Category: Sewing

Rainbows And Motivation
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Rainbows And Motivation

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The featured picture was from the “Science of Pixar” exhibit. The Husband and I went this weekend and it was absolutely fascinating to see how they make all the effects and movies. This picture is a digital painting from Brave! The Pixar people actually made a new program for the cloth in the movie because they didn’t have one they liked. How cool is that? I’ll show more of those pictures later.  (Sorry about the lighting. It was a bit dark in there.)

In other news, think I may have figured out where my motivation to make things has gone. I’ve been taking stock of my stash and realizing how much fabric and how many unfinished projects are just hanging out. I have some that don’t fit because they are years old! It’s a bit embarrassing actually. 🙁

Take this quilt, for example. The night I finished this, I didn’t want to start anything new. The thought of cutting out more fabric.. ick. Trying to decide which project to start… Ugh.

So instead, I pulled this quilt top and the backing fabric with it, gave it a little iron, quilted it, and bound it. I used a zig zag stitch with a pastel color changing thread. Tada!

It has an owner, but they don’t know it yet. 🙂 I was quite excited to finish something.

So much so that I started to put together another quilt that was waiting.

This one also has a home. 🙂 It’s going to take me a little to finish it though. I only made 8 of each color before deciding on this pattern. I need enough for 1 1/2 more large squares. Back to the sewing machine!

I also fixed a pair of flamingo leggings. They said they were one size, but that size was a little smaller than me sized. The band stretched, but it wasn’t the most comfy and I had a yoga pant waistband hanging out, waiting to be used.

I just chopped the original band off and sewed the other one on with a regular zig zag. Now they are extra comfy!

Other than a dress for the family wedding in April, I might see how far I can go on finishing things. Maybe my motivation for new things will come back, if I can get the other stuff from off my project list.

For now, I think I’ll take a page from Fancy’s book and head to bed. Maybe I’ll dream of new quilts!

This Is The Quilt That Never Ends…
Crafty · Monthly Review · Sewing

This Is The Quilt That Never Ends…

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Sometimes quilts get away from me. This one is doing that right now. The book says 24 rows of 18, but I took two off the ends. We’ll pretend I was smart in the beginning and meant to make 16 across in each row, since I had 8 colors and that makes two of each… That sounds good, right? Obviously it had to be a rainbow. 🙂

There are a few mistakes, I had one square sewn the wrong way and need to see if I have to pick out the whole row, or if I can just switch one around. I can always hide it at the bottom and call it my “humble square” if needed.

I’m trying to decide to reduce the columns too, so that they are proportional, but am also trying not to end up with random extra squares. The extra squares are winning. I made a bunch of extra strips last night, but made too many of the wrong colors! Now I have to decide if I need to continue to make more of the strips, or go with the 19 rows. I have 12 made already. I have these piles complete with all the colors. I’m leaning toward just dealing with the extra squares and using only the ones I have completed.

This one I picked specifically to use a project from my books. The book is called Relax and Quilt and it has very nice projects, mostly traditional piecing.

I checked my original notebook and I have 6 potential quilts picked out from this book. I tried to pick at least a few from each book, so I would have options. I must have gotten it from a rummage sale, it has a $1 sticker on it!

Fancy decided to “help” me lay out the quilt.

She’s been attached to me since I got home from work and is currently keeping my feet warm. 🙂 I like snuggles from her.

I’ve really only worked on the quilt this weekend. It was fun going through my scrap stash to find pieces that would work. I even cut into a few pieces of my fabrics I’ve had forever with no actual plan for them! I used a mix of older and newer fabrics, including some from my Christmas fabric box from my Mom. It’s a big step!

I realized that I’ve never done a review of the books I’ve used. I’ve gone through my cookbooks, but not the sewing stuff. Since I only worked on the quilt, I thought it might be a good chance to go through them.

I’ve finished a bunch of projects from my UFO box and a couple from online. I typically use Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville quilt plans. http://quiltville.blogspot.com/

Her tutorials are quite easy and I use her scrap saving system, so I have the right pieces already cut. The Rainbow Chevron is one of her quilts, the “Friendship Braid” border.

Another book I’ve used is Quilts From The Quiltmaker’s Gift, by Joanne Larsen Line and Nancy Loving Tubesing. This is one of my favorite kids’ books. The illustrations are beautiful and the quilts are the quilts from the book. The book tells the story of a quilter who gives away quilts to those in need, but refuses to give one to the greedy king. He gets mad and tries all sorts of ways to get one, but there’s a surprise ending that I won’t spoil.

I loaned my copy out and it sadly, never returned, but my Mother in law gave me her copy for Christmas a few years later, so I was so excited! I used the Flying Birds pattern and put it in the “Streak of Lightning set. It still needs borders and backing.

