Fun at Grammy's House

Busy Sewing Week

I had a lot of good sewing time this week. I made a purse and an apron that are now in my Etsy shop, and I've begun another purse, all from recycled thrift store jeans. Here are pictures.I'm not sure if that giraffe-print fabric is going to stay or not.

In addition, I hemmed three pairs of curtains for my sister, and I made two hand towels for Phillip. I'm sure everyone who sees these will want to order a set for themselves.

Finally, I made (and mailed) one postcard, but I forgot to get a picture of it. It had a pink heart on it, and it turned out quite nice.

Jordanna's Quilt

Baby Jordanna is due in about six weeks. This week I gave Emily the quilt I made for the baby. I've made quilts for each of the first two, and this time there were two things I did not want. I did not want to use pastels, and I did not want to make something that was just rows of blocks.
I believe I accomplished those two objectives. In a MAJOR way, even. Prints in the fabric include cats, dogs, frogs, watermelon, and musical notes. I found the zig-zag idea on one of many quilt blogs I read (I've forgotten which one). Most quilts that look like this involve piecing triangles, something I did not want to do. This one combines two rectangles into a square block, and then the rows are created diagonally. The other thing that made it a bit confusing is my use of a different solid color for each row. For the watermelon print (for example) I had to make half the watermelon blocks with green fabric and half with pink fabric.
It was a bit confusing at first to put it all together because it ends up with points hanging off each row, and you have to cut the points off to end up with straight edges.

I played with some of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine for this project too. It was fun!

By-the-way, Emily, I meant to wash the quilt before I gave it to you, but I think I forgot. (Washing by itself would be best.) Blinky fur wasn't supposed to be part of the gift.

Future Sewing

Emily asked to make matching Christmas outfits for the children -- dresses for the girls and a vest for Caleb. Here's the fabric I found this week. Caleb's vest will be made from the red, striped fabric. I thought there were too many bows for a boy in the other print.

I had an idea that I might get a dress or two cut out while the kids were at my house on yesterday, but it was not to be. It's probably just as well. I messed up the one small project I did try to do! Usually I'm pretty good at multi-tasking, but apparently not in the presence of preschoolers.

Highlight of the Week

This week's highlight was a yummy seafood dinner celebrating my dad's 74th birthday. You may be able to guess the menu item that he chose. Daddy just retired at the beginning of October, so now he has more time for his favorite pursuit: bike riding. He regularly makes a round trip circuit of sixty-five miles! I have trouble driving that far! Four or five years ago he took a two-day bike ride of some 200 miles. That's not my idea of a good time by any means, but I'm sure I'd be in as great a shape as he is, if it were. And I might have made the same menu selection that he did.

Another Highlight

Another highlight of the week was a sale in my Etsy shop. I was thrilled to find a buyer had chosen not one, but four bibs! So thrilled, in fact, that I threw in one more bib for free. Now I need to get busy and get some more bibs posted.

One Lonely Thing

My only sewing this week (Where did the time go?!) was one lonely bow. I don't even have a picture of it. I made the purse on the left first, and gave it to my sister. Then I made the purse on the right that I kept. When she saw mine, she wanted a bow for hers. So I made her one and delivered it. The end.

Isn't It Bee-Yew-Ti-Ful?

This is the finished cedar chest now residing in my sewing room. (If you want to see what it looked like before James & I applied the polyurethane, click here.) The original plan was for James to add some cedar trim around the top edge so that there would be a place to grip the lid and open the chest. Without smashing your fingers, that is. The front edge was so curved that he couldn't make that work, so we went to plan B and added the handles. I love the smell of cedar! As a child/teenager, my vacation souvenir of choice was often a small cedar chest (hand-held sized) imprinted with the name of the locale. In case you were wondering, the chest is already full! I used it to house the stuff I had under my sewing table, and my extra machine that was sitting on the six-foot table. The room appears a lot less cluttered now. I'm sure I can fix that, given enough time.

