Happy Friday!

Sorry for not posting a bunch of interesting things this week.  The truth is my life has been a lot of working and not too much excitement this week!   Can it be I have been too busy living to blog?? Oh no!

I did get a new phone this week.  My old phone was not compatible with some of the workplace applications I need in order to do my job from home.  It also was not compatible with my tablet.  It kept telling me "I'm old, trade me in".  Finally did that on Sunday, now I just have to learn to use it!

My closet shelf is back on the wall.  Three of the four yarn hangers are back up. A BIG pile of clothing went to the Goodwill, so the rack is not quite so full now.  Seriously, did I think I was going to start wearing skirts again?? I kept three of the ones that were hanging there, my black funeral suite, and a couple of jackets.  The rest is being recycled.

Yesterday at 11 a.m. my favorite project manager came over promising to deliver some work no later than lunchtime.  Said work needs to be completed by end of day today.  Said work actually showed up on my desk at 4 p.m.  Yikes!  I put in a couple of extra hours and I'm planning to leave early today.  Fingers crossed...

Maybe I can get some sewing done this weekend.  That is if I can wrestle the machine away from Miss A, the newest Sewing Sister!

I love enthusiasm for new things.  She's going to be awesome once she gets her sea legs... but she can be very 'directive'.  At her young age, she's learning to work with people, but she knows I'm a dang pushover so this is how it goes...

A:  Gramma, I need to sew something.
G:  But honey, I have a project I need to work on.  Can't you do something else?
A:  I'll only sew for a little while.  I have to practice! 
G:  That's true.  Can you practice later?
A:  I really want to do it now.  Please?  I love you...
G:  OK, I'll do something else and you can sew for half an hour.
A:  An hour?  Did you say an hour?  That's pretty short!
G:  <groaning inwardly> OK, one hour.  Let's just see how it goes, OK?

Sew on...

Too Much Stuff!!

A while back I was blogging about the amount of yarn I have in my stash.  I should have quit while I was ahead!

Remember those hanging yarn stash shelves I bought to keep things straight?  I filled up four and still had overflow...

The worst happened.  On Sunday afternoon there was a loud THUMP from upstairs.  The hubster went up to see what happened.  He came back down and said "I shouldn't have gone up there".

 

So I went up to see.  The closet pole and shelf had come down.  ALL THAT YARN was spread out on the bedroom floor.  

 

UGH.

 

To be fair, he didn't say too many bad words in my hearing.  He helped me stack it all up and pulled out the shelf unit.  He said "I can put this back up, I'll just need a few more anchors."

 

Well what do you know?  He's getting kinda mellow in his old age!  So now he has a pretty good idea of how much yarn I really have.  Well, not really... there's the stuff in the basement.  And in the downstairs hall closet.  And in the -- never mind!

 

I need to start moving this stuff.  I probably can't knit or crochet fast enough to get rid of it in my lifetime.  I should offer some of it for sale, and/or give some of it away.  Of course mitten season and doll sweater season are coming again, but really, I think I have learned a lesson.  Too much is too much!





How many of these does it take to make



a nice sofa afghan?

 

Knit on...



Happy Birthday, Miss A!

Do you remember the last time you were excited about having a birthday?

I don't.  I've had too many I guess.  The novelty has worn off.

Someone's birthday is today, and she was SO excited, she decided to celebrate the last day of being 7 yesterday!  Then she got up at the crack of 0-dark-30 to come over this morning so she could have breakfast with Gramps and he could put her on the bus.

Wow, I wish I were that popular!

So many, many happy returns of this day, Miss A.

"I can comb my hair later, just before the bus comes"

I hope YOU can be excited about something today too.  If not, I recommend a LONG conversation with an eight year old.  :-)

Sew on...

Nothing To Do With Sewing...

Yesterday I was asked by someone in my office to do something he classified as 'weird'.

OKAYYYY... I'm listening.

Someone was doing a proposal and they're looking for a way to use a building they're decommissioning.

