Friday, January 30, 2009

FABRIC STASH FOLDING

Here's a great short video for tips on folding your fabrics, so your fabric stash will be neat & tidy, all the same size.....and you can find that..."I just know it's here somewhere"...special fabric print.

WARM FLEECE SOCKS FOR WINTER

My families' tootsies will be warm in a few more days.

When I was in Indiana to visit with daughter & son & their families, everyone was wanting me to make them more of the fleece socks/slippers. So, I drew around one foot from everyone on paper, brought them home, and have been cutting out fleece socks the last 3 days. 2 layers of fleece is thick & cutting them out has taken some time. Had to clean the scissors a couple times, and actually put a drop of oil on the hinge thingie, as fleece seems to dull the blades.

I have a bummer right arm that has had 2 surgeries for torn tendons years ago, so can't just cut, cut, cut all one day, as don't want to overdo it. There are now 12 pair of various sized fleece socks waiting for me to get out the serger and sew 'em. The measuring, laying out and cutting always takes longer than the serging....so hope to get them all finished today.

Sew......off to the sewing room. Maybe I'll post a picture later, so ya'll can see 'em.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A QUILT POEM TO SHARE

This is a poem I received from a quilting friend, and thought it was a great one to share on my blog.
I THINK GOD IS A QUILTER
I think God is a quilter
Who takes His needle and thread
To piece our world from nothingness
And give it form , instead.
I think God is a quilter
And everything I see
Are pieces from His careful hand
From tree to bumblebee.
I think we see God's stitches
His texture everywhere;
The velvet moss, the grainy sand,
The silk strands of hair.
I think God is a quilter
Stitching tight and tiny rows,
Adding to my scraps and pieces
Seaming everything He knows.
I think He cuts the patterns
From what I'd throw away.
He shows me how to use each scrap
in His redeeming way.
I think God guilts a pattern
From everything I live;
But He can only stitch the quilt
From what I choose to give.
I think God is a quilter
Stitching strength where I am weak.
Showing me that life He touches
Embraces everything I seek.
I think God is a quilter
From the patience in each thread;
Proving length of time no barrier,
Treating time a gift, instead.
I think guilts are lessons
God uses just to teach
That our pieces and our remnants
Have kaleidoscopic reach.
So, in the life I'm living
With pieces everywhere
I'll give them to the Quilter
To stitch with loving care!
I'll give them to the Quilter
Unwanted though they be
And with His work of quilting
He'll make a quilt of me.
From the book Quilted With Love by Debbie Salter Goodwin

Monday, January 26, 2009

UPDATE!

Update:

My cat, Braveheart, is soooooooo much better today! Ate breakfast, drinking water from the faucet in the bathtub, & acting more like himself. I totally forgot about him "stinking" when he would lick my ice cream bowl or my leftover cereal milk........and my sister suggested he was allergic to milk products. I had purchased the Friskies dry cat food with the Carnation Milk nuggets in it and it's been his favorite for a couple of months. His mother was allergic to different things & suffered with skin itchies like exzyema. Soooooooooo...giving all the rest of that Friskies to outside cats and will no longer buy it. You can bet on it that I will be reading cat food labels for listing ingredients of milk and milk byproducts from here on out.

Great time at my nephews for the BD party dinner. Yummy food!!; sirloin steak charcoal grilled, huge baked potatoes with sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, green onions, green salad with diff. lettuce greens & mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes, cowboy beans, garlic bread, and warm peach pie with vanilla ice cream. My great niece loved the embroidered dish towels....

That's the latest on that.

HURRAY! Embroidery Club Today!

Our Designing Divas Embroidery Club meets the 4th Monday every month, and that's today! Hurray!

We always have such fun! We meet at Memories By The Yard quilt shop in their large wonderful classroom at 12:00 noon until 3pm. We do a cold potluck lunch; sandwiches, chips, cookies & fruit and have different members sign up to bring the food each month.

This month the lesson is on making refrigerator magnets in the hoop using fabric applique method and the design is a Heart shape that says "Sisters Make the Best Friends". Since I have already made my 2 sisters one of those last year, I will have to make different magnet designs.......mmmmmh?? I have a lot of fruit ones that would look cute on the frig, so that's what I'll do.

Maybe I can get a couple of them finished & will share with pictures here. Let's hope so.......as they are so cute.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

SUNDAY FUN!

I went to the gym this morning with my sister, and had a great workout. Sunday mornings are a great time to go, as it is not as busy and you can go from machine to another without having to change your routine. After working out and to help cool down, Spectrum offers free coffee, and they have a lounge area and huge TV. So, we sit and sip on half cup of coffee, read the Sunday funnies or watch the TV for about 15 minutes.....nice.

Have had a couple scarey days with my male cat, Braveheart, as he stopped drinking and eating and was lethargic. Had to take him to the Vet on Friday afternoon and he got 2 injections; one long lasting antibiotic and one sterioid prednisone type drug. I had to force water down him with a plastic syringe, every hour; one teaspoon.