The Rainbow Snowball quilt was from Making Scrap Quilts To Use It Up by Lynne Edwards. 

That was another quilt that wouldn’t end. It’s still hanging out in my house. I may need to find a backup home for it soon.

The kudsudama flowers were from Button and Stitch by Kristen Rask. 

It’s kind of weird to think that in 67 projects, I only used about 6 books. I used some patterns too, but didn’t want to get them all out. I also don’t think of them as books per say. I know I have a few more that I’ve used, but one of them was a total dud and the other has been lost somewhere in a pile..

I should probably start weeding these books out too. I just like to have options. I might be a dragon in disguise actually, with a hoard of sewing books and fabrics. I like that better than admitting to possible hoarding tendencies…;)

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed touring a few of my books. I’ll share some that I haven’t used yet in another post!

Monthly Review
Crafty · Monthly Review · Sewing

Monthly Review

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Here’s to another month! January flew by as usual. We had a lazy first weekend in February. Fancy spent most of her time playing tug with the Husband and her rapidly shedding rope toy, or snoring on my lap. She did not move for much of anything. She was not interested in the puppy bowl, although she was a little confused by the puppy squeaks. She squeaked her ball a lot though, in protest of us watching other pups.

I think I’m off to a good start with sewing. I’ve been working on a bunch of projects and I made some things that I needed and finished a bunch of projects from the UFO box.

This project takes care of both of those categories. I made some hot pads for the kitchen. One has a loop and one doesn’t. They came out a little small, so we’ll probably use them for trivets.

They were easy to make, but not too pretty on the other side. Yikes.. The binding was too big.

I have also started a new rainbow quilt. I’m not counting this one against my total. It’s technically for an old project that I hadn’t started yet.

I swear to finish something big soon. My quilt tops are stacking up. If I don’t finish some, I’ll have to get a bigger tote. I’m considering just backing everything with fleece. I have batting for a bunch of them, but not all.

So for UFOS I have made 13+ tea wallets, the hot pads, a Christmas zippered pouch, the evil fairy bag, and the library bag.

For new projects, I made a self-drafted tunic and the castle shirt.

I have also added two more quilt tops. Well, partial. They aren’t sewn together yet. They are also rainbow, since I apparently can’t do anything else. I think I’ve decided on this block for the pastel rainbow one. I found a cute white on white floral to use for the center of the blocks. I may need to make a few more of the scrap blocks depending on how the layout looks. I also have the chevron one in the featured pic.

Man… sometimes admitting the things I haven’t finished yet makes me cringe. I don’t normally put stock in negative self talk for motivation, but apparently sometimes it works. I’ll be working on some backed up projects for sure this month.

I’ve done much better in food terms this week. 15 new recipes and 12 new cookbooks. Hits were the lamb, the cinnamon ice cream, the Parmesan crusted chicken, and the Gordon Ramsey noodle and mushroom dish.

The hotpot was also a hit. It was a fun dinner with bonus noodle soup!

Misses were the pho (smelled like “lamb and feet”) and the pie contest apple pie. Not too bad for the month.

Goals: 

Sewing/crafting:

– Make the dragon dress

– Fancy up my work clipboards so I don’t get them mixed up with the office ones.

– Fully finish a quilt.

– Sew a pair of leggings! (Eek! Sewing with knits!)

Food goals:

– Use the InstantPot

– Try a new breakfast recipe

– Try a new lunch recipe

– Meal Plan/Pantry shop

– Make more ice cream! (Yes, I know it’s winter, but ice cream!)

I will also try to snuggle this puppers more to her standards. She feels sadly lacking in the snuggle department… You can plainly see she’s terribly sad about it. She probably also needs more treats. I mean, how could we resist?

I think I’ll take her current example and take myself off to bed. Have a lovely, restful night!

Sewing Confessions
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Sewing Confessions

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I have no one to blame but myself for this spree. I had told Kayla about the magical discount fabric store where everything is $2.99 a yard and we finally managed to go on Friday. It coincided neatly with a pattern sale at Joann’s and the rest is history.

Here are the patterns I bought:

L to R top: Dress with shawl collar, sweetheart neckline with button accents, tunic and cardigan

L to R bottom: Peter Pan collar for my dragon dress (fabric is the featured pic,) Wrap dress that wraps from the back to the side. It looked so interesting, I had to get it. Plus, the Simplicity patterns were all .99.

The good news is that I have plans for the fabrics I got from the discount store and it will hopefully help me get more comfortable with knits. I have an irrational fear of them, but also several different knits waiting for projects already.

