Can't live without it- part 12

Since starting to sew, each time that I have moved I have realized more and more how much I need one of these. A broom. yes, a broom.

Right now my sewing area is the kitchen table right in the middle of the walkway from our only outside door. Whenever i have to put my projects on the floor to add edges, place pieces in the right place, baste batting and backings to my projects I have to sweep first. Every night after finishing sewing I have to sweep. When I have had sewing rooms where I had carpet on the floor, I have always put down a computer mat for my chair and have had to clean that up. I know that if I was in a carpeted area I probably would have taken a picture of my vacuum. Cleaning up is an inevitable part of sewing and therefore I have to put it on my list of things I can't live without.

Hope that you enjoyed.

Can't live without it- Part 11

OK, so I know that it has been at least a week. But, here I am again. I know that this is the most random sewing tool ever! However, I can't possibly work in my sewing area without it. A lint brush.
I clean projects, my mat, my chair, my clothes, my ironing board, my shelves..etc etc with it. I was reading a forum the other day on Quilter's Club of America about the different things that various people use. They had some great ideas that is for certain. I love this brush because you can clean it easily by pulling off a layer at a time. They have replacement ends which is great. They come in various sizes so you can travel with one or just have one sitting in your craft area.

Hope that you enjoyed.

Christmas and Halloween Countdown

One day my mom gave me a bunch of her old fabric. With the batch of fabric came a pattern book from Nancy Halverson. As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to make my dream quilt, the Twelve Days of Christmas. It is on my list of dream quilts to make. I have been collecting fabric for it for a few years now. However, this post is not about my dream quilt. But, I have to share one more story, sorry. I served a mission for the LDS church in Uruguay several years ago. While I was there I bought a few gifts to bring home for my family from Uruguay. I brought home a little wood engine that I thought would match her decorations in the kitchen. It was a changeable calendar in Spanish. She actually put it out and would change the date on the engine. I was happily surprised. I tried to take a picture of it the last time I was at my mom's house and she has put it away. I will have to post a picture later.

So, in the same pattern book she gave me there was a Christmas countdown. It was kind of the same idea as the engine, but something that would be put out only at holidays. Since my mom loves Christmas I thought that it would be a great to make a set of the countdown Christmas numbers. So I probably spent a year working on this project. Other's got in the way and in the end I didn't even finish before giving it to my mom. Terrible huh. I have not finished the block that stays up the whole month and says Countdown To... I will have to get that done this year.

Then again...when I first gave it to my mom it was missing the 6 and it took me all of Oct. last year to get the 6 to her. Ah, some projects just take forever.

The last story I promise to share in this post it the following. Looking at this project really makes me sad. I started working on this while I was pregnant. At the time I would take all of my sewing stuff to my grandma's on Sat's while Russ was at work and work on my sewing projects. I started cutting out the numbers while i was at the farmer's market that summer selling baby blankets. When I think of working on this project I think of my grandma. I got out their old card table to sew on and sat there next to my grandma's arm chair sewing. I miss her terribly. I miss taking by all the projects that I am working on and showing them to her. I could go on and on about the things that I miss, but I won't.

Here is a picture of the holder my husband made with his welder and spray painted gold.
He used hot glue for the feet. I now need him to make me one. :)

Here are some of the Christmas numbers.

Here is the Halloween side.

When I made this set, I made a matching set for me. I however, have not finished sewing all the layers together on mine. Maybe I will finish it for Halloween this year.

Hope that you enjoyed.

4th of July pillows

I had a few blocks left over from my English paper piecing quilt. I have had them sitting on my table for a few weeks. Every time I see them I think about ways that I can use them. I have seen many different pieced pillows online when I have goggled English Paper Piecing.

So I decided to attach the blocks to a white background, added borders and sewed them to a back. As I was sewing the front I was realizing what a great quilt it would make with just the front of these pillows sewed together as blocks. I may need to do that with some fabric in the future.

After deciding to do pillows I realized I would need pillow forms. ya, they are not the cheapest things in the world. I got them on sale which was nice. However, that is when I realized that I was going to make sham and be able to change out the pillow covers along with my other seasonal decorations. It is a great use of small pieces of fabric that I don't know what to do with and don't want to store. So here they are. (The small one in the front is just stuffed an permanent.)Here is the back.Hope that you enjoyed!

Summer Picnic

Here is my newest excitement.

Yep, can you guess how many pieces are in this quilt? A whopping 467. ya, I know. Why on earth would I spend hours putting that many tiny pieces together. Most of the squares and pieces are like 2 1/2 inches in size. Sometimes it just doesn't matter how much work something is, I just get going and have to get it done. I will admit..it did take longer then I expected the other day to cut the pieces and sort the fabric and sew it.

I have to write about the pattern though. Oh my goodness!!! I hate patterns that tell you you need more fabric then you really need. I cut up the fabric that I had used for my mom's quilt at Christmas into the amount of charm squares the pattern called for and had at least 7 un-used ones and the strips I made for the borders- ya I had enough left over I could have not cut 5 of them. On top of that, I had to trim all the pieces before sewing them together....alllllll of them. Every strip that it called for was a least 5 inches to long and so I have tons of pieces left over that I could have just saved in bigger pieces to use for another project. I mean, i do love the pattern and did finish a project that I LOVE LOVE LOVE, but I was just a little bit frustrating.

The pattern was called Picnic or Schinibbles (I actually can't tell which title it is) by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

This is just the top and I will have to finish quilting it, but I couldn't wait to post it. I want to put it up this month so I will have to finish it this week. Cool huh! I really wish that I could bind it will red fabric. However, I already have binding made from the yellow in the quilt left over from making my mom's quilt. So, hopefully you understand that complicated sentence.

Ok, hope that you enjoyed. I am off to finish a few projects and play with my little girl.