New stuff!

I've been sewing. Haven't been doing laundry or dishes, but have gotten a few things stitched up. Check it out!


A cute little reversible pinafore with a kitty in the pocket for my lovely assistant. Also have one for sale in my Etsy shop.



And a couple of fabric books. Ten Commandments

and the Rainbow Zebra. These are also available in the shop.

More on the way!

Sunbonnet Sue and a pretty beetle

Here is the Sunbonnet Sue quilt.


And here is the back:


OK. I quilted these blocks one at a time for a couple of reasons.

1. I wanted a portable project
2. I didn't want to baste it

You can't really tell from the pic, but there are about a billion pins in the back of this. I hate pins!!! But how else do you put these together??? Sewing the fronts of the blocks together by machine wasn't so bad in spite of having to negotiate the batting and backing. But then trimming the batting to match exactly, whipping it together and folding the backing down was a huge pain! And I think the front has buckled a bit despite my efforts to pull it out as I was working on the back. Moral of this story - basting is not so bad!

So working a block at a time is not so much fun. Actually, quilting a block at a time is, I just haven't figured out a satisfactory way to join them that I can enjoy. I'll have to keep working on that.

Not so quilty but very fun - check out this way cool bug my way cool kid found on the way home from school! Isn't he pretty? See his monster horn??? He's about the size of a dime. We looked him up on the web and he's a rainbow scarab. Cool, huh?

Organizing....sorta.....

So I was looking through my fabric for more novelty prints to make fun little books out of and I realized that I have stacks and piles of fabric stashed all over my room. Really, this isn't any sort of brilliant realization, it's pretty obvious. I just didn't realize how much fabric is stashed all around and how much of it I couldn't see.... or even remember! Time to organize. Or at least re stack and stash...... Let's not get overly optimistic.

I found several fun novelty things! See?

All kinds of ideas are running through my head. I also got two more pinafores cut out and ready to sew. Did I blog that already? Haven't gotten to start on them yet. Had to do stuff like laundry and grocery shopping - you know, the trivial stuff.

Oh! And here is a shot of my lovely assisant in her most helpful state. I took this picture and headed downstairs, turned off the dehumidifier (so I could hear when the lovely assistant woke up), turned on the light (so I could see) - and she woke up. Turned off the light, turned the dehumidifier back on (so the air in my room won't be thick as pea soup next time I go down there - we have 87% humidity today! I've had drier showers!!!) and called it a day.

Tomorrow I'm off to the fair! It only costs $1 to get in tomorrow, so I'm there! Anymore it costs an arm and a leg just to get in and the food is sooo expensive. I can afford $1 and I've talked a few friends into going with me. It's raining today and probably will tomorrow, too, so I'm planning to get muddy - that's just part of going to the fair. I doubt there will be much quilty stuff happening, but my friend and her daughters have entered several things and we are anxious to see how they did. My husband has an aunt who always enters lots of yummy things - jellies, pickles, bread, etc - and usually does well. Excited to look for her things too! Going to treat myself to a philly cheese steak sandwich, an ear of roasted corn and maybe even a chocolate dipped strawberry/banana skewer!!!! Mmmmmmm.......

Estate Sale find

Here's a lovely little lady that I found at an estate sale this weekend. Paid all of 50 cents for her! She was marked $1, but everything was half off.


Someone had decided to make a pillow out of her and had stitched a back and a ruffle all around, but never stuffed it. The back and ruffle were poorly made, a sharp contrast to this block. It is nicely appliqued with very neat embroidery accents.

I have liberated her from the pillow trappings and she is now awaiting a new life as something else. For now she's an orphan block! I think she would be really pretty with scrappy floral fabrics all around her. Maybe a braid? I have this 'thing' about making small stuff. I don't know why. I think the quilt police in my head keep whispering "small stuff is just for decoration, you can't really 'use' it, so what is the point?". I think she might be lonely as the center of a big quilt all by herself. Maybe she will join some other orphan blocks someday in a quilt. My list of things to do include something with orphan blocks, so maybe even someday soon! For now, she is happy to be free of the pillow.

