The snow is nearly gone

For some reason the snow last week left me inspired to work on my Dresden plate quilt from my class in Sisters, OR last summer rather than my snowflake quilt. Isn’t that funny… when it’s not snowing I’m all excited about my snowflake quilt. And then when we finally do get a little snow, all I want to work on is something that reminds me of flowers and summer.  Fickle I am.

The snow also inspired me to clean out the hall closet and move some of my sewing stuff into it for better space organization.  My sewing room always feels so small and cramped.

I also prepared all the bag pieces for the Amy Butler bag class I am teaching tomorrow at work.  Everyone is picking out an Amy Butler bag to make from either her patterns or her book and then I’m going to give moral support and technical help where needed.  I’ve wanted to make this Sophia Carry All bag for some time now.

I also made these potholders.  At work we are starting a Small Project of the Month club and these potholders are the first project for February.  The pattern is the Handy Heart Potholders and the shop is making kits to sell.  Call the shop (no online shopping cart) if you would like a kit. I think we might make some more kits in other fabrics as well, but we were shooting for a Valentine’s theme for February.  (For those of you who may be new around here … I work part-time at Gathering Fabric Quilt Shop.)

The potholders gave me a chance to play around with some of the fancy stitches on my Janome.  That was kind of fun and something I don’t do very often.

In case you ever wondered… this is what the backside looks like when the thread in a drop-in bobbin comes out of it’s guides. What a mess!  And let me tell you how fun it is to rip it out.  Not!

One last shot of the snow before the last of it melts away…  Only the piles where we shoveled are still left. And the weather is back to our normal Pacific Northwest fickle self.

Snow day

I haven’t been sleeping well so there hasn’t been much blogging going on.  But I do love a good snow day.

And, what’s not to love in that sweet kitty face?

These Old Bags

I figured that a good way to start out the New Year would be to replace my old shopping bags. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but kept putting off.  There always seems to be something more important that needs to be sewn.

Above are all of our old shopping bags that I’ve collected over the years from various grocery stores. None of them are very laundry friendly. But especially the purple one! It bleeds like crazy. And the recycled plastic non-woven one on the right can’t be washed either.  The bottoms on all of them look really stained and ratty. And at least one is developing a hole.

Tada. The new bags. I really want to be able to throw our grocery bags in the laundry with everything else and not have to worry about it. All the fabric was pre-washed before sewn.  And they needed to be be husband approved so that he wouldn’t be embarrassed to take them to the grocery store. Hence the neutral colors.

They all are essentially the same bag with various tweeks.  I love starting with Terry Atkinson’s Fat Sack tutorial and then making changes as desired.  The pleated bottom is so easy!  I’ve made these before as gifts.

The two on the left have shorter handles because I forgot that I like them longer. And the two on the right got longer handles, but I stitched them to the top rather than extend them all the way to the contrasting bottom piece.

There are so many grocery bag tutorials and patterns out there that you can make.  Go ahead and give one a try.  You can never have too many bags.

It’s a new day

It’s a new day, a new week, a new month and a new year.  So I threw out the guilt from not finishing my WIP’s from last year and settled into the sewing room with a couple of things that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.  And it felt good.

Above:

1) The sunrise this morning was brief but gorgeous!

2) Dear Jane blocks on the left (only 22 made in 2011 for a total of 50 blocks) and Lotta Jansdotter fat quarters on the right.

3) The wee pincushion made & given to me by Ms. Chickenfoot sits so nicely on top of my sewing machine.  I love it!

Bye bye 2011, You won’t be missed

Not much has been happening in the sewing room the last couple of weeks. I did do a machine sewn binding demo at work on some potholders, then managed to make a hot pad to go along with them.  The hot pad is made up of 2 1/2-inch strips from my French General stash, sewn together and cut into triangles with my 60-degree ruler.  I added a layer of Insul~Bright and scraps of batting to make them all heat resistant.

Frankly, I have had no real enthusiasm to do anything beyond the necessary in the sewing room.  Napping, reading and knitting a pair of socks has been about all I’ve done.

I did try to trick myself into working on this long-standing WIP – or is it a UFO now since this is the 3rd Christmas where it still isn’t finished.  But it didn’t work.  I’ve been stalling because I don’t know what I want to quilt in all of those setting triangles. In my mind I have visions of beautiful feather quilting which exceeds my abilities. So, to keep the front from intimidating me, I turned it over and started doing pebble quilting on the back.  But I don’t really like it. Plus, it really eats up the thread… a little more than a bobbin of thread for each setting triangle. I’m tempted to rip it all out entirely. Why has this one been so hard to finish?

This last year has been a challenge that won’t be missed.  We’re still trying to figure out why I am not sleeping well and suffering from insomnia.  At least I think I’ve finally found a doctor who is willing to investigate.  I’ve been given all sorts of crazy explanations. And any prescription or over-the-counter sleep aid seems to do the complete opposite and keep me awake. We did discover that I have non-reactive mono. Once exposed to the mono virus it can reactivate all over again.  Non-reactive means that it is trying to reactivate but just isn’t quite there yet. That explains part of my tiredness.  And we also discovered that I am allergic to eggs and a few other things… just in time to be excluded from all of the holiday goodies.  BTW, ground flax seeds soaked in water become gooey and can be used as a binding agent to replace eggs. They seem to work well in pancakes, meatloaf and  scones.  So far that’s all the recipes I’ve tried to replace the eggs.  I’m ready to put this year behind me and start a new one.

Unfortunately, there are a few UFO’s that will be waiting for me on the other side.   And hopefully I’ll have more energy to put towards some new ideas floating around in my head.  I’m ready for the New Year to start.