Now, for the record, I work with wastewater engineers.  Sewer guys.  Yeah, ugh, THAT stuff.  They try to find the fastest, most efficient and cost effective way to turn dirty, stinky waste back into useable water to help mankind and the planet. 

 

 

 

Not exactly sexy stuff.  So when you are trying to sell it, you do whatever you can do to make it cool and important and whatever else the marketing department wants.

The request was for me to go get a cup of $8 coffee.  OK $3 coffee, or not even coffee since I don't drink coffee.

 

I am a 'bag lady' myself.  I have a cup of English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast Tea in the morning.  I love the smell of coffee and when it's good, it's really good, but when it's bad it's a waste of water.

 

So the request was to go to the Colectivo Coffee Shop in downtown Milwaukee on Lincoln Memorial Drive and take some photos of both inside and outside.  The reason is that this building was a pump station that belonged to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for years.  Since 1888 in fact.  And it was decommissioned and turned into a coffee shop.  We want to show a client that their building can be turned into something interesting without being completely demolished.

 

Here's a shot of the outside.



 

It is so super-cool... you can go up to the balcony and see the cream city brick walls and the old floors.  Those boards sticking out are floor joists for the second story.

This is the front patio, and it was such a beautiful day, I sat in an orange chair and drank my tea and ate a coffee cake muffin in the warm air.

Check out the front entrance...

Here's a guy working right next to the old pump station equipment.  You don't really want to know what that equipment did when it was working, but it looks pretty cool now!

And right across the street is the Yacht Club and Lake Michigan.

The front patio...

 And an old water wheel.  A nice architectural feature of the back parking lot.

I enjoyed the assignment immensely.  It's not often I get to go outside and sit in the sun  and get paid to do it!

 

Thanks for the weird assignment, Jim.

 

And so on...

Sibling Rivalry 2015 Style

Recap of the spring activities for my oldest grand, Miss E.  She is very crafty and makes jewelry, wall art, and is learning to sew.  A few years ago she used both my sewing machine and embroidery machine to make a placemat.  I think she was 10 or 11 at the time.

Here she is last year at the zoo with her older half-sister Miss R and her younger sister, Miss A.

Miss E was the lucky beneficiary of the Babylock sewing machine I won at the Midwest YaYa Sisters event at Nancy's Notions.  She's got a couple of projects in process. 

This weekend, not to be outdone, Miss A asked to come and visit me for a play date.  Understand that when that happens, I usually relinquish all control over what we do and when we do it.  Not on purpose, but she can usually find ways to 'help' me do exactly what she wants. 

This weekend we went into the sewing room, ostensibly to finish up a project I started for the church guild.  I was sorting through a bin of four patches, making piles of similar colors with the intent to put them into kits.  I was also cutting the 2 inch strips required to round out the numbers.  You know how you do that, you sew twos together, then cross cut them into two inch by 3 1/2 inch sections, flip and sew together for a four patch, pressing as you sew.

I chain sew these pieces and parts together, and Miss A usually cuts them apart for me.  A while back I bought a gadget that helps with the cutting, and it goes fairly quickly.  Also it only cuts the threads so there's less of a chance of snipped off corners, or cut fingers.

I think it's called the Cutting Gizmo.

 

Miss E had always done the pressing.  It was a good system, we got whole quilts put together in no time with the help of this gadget.  But Miss E was elsewhere, and Miss A decided she was old enough and tall enough to take over the pressing.

 

I won't deny being nervous about it.  I have an Oliso iron and it's heavy.  She's not quite eight years old, but she's determined and interested.  I demonstrated pressing the little pieces with the seams to the dark side.  She actually got pretty good at it.  We inspected the first batch and there were way more that were really good than were sent back for fixing.  I was just a little nervous about small fingers so near the hot iron when I remember I bought these at Nancy's Notions on Sewing Weekend:

 

The smaller two were the perfect application for her thumb and first finger.  She's very proud of herself for using a grown up tool and doing something before her sister did it (she reminded me that she's two years younger than Miss E was when she started ironing!)

Now if I can teach her to do blouses... 

Sew on!