When You Can't Decide

If you can't decide between cookies and candy, have them both. I've been taking Caleb and Alexa to the local library for story time each week. A nice surprise is that they also have a small craft for the children to complete. This week, instead of a craft, they had sugar cookies to decorate. These aren't very good pictures of the kids, but I wanted pictures of the cookies because I thought they'd be devoured, and I wanted Emily to be able to see what they did at the library. Both kids opted to eat all the candy and leave the cookie behind, though. Maybe they ate the cookies later at home.

The Week in Review -- Lots of Sewing

Now that I've finally gotten everything caught up with my part-time at-home bookkeeping, I've had a little more time to call my own. First up, a denim purse for me! This was made with thrift store jeans and a remnant of fabric.A couple of postcards were made.Finally, I chose fabric for the binding fabric for Jordanna's baby quilt. This is the first time I've made my own bias binding. I've either used pre-packaged (screams amateur!) or else I've folded the backing fabric to the front to bind the raw edges. I found and printed a tutorial online so that I could make the binding in one continuous piece. It wasn't that hard to do, and here it is.By now, I'm sure Emily is suspicious of all the glimpses of bright colors I've shown here. If I tell her that I'm having flashbacks to her pre-teen years, she'll understand completely.

Friday was spent largely doing tech support for my mom. Her ISP replaced her modem, and then she couldn't get her laptop to connect through the wireless router. I fixed that problem and installed AIM so that she could rejoin our weekly Buddy Chat (mom, three sisters, and me). She hasn't been able to since she canceled AOL. I was also able to export her AOL contacts and import them into Microsoft Mail so that she won't have to go online to AOL to retrieve one every time she wants to send a new email. The other thing I did was put everything in writing, since she can't remember anything for more than five minutes. (Hi, Mom! Remember me?)

Follow-up: We watched the 10th Anniversary show for Good Eats last Saturday night, and we were disappointed. It was so much better in person (not to mention twice as long). Some of the funniest things that happened or were said didn't make the final cut. They should have asked our opinion, in our opinion.

Dominating the Scraps

Last week I showed my neat little stacks of scraps that I've been whacking. What started out as a basket like this... Now is neatly sorted away in individual drawer and snap-top boxes. So one basket is finished, and I still have the basket above to whack down to manageable sizes. I actually think that this is a fun "job." I love handling fabrics.Even though my friend Liz has my motto pegged, as evidenced by the plaque she gave me...

I don't mind straightening up my playroom... er, sewing room. Alas, no Braves baseball on TV since they fell just short of making it to post-season play.

Facebook, Friends, and Family

I don't spend half my life on Facebook. If I participated in all the quizzes, games, "gift" swaps, and everything else out there, it is entirely possible to spend (or should I say "waste") a lifetime. I do enjoy seeing what my friends, family, and sometimes mere casual acquaintances are up to, and I enjoy throwing out a comment-provoking status every now and then. The thing I didn't anticipate is the "who knows who" out there. In Facebook, when you acquire a friend (by accepting an invitation or by having the friend accept your invitation -- and yes, I have ignored a few friend requests and blocked a few people) you are then able to see who your new friend's friends are. My first surprise came when I learned that my cousin is FB friends with one of Emily's childhood friends. Turns out they attend the same church. This week I added three new friends (total of 104). One is a childhood friend of mine. We were friends from 1st through the middle of 7th grade when her family moved to California. How many of you have a friendship that has endured for 47 years?! We've managed to keep in touch all this time, even by real letter writing before the computer age. In addition, I've added her sister to the list. My most recent new friend is someone I went to high school with. Imagine my surprise to learn that she is friends with the same cousin who knows Emily's school friend! My cousin gets around! Turns out all three of them attend the same church. Small world indeed!

A Dreaded Twice-Yearly Task

I took care of the dreaded seasonal clothes closet swap this week, even though we're still having temperatures in the 80s. This is why we're careful about leaving closet doors open around here.

