag got a rainbow binding.

Our Peas In A Pod is off to a new home.

This one featured elephants and zebras. 

And lastly, our Yellow Brick Road that was made for the church Youth Auction is nearly done, just a binding needed.

We sewed until about 2 p.m., layering up four more to send home with "The Quilting Queen", got several more matched up, kitted up some more stuff and cleaned out our blanket bin.  We felt very virtuous that we worked so hard!  But we had a good time while we worked, lots of good female fellowship.

I showed one of our newer members how to do string quilts on a foundation square.  She said she enjoyed learning it and really realized the importance of pressing after every addition, or the lumps just stay in!  She did a nice job and finished up two squares that will trim up to about 10.5 inches each.

Follow THIS LINK to a tutorial on string quilting from About.com.

Several of our string quilts and other patterns are going to Ysletta, Mexico, during Easter break with the Missions group.  We know they'll find good homes there with families who could really use them!

Sew on...

Minnie Mouse

After we did the quilting group at church on Saturday, which was National Quilting Day -- quite appropriately since we did sew some quilts -- but I digress...  I proceeded to the Baby Sprinkle.  It turned out very well, the baby got some nice presents that haven't been previously worn by her big brother.

Mommy liked my Minnie Mouse hat.  I couldn't give her JUST the hat so I whipped up a pink polka dot dress and panties the night before. 

Everything at the party was pink, and if it was edible it had sprinkles on it.  That Grandma Sharon just went wild with the sprinkles!

My favorites were the cake pops.

And they were delicious too!

Party on...

Hat for a New Baby...

And she couldn't wait to get here!

I was invited to a Sprinkle this Saturday for my friend Sharon's daughter.  She was expecting a fourth child, but her older daughter is over 10 -- maybe 11?  Then she had two boys, widely spaced due to unfortunate circumstances. 

Sprinkles are kind of mini-showers, for moms who already have babies but maybe they're having a girl when they've only had boys, or it's been a while and they gave all their stuff away or whatever.  I'm sure you can google it and find out all sorts of things about them.

The new baby was due in April.  Poor mom, she didn't look like she'd make it according to reliable sources.  You know that last month if you've had a child.  It can be agony, you're tired and feel ungainly and cranky.  And then if the baby is big, or if you are, it's worse.  I remember the last six weeks before the birth of my daughter -- ugh!  Not well of course because you block those memories or no one would ever repeat the process.

Anyway, this little family loves Disney... cruises probably annually, and has a great time doing it. 

I was recruited to crochet a little hat.  The patterns are free at the blog RepeatCrafterMe (and I'm sure other places too but I picked this one).

How cute is that??!!  The pattern called for little white buttons, which I would not sew on something for an infant no matter HOW secure I thought they'd be sewn.  I used circles of white fleece instead.  Besides now it's completely soft and still washable.  They're sewn on with big stitches and four thicknesses of white thread.

The directions are good, the patterns are sized for many heads, small to large, and the variety is just what any kid would want.

That's my aunt Sonya peaking through the ears...  Hi Sonya!

Baby could not wait another month and she arrived last night.  Happy Birthday!

Now to finish up a matching dress before Saturday... oh, and I'm working on a Ninja Turtle for her brother.

Sew on!

Getting Things Done

I'm feeling very proud of myself today... not for anything I've done so far, but I got some UFOs cleaned up over the weekend.

I got my taxes done and filed.  What a relief!  Not because I'm getting a refund, but because it's done and I'm getting a refund and I'll stop getting those "what are you doing that's not doing the taxes??" look from DH when I'm sitting down with my knitting tonight.  Whew!

I also got some of my yarn inventory organized and entered into Ravelry.com in My Stash in My Notebook.  Not on Ravelry?  Why not, it's free and you can access it from your tablet while in your local yarn store so you don't buy things twice.  Or three times.  Ask me how I know this!

I bought some yarn bins that hand from the closet rods and I filled up two completely without making much of a dent in the closet they're hung in.  What filled them was the stash that was shoved into nooks and crannies in other places.  I thought to myself, at least it's now all in one spot.  But it was still kind of helter skelter so I ordered two more.  They came Friday and I filled those two in no time at all.  But now I can see the floor in front of the yarn closet!  :-)

I always buy a new white tee shirt every spring.  This year the ones at Kohl's were on sale and such lovely fabric I also picked up a red one and a black one.  But they had round necks.  Ugh!  Not my style, and usually too tight for my comfort. 

So I changed two of them to vee necks and one to a scoup neck.  First I did a row of stay stitching just a couple of threads above where I wanted the new neckline to be.  Then I cut the shirt's original neckline about 3/8 of an inch above that line.  The fabric was nice so it was pretty easy to just flip over the seam allowance and stitch it down. 

 

 

I wish I had found this picture sooner -- this is a rough estimate of where a necklace of various lengths will fall... it would have helped with the total neckline measurement.  I like to be in about the 20 inch range.

 

I also shortened the sleeves on a sweater I've had for about 10 years.  (I know, what took me?)  I had them folded up for years.  Sometimes I'd try to push them up but there was so much extra fabric there, I felt like Popeye...  I cut off the end four inches.  Since it's a knit and probably from the cuff up, nothing raveled.  I zigzagged the edges and turned them up to the now nearly permanent fold line.  Then I did two rows of the straight stitch for knits that has a tiny bit of give.  Done! 