Weekend Activities and Rock Painting

Another Memorial Day weekend has come and gone.  Where does the time go?  I hope you did something to commemorate those who fought to keep us free.  We spent some time sprucing up the yard and rehung our American flag on the front porch after adjusting the pole attached to the house. 

I have many relatives who have served or are serving in the Military.  All of my uncles on my mom's side and my dad's who were of age served during World War II, and they all came back alive, thank God!  My husband's father also served, and also returned.

Sadly they're all gone to a better place now.  Many of their graves got flags this weekend.

Here's a link to a very nice pdf file that tells you about when to display a flag at half staff, to denote mourning:  Flag document

************

My grands and I enjoyed some outdoor activities too.  The weather was surprisingly nice for Wisconsin, and Saturday was just about perfect.  Inspired by my recent Rita-encounter and discussion on painting things (see Rita Farro's blog, link at right, for her awesome projects -- especially her porch sofa and her washer and dryer), the girls were given authorization by Grampa to paint the rocks around our back yard patio slab.

First we assembled all our supplies.  I've been saving sticks from popsicles for occasions like this... they are perfect for stirring the paint or picking out small bugs.

 

Then we got ourselves properly garbed so as not to get paint in our hair or on our nice pink skirt...

 

 

With a paper plate or three, and some brushes their dad had in the garage, we were set for the afternoon.

 

Miss A was hard at work painting the turtle stepping stone.  No plain green turtles for this girl!  Give me orange!  Give me purple!

 

Miss E did one stone in black and white and decided she had done enough.  It's hard to get teenagers excited sometimes, but she did post it to Instagram...

 

Miss A continued, and used a sponge pouncer to add some nice color to one of the bigger stones.  And of course an artist always signs their work.  The date is down between the stones.

 

 

I sat at the table under the umbrella, supervising and prepared to reload pallets.  

 

 

I painted a flower pot to use in my sewing room.  The advantage to flower pots for storage is they are nice and heavy so they don't tip over when bumped.  I still have to glue the ribbon on to hide my uneven strip intersection.  The sealant made the pot nice and shiny.

 



If you're going to paint stones with children, here are a few tips:

• Wash the stones with dish soap and rinse well.  They should be very dry before you start.
• You will need a trash bag close by, and lots of paper towels and rags.
• Keep soapy water on hand for color changes!  Kids tend to put LOTS of paint on the brush and don't always use it up before changing colors.
• Use acrylic paint, the cheaper the better.  Use brushes you don't care about reusing because they get worn down if the stones are rough. 
• Sponge brushes cover lots of territory.  Those tiny brushes that come in the box of paints are useless for a project like this.  Don't go smaller than 1/4 inch wide bristles for little kids.
• Have lots of paper plates or meat trays available.  Mixing colors on the pallet is fun, but if you mix too many of them, you get brown.  Or a horrible sickly greenish-gray.
• When brown or yucky green happens, start over.
• Paint dries fast outside so pallets need frequent replenishing.
• Use a coat of spray sealer to help the art work to last.  The artists will be disappointed if it's gone too soon.
• Be ready to love whatever they do.  You're likely to get something along the lines of Picasso.  Or Big Bird.
• Acrylic paint washes off MOST surfaces but be careful about your clothes.  It works on terra cotta, glass, concrete, wood and other surfaces.  You can mix it with fabric medium and heat set it to paint tote bags or clothing.

The artist giving her mom the nickel tour...

This was a fun activity for a weekend afternoon.  I enjoyed being outside and the girls enjoyed decorating the stones.  Now we're wondering what else we could decorate.  I think I have at least two ugly black suitcases...  and I have some Modge Podge in the resource center!

Get creative!

TGIF!

Take the Time to Smell the Roses...

You have heard the saying "Stop and smell the roses". 

 

Family, job, work, home, church, friends, pets, dirty floors and laundry.

All these things make demands on our lives and our time, and they have a perfect right to do that.  We all have things we must do just to get through the day.  Maybe you're the one responsible for all of it, maybe you have help.  Some of it doesn't have to be done today, right now, but eventually you run out of underwear and you just have to bite the bullet and do the laundry.

