Blogtoberfest Day 31: Happy Halloween!

I haven’t made anything Halloweeny for a long time, so I dug up some photos of my kid’s clothes from several years ago.

Thanks to everyone who may have checked in from Blogtoberfest!  I missed 10 days…not a great showing, but that’s more I’ve ever blogged in one month previously, so that’s worth something.

I got over my wallowing  from yesterday. A lot of parents have children half way across the globe fighting for the freedoms we enjoy. That thought puts things in perspective pretty fast.

Will you have Trick or Treaters? We probably won’t but I bought M&Ms anyway. You know, just in case.  Ahem.

See you in November!

Blogtoberfest Day 30: In the pink

From pink explosion to scarf and pouch. The scarf has a hand dyed flannel backing. Go figure.

Flannel dyes beautifully! And the scarf is really very cozy but not heavy. Perfect for those banana belt days in Denver. I was on a bit of a patchwork roll, so I made the little pouch, too. It’s 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches.

That’s my Ash! I told you she still loves pink.

Her friend Sara has a photography business and they had a shoot.

She’s a busy girl with a full time job, 12 hours of classes, a husband (who’s also in school) and 3 Chihuahuas.

I miss her. We live too far away. I try not to think about it much. I know she’s happy and healthy, so that’s what I concentrate on.

Some days I just feel like wallowing a little. Thanks for indulging me:)

 

Blogtoberfest Day 29: Sunny Saturday!

A Barbie house exploded on my desk.

I’m working on a little something for daughter Ashley. She still loves pink! She was 26 on the 26th and we all completely forgot her birthday until the day before. Bad family! Maybe a pink explosion in a squishy will help a little.

We had guests this week from Buffalo, Wyoming. The guys have been friends since elementary school and were in their first rock band together in Jr. High, The Underground Light Bulb. There was a good amount of story telling and retelling and a couple of new episodes that had slipped through the cracks. We haven’t seen each other in seven years so it was a fun three days! Lois has found her niche in stained glass and brought me this wonderful little candle holder!

We hit the consignment stores and I scored some tarnished goodness for a wall coat rack I’m dreaming up.

We ate at the Hard Dock Café (yes, that’s right) in Decatur, AL Wednesday night. This was the view! Glorious!

It’s a treat to see the sun today after the last two days of cold and rain. (Sorry to all of you in the northeast! Brrr!)

To top the day off with a flourish…Nebraska-24, Michigan State-3! Go Big Red! Thanks to my Wisconsin readers who do not mention that game a few weeks ago:)

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

Blogtoberfest Day 28: Blogger’s Quilt Festival

It’s time for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival at Amy’s Creative Side!

Thanks for taking the time to stop for a minute! Out of the few quilts I’ve made this year, this is my favorite. It was made for the Hands2Help charity challenge and was delivered to Romania by Judi at Green Fairy Quilts.

This was a swap challenge and my partner sent some lovely calicos to which I added the background fabric. I began with a commercial pattern that called for some 2 1/2 inch strips, but realized early on that it wasn’t working and used the strips to begin making flying geese. No plan in mind…just making geese! There were soon enough for borders but to continue with such small pieces would have been very fussy.

In came the big geese blocks and the corners I trimmed off those became half square triangles for the other blocks. The addition of little borders made them the same size.

A very simple back and a quilting meander completed it. My design process was totally backward for this project, but it worked and I love it!

Thanks to Amy and all the sponsors for letting us link up!

Blogtoberfest Day 27: Thursday’s thoughts on Wordless Wednesday

Barn quilt, Woodbury, TN

I don’t know what happened to Wordless Wednesday’s post, so let’s try again! With words this time since it’s Thursday and all.

I spied this brand new barn quilt in our little town last week. Isn’t it cool? This barn is next to our vet’s office right on the main drag. Lots of visibility! Of course, I had no camera with me, so Amber took the photo and did some cool editing.

Here is a glimpse of my Barn Quilts board on Pinterest.

We’ve had company the last three days and it’s been a whirlwind of activity. Now it’s time to settle into a routine again and spend some serious time in the sewing room. Until tomorrow, here’s the view we had while eating supper last night.

Dining on a dock somewhere on the Tennessee River

Blogtoberfest Day 22: Crafting interests

It seems most people who sew also enjoy many other crafts.  I started a list of ones I’ve attempted, not all successfully, and thought it would be interesting to turn it into a poll. If there’s a craft that you have tried or would like to try that’s not on the list, please add it in the comment section.

The poll is in the sidebar <--------- that-a-way! (My first poll…I hope it works!)

Here’s a snip from my Craft board on Pinterest. It’s a collection of things from all around the interwebs. Clicking on the image takes you to the site if you’d like to have a look.

To push myself outside the old comfort zone, I signed up for a hand printed fabric swap and purchased tools for carving my own stamps and screen printing. Have you done either of these? I could use some pointers!

Happy crafting!

Blogtoberfest Day 20: Stack ‘em up

Slowly making progress…

iPad and iPhone cases

Switching gears always causes me to make more mistakes than I’d like to think about.

At least it no longer hurts to cut into the fabrics I’ve dyed! That is progress!

Blogtoberfest Day 19: Wordless Wednesday ~ Up the Dirt Road

from Amber’s iPhone

Blogtoberfest Day 18: Something new…

..for my Etsy shop

iPad case

I’m working on inventory as my shop is painfully empty and gift giving season is almost here. Some of you may recognize the fabric from this post.

We took full advantage of the beautiful fall weather this weekend. Saturday (my birthday) was spent in Bell Buckle, TN at the Webb School Craft Fair. It was packed with people and we saw lots of amazing crafts and art work. Good music, too!

from Amber’s iPhone

Sunday afternoon the storage building went from this

to this

I almost hated seeing the barn red go, but it matches the house better now. I have a renewed appreciation for our paint sprayer. Wish I could use it in the house!

