Saturday, March 28, 2009

more sewing room adventures

I was happily working on these.....

which you will hopefully see in my brand new etsy shop soon! While Ally was doing this on my sewing room couch....
as you can see, she finished her quilt! & it works quite nicely. You can see previous blogposts about her quilt adventure here and here. Suddenly she jumped up from the couch & declared that it was her turn at the sewing machine! She wanted to make matching pillow cases. So we got out the fabric & started cutting.... & she set to work. One seam joins all the layers...this is the magic part! When you flip it all inside out....
Nice work Ally! Now get out of my sewing room so I can get something done!


Pictures of the finished fabric baskets coming soon... I hope! I really do need to get that kid her own machine SOON!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

she's still working...

Here's Ally with the completed quilt top... it's really impressive how well her corners all match up! Now she is ready to layer it up & tie it...Oh wait! One more thing! "Mom, would you applique my name at the top?" (she had already made the letters & ironed them onto the fabric, all I did was stitch around them on the machine) Time to pin the layers....
to be continued....




Sunday, March 22, 2009

spring break trip

Well spring break is coming to an end. We had a wonderful week, hubby was off all week as well as Steve & Ally. We did take a little jaunt last week....

Last Sunday we drove almost 10 hours to Columbia, Missouri, to visit the University of Missouri (Mizzou). Steve was interested in seeing their broadcast journalism school as he is thinking this may be what he wants to study. He has already seen the journalism school at Arizona State (where Leigh Anne is a student) so now he has 2 to compare. Monday, we toured the campus, the journalism school and the tv station.

On Tuesday we drove to Independence, Missouri, to tour the Truman Presidential Library. I think Steve had had enough walking the day before!

But hubby is a huge fan of presidential libraries, & truth be told, we all enjoy them & learn a lot from touring. Here is one of the Truman homes downtown.


As you can see, we had amazing weather for our trip. We were all worn out after another long day of driving on Wednesday, but it was well worth it!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

odds & ends

First off, I promised to let you know what Allyson loved at the quilt show! She seemed to be attracted to quilts with real images on them.... like these chickens!


And this flower with birds....

trees....

and even vegetables!

but we both agreed that this was the coolest quilt of all. It's actually 5 quilts! If you look closely, the center circle in each layer is open, showing the layers behind it. It was really neat the way it was done.

Allyson bought a charm pack of the Dots and Stripes fabric line from RJR Fabrics. This picture is of fat quarters, but you get the idea...


Today she decided to make a quilt out of them. First she laid them all out on the floor of my sewing room (I wish I had taken a picture of that!) Then she began sewing them into rows...

She would sew a row & then I would press it for her while she sewed the next row.....

Then I pinned the rows together & she began sewing them..... by this time she was doing the pressing herself!

She has asked for her own sewing machine for her birthday this summer, & I do think that is a reasonable request (especially if I want to do any sewing myself!)

She has two more rows to sew, & then she wants to add borders.... I will share a picture of it when it's all done. She's doing a terrific job!
As for me, in my cleaning spree this afternoon, I found a stack of flannel baby blankets all cut, pinned & ready to sew! So I finished those up (six of them!) and they are ready to gift to the next lucky babies to arrive in our lives. Check that off my list!

I found it!

The bottom of the closet in my sewing room that is! A couple years ago, I bought all these lovely see through boxes at Walmart & sorted my stash by color. My sweet husband built lovely shelves & my sweet daughter labelled the boxes (ok, she had a fascination with the cool label maker! But hey, she got the job done!). It was so amazingly organized & lovely. Well, in the days/months/years that followed, all of my motivation to be organized went right out the window! I work best in confusion you see. Moderate confusion, anyways! As I collected more scraps, fat quarters & yardage it all started to pile up in the closet (on the floor). Eventually it went something like this.... open closet a couple inches (so the pile doesn't fall out), throw scraps in, quickly slam door! Yikes. So today was the day! I sorted it all out, put it back into the appropriate (still labelled!) bins, & I feel so much better! Even found a few UFOs I had completely forgotten about... & a couple of patterns that had gone missing on me. So now I am ready to take on the world!

Is spring break over yet?

Saturday, March 14, 2009

where in the world is......