 

Now I feel like I have a new wardrobe.  And four things are off my 'got to fix this' pile.  Actually five, I almost forgot the embroidered tee.  I bought an awesome black tee with flowers appliqued and embroidered around the neck.  Scooped neckline, fit me just right.  When I put it one, I knew why it was at the Goodwill.  Scratchy on the inside!  The no-sew fix was to iron some soft interfacing on the inside where the embroidery is.  I pinked the lower edge so you can't even tell it's there.  I wore that one to church. 

 

Sew on...

I Should Buy A Lottery Ticket!

This week, our local quilt guild held a fund raiser to purchase batting for the quilts we make and donate.  It was a lot of fun.

The premise is that everyone with a stash has stuff they know they're not going to use, or they have too much of something.  Everyone brought 'stuff' to donate to the raffle, whether it was one item, a kit, a packet of half yards or fat quarters, whatever a sewist would like to have.  It didn't have to be sewing related.  Someone brought a big bag of chocolates, and someone else donated a basket with cheese and wine.

Wine always goes well with sewing, or sewing always goes well with wine... lol!

The two piece tickets were 50 cents each.  You tore off half and put it in a small paper bag near the item you were interested in winning.  We spent quite a while 'shopping' at the various tables that were set up, examining the wonderful items.

 

After a brief couple of announcements the fun began in earnest!  The ladies running the raffle picked up a bag, showed the prize and drew a ticket.  We had such fun cheering for the winners.  There were a couple of items I wanted that I didn't win, but for the most part I did well, as did my friend Suzi.  She ended up with a quilt kit in purple.  She rocks purple...

I got several kits:



A small quilt kit of cupcakes...



Small kit for a wall hanging including the hanger.  This will go in my kitchen.



This kit is like a wreath or something, I have to read the directions...



These are the pieces, precut, and very tiny!

I also picked up the 30th anniversary packet for the Log Cabin Quilt Guild -- that was the year before I joined.  The booklet is so interesting, listing all the past presidents, where meetings used to be held.  I guess everyone else had one because mine was the ONLY ticket.  I won.  Go figure...

There IS a cute little log cabin pouch and an adorable button flower in here.

 

My favorite prize was this packet of fat quarters.  I make a quilt called Yellow Brick Road, and you need six fat quarters to do it.  There are six pastel fqs on the left, and five black/white/red fqs on the right.  I will add one more and probably make two tops to donate.  Score!

 

Then there was a Ziploc baggie with a bunch of stuff in it.  There were patterns and some rubber stamps.  I didn't really look too hard at the stamps, but the baggies inside were filled with:

 Which is a pattern and these stamps...

 

So after I read the directions on THIS packet, I realized that this was designed to stamp on fabric.  You stamp the shapes, you can cut them out with a scissors and hand sew (yeah, I know, right?) or you can machine piece.  The inside line is the sewing line, the outside the cutting line.

It looks like someone used this stamp for a 60 degree triangle.  It's about 2 inches on a side...  With the dawn of rotary cutting I think this method of piecing went the way of the dinosaur, although I did come across a web site last week where this system was featured.  I thought "how interesting, that someone would have you stamp on the back of the fabric!"  Then, viola!  I win a quilting stamp.  But it might come in handy for other things.

The bag also contained some patterns and other things but the real find was this stamp:


Abstract designs, this is about five inches square and will completely cover a small notepaper.

Also included in the bag were a tiny book and a few miscellaneous notions... check out the little ruler with the scissors handle!  Yes, it's a total of three inches long, as is the book.  The book has a thimble on a ribbon as a bookmarker.  There are all sorts of quotes about quilts and quilters in the tiny pages.

 

Some things still had the prices tags on them.  I spent $20 on tickets and got what I calculate to be over $125 worth of items. 

 

We raised a little over $300 which we will use to buy batting for the quilts that members sew and donate to various charities in the area.  For a group of probably about 50 women, we did well. A good time was had by all.  Only two things didn't go home with new owners.  Those items will be given away at some future time.

 

I want to try and make up a few of those little projects over the next month.  I think I'll take some of them to Friday sewing with my family. 

 

Sew on...

 

 

Oh Pickles!

This weekend was so completely awesome weather-wise that I forced myself to finish up errands like going out to the office supply to pick up tax prep software and going to the drugstore to stock up on toothpaste and mouthwash.

Doing all that made me feel very virtuous, so I rewarded myself with a trip to the quilt shop in Elm Grove, Patched Works.  It didn't hurt that I had a gift certificate for PW either.

I had seen some black and white fabric on someone else's blog that I NEEDED... it was a print that looked just like greenbar accounting paper!  (Only I guess you'd have to call it whitebar since there was no green in it.)  There was also some graph-paper type print, one with words and something that may have been bar codes, I don't remember exactly.

I found the words and what I thought was the bar code BUT I also found crossword puzzle and Sudoku fabric!  Had to have that too.  I passed on the bar code but here's what I did get:

The red added a bit of whimsy to the group.  I'm thinking I need a couple of tablet holders, since my Kindle Fire doesn't fit into the one my previous Kindle used -- I bought the smaller version. 

And then I found Pickles!  I love that cartoon, it's the one thing I miss about not getting the newspaper on Sundays (that's a post for another day).

She's talking to Earl about quilting.  In one panel I think she used his jeans to make a denim quilt. 

In another one, she's discussing the fact that she doesn't have the right color thread to fix his shirt and that means a trip to the fabric store.  At which suggestion he abandons his request!

So add 7 yards to the stash that I am not counting in this lifetime!  But I had a wonderful time... and I'm anxious to get my new tablet keeper started!

Sew on...