I even stayed home from my monthly Red Hat Luncheon on Saturday to keep a careful watch on him and continue with the water routine, and try to get him to eat something. Went to the store & got 3 diff. kinds of dry food and several small cans different flavors. to try & get him to eat.

He's better today, thank goodness and is drinking from the faucet in the bathroom or dripping faucet in the bathtub, and he just ate some canned Iams chicken that I dribbled white karo syrup on it, then put a dab on his mouth to taste it. He gobbled up the food. Had to put his 2 sisters in my bedroom & shut the door, so they'd leave his special food alone & I could watch the quantity he ate. He was up on the table in my sewing room looking out the window when I came home from the gym, so that's a real good sign, and he's on the mend. He loves to look out that window.

Have not been able to sew or quilt with being a "nurse" to my "baby", but will be able to do a lot of it tomorrow.

Am leaving in a hour to go to my nephew's for a BD party for my great niece. She's going to be 22 and has her own apartment now, and needs everything, so I embroidered designs on two kitchen towels for her.

That's it for now....Hope you all have a Fun Sunday too!

Judy

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sewing Expo Was Great!

The Sewing Expo yesterday was a lot of fun and it did just what it was supposed to do.....it got the creative juices going for me with great inspirational ideas for new quilts, scenes, purses, jackets, and lots of embroidery work! Can hardly wait to make this new cape jacket and new purse pattern I bought....yippee!! Cindy Losekamp is one of my FAVORITE designers and I bought her book Serenity Landscapes & CD and she was there to sign it for me. I have a few of her other books & CD designs and have had such fun with them. She is one creative lady, for sure!





Came home & worked on the Angel BOM quilt and did some machine applique stitches on it. Have more work to do on it. Then I embroidered two dish towels for my niece's birthday on Sunday.





Here's my original Hearts Valentine Table Runner Quilt Pattern I have posted on Ebay right now on auction for 99 cents.....easy & great for beginners.

http://stores.ebay.com/Sew-Fun-Quilts-by-sewmeow

Go check it out. Thanks.



Wednesday, January 21, 2009



It's almost bedtime, but wanted to post the picture of the sewing tweet block I embroidered out yesterday. There's little items that pertain to sewing & quilting; fabric, thread, needle, scissors, thimble & pins. Embroidery Library is going to be creating and selling a different 'tweet' every week this year, and they are so cute. I am thinking about making a quilt with the different ones that are appropriate for me......like a hobby/journal quilt of my different interests.


Quilt Bee was fun today even though there was only 4 of us; still enjoyed it totally. I worked on my Angel BOM blocks and have 2 of them completed except for the detail work of hand embelishments which will be added after it is together; buttons, halos, hair, faces, ribbons, etc. One of the ladies worked on a new Stack & Whack quilt with gorgeous fabrics and a dark purple batik smeary fabric for her backgrounds. We have decided to meet twice a month for 2009, so some UFO'S can be finished by all of us.
Wow! Got so busy yesterday, I didn't get back here. Doing some quilting on my Angel BOM and embroidering yesterday. I embroidered out the cutest block for just fun...called Sewing Tweets from the company online...www.Embroidery Library.com. Great company and wonderful designs, reasonably priced. If you haven't visited their site be sure you do!

Have to get ready to go to our Quilt Bee this morning and it's an all day, bring your lunch, type of day...10am-3pm. So, that's it for now. I'll post a picture of the cute Sewing Tweets embroidery block later on today.

Have a good day!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What a historical day! Just watched the ignaugeration, and on my way out the door to go to the gym (as postponed it earlier in the day to watch tv.)

Will talk about my sewing/quilting projects later today. Please share with me your thoughts and/or sewing projects you have planned.

Judy

Monday, January 19, 2009

Welcome!




Hello and welcome to my Blog!






This is my first post and I would like to invite you to come on in, pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and visit for a while.


It might take me a while to get the hang of this, but am determined to do it, so that's half the battle.


Lots of fun quilting/sewing projects going on right now and am starting 2009 out with finishing up some UFO'S and experimenting with others, working on my Ebay store listings, & making lists of everything I want to accomplish. I only hope that I can cross lots of things off that list as the days fly by.


So far for the year, I have completed one Star BOM, worked on the Angel BOM, completed an Easter wallhanging leftover from last year, made a new patchwork tote & my sister promptly claimed it, embroidered out more lacey snowflakes for an Ebay store order, and embroidered out 6 huge designs for Valentine throw pillows with 5 of them finished.














In the next couple days, I will be cutting out many fleece sock/slippers for all my family living in cold snowy Indiana and sewing them totally with the serger. Are any of you familiar with the fleece socks/slippers I am talking about??


That's enough for now.........


Judy






































Judy