Leigh Anne! She's been to Disneyland this week (who wouldn't want to go there for spring break instead of hanging out with her boring family?). Do you think she could figure out how to call her mom from a phone booth? For that matter, has she ever SEEN a phone booth before? Seriously, I thought they were extinct. To her credit, she did text me several times a day with updates on the trip. She's safely back in AZ now, spending the rest of her spring break with Grandma & Grandpa.

Today, Ally & I took in the Dallas Quilt Show. We were being really frugal until we spotted this cool software you can use to print your own fabric....
That was a splurge! It looks really cool. I'll let you know how it works out later on. I see fabric with llamas in our future....

We splurged on a couple of Moda charm packs too, & a cute fabric panel. It was a really fun day! I took pictures of the quilts Ally liked the best & I will share them with you next time.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Quilt show weekend!

Yay! It's time for the Dallas Quilt Show!! I love to go & see what new stuff I can find. This year we'll be investigating sewing machine possibilities for Allyson. That's what she has requested for her 13th birthday in August. I fully approve!

It's always interesting to see what catches Allyson's eye at the quilt show (she's my quilt show buddy for the third year in a row!). Two years ago, when she was 10, she became fascinated with a booth where they were coloring on muslin with crayons and making quilts. We spent a bundle in that booth! Here's a picture of her dinosaur pillow that came out of our purchases:

yes, that little dinosaur (about 4 inches square?) cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $25! Yikes.

Last year she was intrigued by the dolls made from yoyos. This one was a little more reasonable.... just a pattern & a yoyo maker. She & Grandma made this sweet elephant doll.

So what will it be this year? I will surely let you know! She has developed quite an eye for fabric and patterns... so I'm sure we'll both come home with a bag full of treasures & a head full of ideas.
On another note, we'll be leaving Sunday morning & driving to Columbia, Missouri to check out the University for Steve. I've scouted one quilt store in Columbia & a couple in Independence, where we'll be after that. Now all I have to do is accidentally get the car headed toward those stores.... think I can do it? I do!

Friday, March 6, 2009

time out...

Today I am cleaning my house (no you're not, Ellyn! You're blogging! STALLER!) Exactly. I hate cleaning. Darn it, I wish I liked it & I wish I was better at it but the fact is, I'm not. So I thought I'd take a short break from cleaning (I promise!) & share a few things I hate... & more things that I love (just so I don't leave this on a negative note!) Ready? Ok....

Other than cleaning my house, I HATE.....




That's right. I hate peanut butter. It grosses me out. When I was a kid, if my mom even cut my jelly sandwich in half with a knife with peanut butter on it & got a TRACE of peanut butter on my bread, I would throw it away. Seriously. Ok Mom, don't be mad, it was a long time ago!



Other than cleaning my house & peanut butter I can't think of a thing I truly hate!



Things I love (besides the obvious, you know, my family & friends, God, sewing...)


Teapots. I adore them! I have lots, some old ones from my grandmas & some new ones (I especially love Mary Engelbreit teapots!)
Baseball! This would be my favorite pitcher, my son Steve! We all love baseball in this family...


Birdhouses. I collect them (but these are not mine. I borrowed this picture from google.)

Some more things I love....

Singing

HGTV

American Idol

Meringue cookies

but not cleaning my house. Which reminds me, time to get back at it. Thanks for allowing me this little break!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

do you remember....

...the first thing you ever sewed? I've been thinking about that lately. I must have been 8 or 9 when mom first let me sit at her sewing machine & begin a lifelong love of sewing. I know I made assorted doll blankets and many of those stuffed animals that came in a panel, remember those? You just cut out the front & back, put them face to face, stitched, flipped & stuffed. Hmmm I wonder if they still make those?


Anyways, the first piece of clothing I remember making was a yellow gingham halter top.... I actually made 2 of them, one for me & one for a friend! The pattern was something like this...

Can't you just picture it in yellow gingham? We thought we were "all that". Ahhhh the 70s were a wonderful time for fashion. And check out the price on that pattern! ONE DOLLAR! Wow. By 7th grade home ec class I was way ahead of my classmates. While they were still trying to figure out how to cut out their skirts (it had to be an a-line skirt pattern with a zipper and set in waist band!) I was hemming mine up & starting on a matching blouse (come to think of it, the blouse was gingham too! Pink. I must have had a thing for gingham!).

What is the first thing you remember sewing?


On another note, my list of favorite blogs keeps growing! Check out this great giveaway at V and Co. you can win this...

& then read some more of her wonderful posts.... I'm going to!