Sewing Room Addition

Today my husband installed a wall mount swivel unit to hang my tv.  It will be nice to have the top of the file cabinet back and to be able to swivel the tv to any direction that I want. Plus it's on a wall that would otherwise be wasted so it's not taking up any prime real estate like my design board does.

My husband is a perfectionist so I'm sure the cables will be tucked away and his little helper will keep him on his toes. I am so happy with the progress of my room!

Solstice Star Series: Ribbon Star

I've been following the Fresh Lemons quilt blog and I came across a post for a quilt series called Solstice Stars.   The first tutorial was for a block called the Ribbon Star.  It was pretty and simple plus I could pull fabric from my stash so it seemed like a good way to spend a cold, wintry Saturday afternoon. I pulled out some bright, happy colors and started the series.

Softies

I bought a Softies book about a year ago and I finally decided to try one out. I am looking for something new and fresh to add to the craft fair booth and maybe this will be it. I will make a few and test them out by leaving one for Chloe.  If she gravitates towards it, I will make some.


The book is called More Softies Only a Mother Could Love. It's full of cute stuff.

Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose

A co-worker of mine was crazy about his favorite pair of jeans but they were wearing out. He hated to give them up so he asked me if I could turn them into a dog bed for his precious pooch. He thought that since his little doggy weighed in at a whopping 10-pounds, that there would be enough fabric to make a nice little snuggly spot for the dog.

So I got the jeans, bought 3 shades of blue thread and a bag of fiberfill. It was most difficult to make that first cut into these jeans; if they were mine I would consider them still wearable. So I started slow, took the waistband off, then cut the legs off. As I worked my way around them, it got easier to cut them into logical pieces. Then the fun part began. I stitched them back together into pieces of fabric. I wanted to make sure the pocket with the Ralph Lauren Polo label was in tact and the focal point of the top piece of fabric. (It would also make a nice place to store doggy treats.) After I had a main center piece, I felt it needed contrast so I dug out pieces of jean fabric from 3 other pairs of old jeans I had cut up previously. It made nice little alternating shades of blue patches around the center fabric. I then reversed the fabric on the back, making a piece of darker jeans the center of the fabric and placing the Polo jean pieces around it.

Once I had a nice 25 by 25 inch square for both the front and back, I stitched them together, turned it, stuffed it and hand sewed the opening shut. I also had stitched my custom label on the back to give it a nice designer look. Doggy can squish down nicely in the middle of the soft, lofty cushion since I made sure not to overfill the thing with stuffing. It is much softer than it looks and it should be snuggly for his treasured pet.

Quilts N More - Pick-It Fences

Using my most recent issues of Quilts and More, I decided to make the Pick-It Fences quilt that is on the cover.  The instructions state to use 26 different fabrics besides the solid for the background. 

I was very happy that I could find almost all of the fabrics from my stash.  Or maybe it's a sign that I am a fabric hoarder. Completing this quilt top was rewarding and it felt good to purge some fabrics for the nice results. It was also my first opportunity to use my design board to ensure I had the blocks point in the right direction.

Table Toppers

Since we refinished the furniture in the guest room, I've been concerned about setting things on the dressers. So I decided to make some table toppers to protect the wood. I found some Susan Winget fabric with sand dollars in a shade of turquoise that matches the room perfectly. It only took me an afternoon to design, sew, quilt and complete these two custom-sized table toppers for the dressers.

Build a Quilt Workshop

I signed up for an online build a quilt workshop through a quilting blogger. I wanted to get more ideas on how to use precuts; the class required the use of a charm pack. I got the fabric from my local quilt shop and started the class. The instructor promised instructions in a post each Wednesday. 

As this was an online class, everything would be handled through the comments on a private Flickr site and photos of progress would be posted there.  I had a bad feeling about this when no one seemed interested in posting progress after the first week of class.  I posted a sepia version of my layout (part of the class exercise that was a way to view color value) and it didn't look that great to me; I didn't get any comments on how to make it better. There were over 20 people signed up for the class, but no one was posting. By the fourth week, even the instructor stopped posting instructions.  I was interested in finishing so I sent comments asking when more instructions were coming and I sent emails to her main email address. I even sent her an email and asked her for my money back since she wasn't finishing the class.  Nothing.  This class started October 1 and the last post was October 25.

As the blogger/instructor kept posting new projects to her own site, I was getting more and more annoyed.  Finally on December 30 she posed the question on Facebook, "How about a new class? Anyone interested?"  I immediately responded...How about you finish the one you started?  And wouldn't you know it - all of a sudden the class got a response.

Here it is:
i posted the last set of instructions, but i must not have confirmed the post or something.
i had zero clue that the last set of instructions weren't available until kathy said something on facebook a few minutes ago.
i hadn't gotten any admin alerts about this group or anything.

Funny thing, the last set of instructions wasn't the only thing missing, there was more than the one class missed and she posted all the missing classes on December 30.  She didn't get ANY alerts from the comments I sent, from the emails I sent or from the Paypal refund request I made either.  I tried at least 6 times in 6 weeks. In the end an apology would have been nice. So it's finished now and the lesson learned is not to take classes from instructors who have little skill in handling a classroom setting.

After-Thanksgiving 6AM Sale

I swore I was not getting up at the crack of dawn and going out into the hordes of shoppers this morning. After perusing the fliers after our Thanksgiving dinner, I determined there was nothing worth running out for. In fact, I had most of my Christmas shopping done so it was nice not to feel the pressure of needing that middle-of-the-night deal. The only thing that was tempting me was the JoAnn Fabrics 6AM specials which means I would be shopping for myself. They had flannel on sale for $1.49 per yard. An incredible deal, but I didn't really need it, so I decided that I would prefer to sleep in and enjoy a lazy morning. Then I heard my husband sneaking downstairs to head out for some 5AM early bird specials. I was wide awake. I knew there was no going back to sleep so I got up, threw on some clothes and headed out. I got to the store at 5:54 and there were approximately 12 other women waiting. The doors open and we all politely waited our turns to get a cart and scattered through the store. I went right to the flannel and loaded my cart. I got in the cutting line, which already went up an entire aisle. As it turned out, it took longer to get the fabric cut than it did to wait in line. I had 29 bolts, 85 yards of fabric cut in all. It was a great shopping day.