But HOW do you do it?  Is it an ice cream sundae task or a root canal task?  If it looks like you're going to go have a root canal, who wants to come along?

If you absolutely dread doing the laundry or the grocery shopping, there's no way you're EVER going to be able to convince someone else to do it, or even help you with it.

I actually enjoy doing laundry, even though I don't do much of it anymore.  I have people for that.  My DH is retired and he has over time taken over all the household chores except for dusting and cleaning closets.  And he always smirks when I say "I have people"...)

One of the best things I heard at Nancy's Notions Sewing Weekend, and I heard a LOT of good things, was Mark Lipinski's lecture on the Slow Stitching Movement.

Do you remember Mark's magazine, Quilters' Home?  I loved that magazine.  Here's one of the issues I have...

Mark had a life threatening kidney failure and got a transplant.  During that process, his life changed.  You can read about it if you don't already know on his Slow Stitching Movement web site.  I recommend you go there and read the whys and wherefores of what the SSM is all about.

It was a revelation to me... mindful sewing - I get it!  I like it!  I'm going to try to practice it.

Hobbies, if done correctly, can relax you, lower your blood pressure and improve your mood, give you a sense of self satisfaction and take away the worries of the day.

 

They can also help you focus your thoughts, and inspire you with ideas for the challenges you may be experiencing in the rest of your life.  When I concentrate on what I'm doing at the moment, sometimes my unconscious brain will be reviewing something else and suddenly I'll have a eureka moment. 

Whatever your task, whether hobby or work, try to 'be there' as much as possible and not be worrying about what ELSE you might be doing.  When that happens sometimes mistakes are made and sometimes they're irreversible.  Like texting while driving, or cutting out the wrong size from your pattern on the last three yards of fabric on the bolt. 

 

Whatever color YOUR roses are... you know what to do.

 

Sew on...slowly :-)



Threads Post - Common Objects with Sewing Uses

NOTIONS:

As defined by dictionary.com:

• Small items used in sewing, such as pins or needles.

Recently I read an article in Threads Magazine about ordinary objects that have unexpected uses in the sewing room.  Here's a link to read it for yourself:  Threads article

It was interesting to me that I am currently using a couple of these myself and two actually made me say "AH HA!... what a great idea!"

The ones I have used:

• Forceps or hemostats can be purchased on Amazon or from local medical supply places, or you can ask your nurse or doctor friends if they can bring you discards (not straight from the operating room!)  They make great grabbers for all sorts of task, like getting out the pin that broke or turning small pieces right side out.
• Painters tape was kind of a natural since it leaves no residue on fabric or anything else.  It makes for nice straight lines, and if you're coloring or painting on fabric, it's a no brainer for resist areas or taping down stencils.
• Interdental brushes -- In my humble opinion, the more often you clean the lint out of your sewing machine the better it will run.  I use several things to do this but one thing I never do is blow into any machine.  That puts moisture in where there are metal parts.  I do use q-tips and GUM mini-brushes to pull the lint out, and a small lambs wool duster to gather the big pieces up.
  
   

• Chopsticks are good pushers, and I like the wooden ones.  If you hit them with a needle, there's no breakage -- at least of the needle.  Plus they are cheap and plentiful if you eat Chinese food as often as I do!

The ones I said AH HA to:

• Wooden spoon:  using the handle of the wooden spoons in my kitchen to keep from ironing the impression of the seam allowance into the side seams of the pants I make?  Priceless!

• Silicon mat:  they go into the oven, so why not use them with your iron to keep things from burning, like your fingers?  That's one of those why didn't I think of it things...

The one I said no to:

• Using an exacto-knife blade anywhere.  I don't care how careful you are, you are going to cut something with it that shouldn't be cut.  Like your fingers.  Or your hand.  Ask me how I know that...

All in all, it was a good article to read and think about.  There are things like binder clips and pony tail holders and empty mayonnaise jars

and a gazillion other things that could also be on the list, but this is a good start.

Thank you, Threads editors.  Thinking outside the

Sew on...