I’ll leave you with the latest QOTD:

“If I didn’t have you, all my bread would be moldy.”

Blogtoberfest Day 15: I dub thee..

..eggs in the grass!

Clamp your folded fabric in between two plexiglass shapes (purchased here) and this is what happens! This technique is called itajime shibori.

I played with color mixing a little yesterday to come up with something more subdued than my usual brights. 

I like them! At the moment, I have only eight different colors to work with, but there are endless combinations. I also started documenting on sheets of drawing paper how many parts of this and that to use to reproduce a particular color. Kind of like a recipe but more fun than cooking!  

I intend to make this part of my dyeing process every time, so I’ll need to neaten it up a little.

I’m officially another year older. I can now get my senior discount at Hancock’s every first Wednesday of the month. Party!

Take the short trip to Sarah’s to see who is Whooping it up. Have a glorious weekend!

Blogtoberfest Day 14: Do people need a hobby?

I woke up this morning to several messages from people on Twitter that my account had been hacked and I needed to change my password. I rarely even check Twitter anymore, so last night when I got a message from someone I follow that included a link to a fake Twitter site, I logged right on in! Of course, Mr. Hacker ran with that and sent messages to other people from my account. There is a small comfort in the fact that I got it from someone else who fell for it, too.

Maybe Mr. Hacker needs to take a nice knitting class.

Wouldn’t it be more satisfying to have a scarf or mittens to show for all that work?

Speaking of knitting, every year I get out the needles to take another stab at it. We went to a car race in Woodstock, GA last weekend, so I grabbed some needles and a skein of yarn to have something to pass the time in the car and still be able to carry on a conversation. After I remembered how to cast on, I knitted a few rows, purled a few rows and ripped it all out. Trying to manipulate two sticks and a string is like herding cats to me. I can crochet fairly well, but throw that extra instrument in there and things turn ugly. I just checked out a knitting book from the library, so we’ll see if that does any good.

I had to renew my driver’s license today. I thought without a doubt there could not be a more hideous ID photo as the one on my old ID. I was wrong. It must have been payback for the hair dyeing vanity session of earlier this morning.

Anyway, I’m off to the dye studio (basement) to try some new resist clamps and then hope to spend some time sewing.

What are you working on?

 

Blogtoberfest Day 12: Crinkled with a stripey binding

Harvest Star table runner

This is one of the first things I pieced when I became interested in quilting a couple of years ago. I was attracted to the wonkies right away. It’s nice to finally dig it out of the pile and finish it.

This wall hanging’s been waiting for a while, too. Free pieced letters and big spools.

I started some swirls in the white spaces and wavy lines to give the impression of thread on the spools.

These HSTs in this orphan block were cut from the corners of the spools. The fabric is Authentic from Sweetwater.

No one has come up with a worthy QOTD yet. We’ll try to do better tomorrow.

Blogtoberfest Day 11: How..

..do people blog every day? I’m at a loss here. I know I lead a fairly mundane life, but this is ridiculous. Maybe I should start sharing Amber and Vicki’s “Quote of the Day”.  These are one-line comments that come up in the course of ordinary conversation around here.

“You smell like a pig farm!” is today’s QOTD. Not one of our best, but it can change if a better one comes along. The rules are pretty loose.

Anyway, this is finished except for burying threads and washing.

I’ll share tomorrow in all it’s crinkly goodness! And it will give me something to blog about.

Blogtoberfest Day 9: Binding

Love a striped binding!

Blogtoberfest Day 8:

Day 7 blew right by! Forty lashes with a wet noodle for me.

On the sewing front, I have been somewhat productive.

Three little blocks…

Three bags!

Thanks for the idea, P.

I’m linking up to Whoop Whoop! over at Sarah’s. (Thanks Sarah!) Check it out.

Blogtoberfest Day 6: Old and New

Here are the footprint sketches of our kitchen remodel.  The dimensions are not exact, but you can see the changes we made. Pictures here.

Before

After

The wall between the kitchen and living room was removed and a manufactured beam was installed in it’s place. Since it was a support wall, it had to be shored up by adding support posts in the drive-under garage below. This opens up the space and lets the sun shine in!

The laundry was moved and a mud room was added. That meant new plumbing was needed for the washer and the new walls between the kitchen, mud room and laundry room needed electric circuits. 

Over a third of the ceiling was torn out to move some of the lighting. In addition, the sheetrock in the old laundry area was all replaced.

On paper, it doesn’t look like much of a change, but the impact is pretty big.

While we’re satisfied with the results, we’ve agreed that we will never tackle a remodel again.  Trying to find a way to fit your vision into the allotted space and to make it all work can be a hair pulling exercise. Hopefully this will be a boost to the resale value when we’re ready to put it on the market!

Blogtoberfest Day 5: Wordless Wednesday

 

Blogtoberfest Day 4: Orphan blocks

I don’t have a lot of UFOs, but it’s time to finish some things up. Tucked in among the bigger things were these little homeless blocks.

What would you do with them?

Blogtoberfest Day 3: Amethyst Sunflower and the Sunflower Stand

Sounds like a book title! It’s actually Amber’s (Daughter #1) Etsy shop and website.

Amber recently took the leap from being employed to entrepreneurship! Her shop is doing well and she has much more time to pursue her music and photography interests as well. She started making feather extensions has moved into more wedding headpieces and boutonnieres. These are a couple of her best sellers.

 

She does her own photography and I think it’s pretty fantastic! (Proud mama moment!) Her shop has a boho, hippie sort of vibe but some of her pieces have a definite vintage feel.

She’d love to have you check out her shop, website and Facebook page!