Today I got two more pinafores cut out and I'm also working on cutting out more 'stuff' to make little books.

Busy, busy, busy....

Life is busy! Lots going on. I have had some opportunities to sew, however. I've even taken some pics! I'm working really hard not to post it all at once, so today's pics are a little fabric book that I made for my lovely assistant.


Peekaboo lizard!


A bear and a piggie. Something I learned about making little fabric books - pick bigger focus fabrics. The bear and the piggie are kinda lost....


A kitty and a duck. The kitty is my favorite!



A puppy and a cardinal. Cardinal is a little small. I had to add him - I love cardinals!



And a bunny. I really don't like this bunny. Don't know why. I put him in because I needed another animal.

This was so fun to make! It's small - about 3 x 4 inches - but just right for little hands! It has no batting so was easy to stitch together. It's completely washable, too! Quiet for church, Ok to chew on, would be a cute gift - I'm making more!

I discovered I really don't have many novelty/conversation prints in my stash and this is akin to a crime! So, my new quest when it comes to stash building is novelty prints. It was all I could to not to run out to Hancock's today looking for some! Besides the fact that I am absolutely, totally and completely broke, that's not how I shop. I really like to 'find' fabric as opposed to shopping for it. I haunt estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores, and occasionally the really cheap bins of scraps at fabric stores. It's better for my budget, makes decision making easy (there are way too many fabrics out there to choose from! I need a limit.), and makes my stash very, very interesting.

More soon!

Way behind....

Well, not doing so good with my posting every day thing. Anyhow, here's a pic for today. No new pics, so this one is old.



This is a precious little person with a row by row quilt I took part in several years ago. A group of us decided to do a row by row quilt project. We each made one row and sent it on to someone else, they added a row and sent it to the next person, etc. We all had a row to do every month and our quilts had 12 or so rows when they came home, one by each participant. I took this pic to show the group the row I had done and this precious little person insisted on being in the pic with his cars. Is that a sweet face, or what? He's much bigger now, and still very sweet.

I've actually finished all of the first wave of Sunbonnet Sue blocks and even got them all stitched together! Woohoo! The back of the blocks needs to be stitched down and it needs a binding. I need floor space to do that and I can't keep my lovely assistant off of it if it's on the floor, so I haven't gotten that done yet. I was going to do it today while she slept, but I was so tired I slept with her! Maybe this weekend.

Guess what I did today!

Wrong! I sewed a dress. Yes, I did! While my lovely assistant took a nap. And I have pics to prove it. I drafted a pattern, cut it out, stitched it up, and little miss sleepy slept through the whole thing. It's reversible, too! No pics of the other side, sorry. Here's the lovely assistant (who just woke up) checking it out.




Nice and roomy for busy little people.


And the back.


It's not really a dress, it's a reversible pinafore. See how it criss-crosses in the back? I used this tut. No buttons, zippers, etc. I've been wanting to make some of these to put over onesies (or, just to wear by themselves!) all summer and am just now getting around to it. It doesn't go with the onesie she has on in the pic, but that's OK. This was just a try-on session. It does look good all alone - we modeled it for daddy when he came home. He thinks it needs pockets. I'll add that to the next one. And maybe something interesting like eyelet on the collar..... maybe some ricrac peeking out of the seams..... maybe I can make one out of an old quilt top..... hmmm.....

I managed to get this done in spite of all the usual catastrophes that plague any project of mine including:

getting stuck with pins (I hate pins..... but I didn't burn myself with the iron this time!)
having to hunt down matching thread (found some!)
thread breaking - but my bobbin didn't run out!
forgetting to add seam allowance to my pattern (yes, I really 'do' have a degree in home ec)
machine tension going all weird. Does this happen to everyone? Or just me? Doesn't matter which machine I use, what I'm doing, etc, etc. Maybe I just live in the weird tension zone? Anyway, I overcame!!!

I'm really, really proud of getting this done. I can never seem to get anything done! It feels really good to have accomplished this, start to finish.

Things that the perfection police will notice:

I was sewing and not cleaning house.
That topstitching is a little wonky...
Oh my giggles, is that basket FULL of lonely socks???

More tomorrow!