Sewing This Week

After I made my selvage purse, my youngest sister kept saying she wanted me to make her a purse. She said it didn't have to be as involved as mine; she just wanted a fabric purse. I saw this idea online recently and decided to give it a try, using a pair of thrift store jeans. I really like how it turned out, and I may make myself a similar one. Since the front waistband of jeans generally sits a little lower than the back waistband, that's how the purse opening is too -- with the front a bit lower than the back. Inside is a hidden velcro closing.The other sewing this week involved mending. It's my least favorite task at the sewing machine. There are too many creative ideas swirling around in my brain. Anyway, I hemmed a pair of pants for James. Since I bought them at an Eddie Bauer outlet store while on vacation back in July, it was about time! I also repaired some of Emily's maternity pants, repaired a mesh bag for laundering lingerie, and hemmed the lining of a skirt. The skirt as well as the lining are cut on the bias (I didn't make it) and the lining stretched more and was hanging a bit below the skirt. So, it feels good to have my mending basket empty for a while.

I *think* I'm finished quilting Jordanna's baby quilt. I'll let it rest a day or two and then see what I think. After that, the only thing left is the binding, and I'm undecided on that as well. I don't think I've ever made a quilt that was totally planned out, start to finish, before I began. All have just sort of evolved. I'm not ready for the final unveiling, but here's another sneak peek.

A friend sent this shirt for Caleb this week, since he's about to be "double-teamed."

Tonight's the Night

A few weeks ago I wrote about the taping of the 10th Anniversary of Good Eats, a Food Network program, that we attended. Reminder: Tonight at 10 p.m. is when the show airs.

And the Winner Is...

I showed you this purse several weeks ago. This is what it has looked like for the past week or so.It has earned a red, second place ribbon at the North Georgia State Fair. The ribbon comes with a monetary prize of $3.00!

They don't display the entries in the culinary division because some of them would be pretty gross by the end of the fair's ten-day run! But I found this list posted by the door.

I'm not sure if it will turn out to be legible on the blog, but I have a blue ribbon awaiting for the pralines I entered! The premium for that is $5.00! I'm rich!

Twenty-ish years ago, I entered "party pants" that I made for Emily. Actually, I made us both matching ones, but I didn't keep the ones I made for myself. (Party pants have gone away like big hair and other fashion trends of the late 80s/early 90s. Let us be thankful.) This garment won a third place ribbon back then.

Quilt Show Update

I made a couple of purchases from the vendors at the quilt show a couple of weeks ago. Since my new sewing machine sits on a small, custom table, I'm short of surface space. This ingenious invention is clipped to the table next to me: combination cup holder and trash basket!The cup holder is perfectly designed with a small opening on one side, so mugs with handles can fit. And I don't have to worry about Blinky knocking it over. The "snippet" basket is perfect, too.

In addition, I bought a pair of gloves. These gloves have a stretchy fit, and the palms and fingers are "rubberized" with some sort of non-slip coating. I can hold my ruler in place a lot better while using the rotary cutter. And although they're not technically "klutz gloves" they do provide some protection against a sharp, out-of-control blade.

Blinky, Out of the Way

In addition to getting my beverage off my small sewing table, I now have Blinky off the table, too. I purchased this feline window seat that clips to the window sill. She was content to stay there and not on my table after I bonked her on the head with my plastic ruler a few times.

Surprisingly, I found her curled up the basket once this week. James says it's because with the doors and windows open and the attic fan running, our house is so cold that she's trying to find a place out of the draft. Gee, I thought it was quite comfortable in the house.

Old Sewing

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I made valences and a pillow for Caleb's room. Here's a picture of the pillow. It just wasn't in me to make a plain pillow from one fabric, especially since I knew he had a solid comforter on his bed. The valences are from the fabric in the center of the pillow, and monkeys now have taken over his "big boy" room.

It's a No Sew

I haven't sewn a single thing this week. I'm not caught up at work yet, but the finish line is in sight. However, while watching the Braves game, I spent a few hours slicing up a basket of odd scraps into usable squares and rectangles... coming "soon" to a quilt near you. I have another basketful awaiting a similar fate.