Kayla was very excited once we got there. She and I both had projects in mind. I want some more tunics and she wanted some raglan shirts. It was fun to introduce her to the store. They had moved recently into an even bigger place.

The Husband knew I was going and when I came home with black fabric with tiny beach umbrellas on it, he said “Well, of course, you needed that. You can make a sundress with it.” Oddly enough, that’s exactly what it is going to be.

How cute is that?! I tried to resist, but it lured me in. I sort of have a style in mind for it, just have to find the pattern.

This lace for $2.99? I probably should have gotten more of it. I got 3 yards to make an overlay on a dress. I got grey material, which I thought would work underneath, but I think I accidentally got rain poncho fabric, which is fine. I need a rain poncho.

I think this is the back of the lace, but I like the grey part showing.

This is apparently double knit. I have no idea what that means, except that it has another knit on the back. The owner was excited by it while she was cutting it. I’ll have to do some research. It was going to be a casual, kind of slouchy tunic.

Navy polka dot knit. I resisted buying a $42 dollar maxi skirt from a semi-famous fancy clothing company last summer and have been on the hunt for a polka dotted fabric ever since. This will be a $4 maxi skirt, which I’d say is a win.

Tunic! It’s hard to see, but it has little shadows of the colors in it. I like it and it will be a very nice tunic.

This will be a dress like the strawberry dress. It’s actually a deep Kelly green and a deep navy. They are both very vibrant colors, but got washed out when I took the picture. I think it’s a cotton rayon blend. It’s got nice body and drape and is slightly heavier.

We will be going back, I’m sure, but not for me at least, until I get some more projects done. I have probably three or four more knit fabrics downstairs waiting to be made into something useful.

Lest you think I frittered my time away unwisely in a grand shopping spree, I’ll show you the projects I have finished lately.

Christmas Lily zippered Pouch for Etsy/Twinflower Fancies.

Two tea wallets because I had black thread loaded.

These were from a random Halloween batch that didn’t get finished. I have a couple more too, but am waiting to see what I get back from what I had at Hawthorne and Vine. Obviously, I still need to get the threads cut and a button added to the cats.

I self-drafted this curved hem on the tunic. I used a familiar shirt pattern and extended it. The sides are split and turned under. The neck and sleeves are finished with a thick black bias tape. I’ll add a tiny bit more room if I use cotton again. Knits would be fine with the same dimensions. It’s got a cute silver sun or starburst pattern.

Here is an in process shot of the fabric:

I also finished my castle shirt!

This is the fabric I ordered with the dragon fabric. I made the sides flare a little and added some more pleats to the neckline and back. The original line is too wide for me, but I need it that size elsewhere. I gathered the sleeves, so they look a little better. I kept thinking I had put them in upside down, but they just needed to be poufier.

I’ve also been organizing up a storm. We got a nightstand for my side of the bed yesterday and I was able to clear out some of my dresser. I was pretty ruthless with my closet stuff too. I put several things in the giveaway pile. My winter sweaters are now hanging in the closet in a sweater hanger thing. I’ve still got a bunch to do, but at least it’s a start.

Fancy is giving me this look and whining. We are 15 minutes past her bedtime and she is terribly unhappy. I’d better go put her to bed.

Hope you enjoyed seeing all the sewing! I’ve got a pretty good momentum going that I would like to keep up. I’ve got to beat my 67 project record, after all. 🙂

Auto Show and Evil Fairies
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Auto Show and Evil Fairies

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The Husband and I went to the North American International Auto Show yesterday. I haven’t been in several years because I’m mostly indifferent to cars and I don’t need to push every single button that is in a car. I like to look at the shiny ones and then sit in a corner with a book while the Husband does his thing. This year though, we are looking at getting new cars in the spring and thought it might be a nice way to check them out without having the pressure of a salesperson haunting us.

I of course, don’t think I got a picture of the two we were looking at. I was too busy trying them out. We think the Husband is going to get a new Escape and I will probably get an EchoSport. Or the Escape, but I like the Echo better. It’s smaller, more me sized.

I kept saying that about the smaller cars at the show and people would giggle. The Fiat was one of the me sized cars that I liked. It’s so cute and dainty looking.

The Husband requested that I sit in a new F150 and I think I was the only girl around that truck.  I felt like I was 6, but it did have adjustable pedals, so theoretically, it could have worked. That’s assuming I didn’t take out telephone poles while driving, of course.

I like looking at the shiny new cars and I kept taking pictures of front ends because it’s funny how some look so predatory and some look adorable. Case in point: The Alfa Romeo vs. the VW Beetle

Shark:

Sweet:

There was also a couple of Hot Wheels style cars. The Camaro had a hot wheels one on display, but there were too many people drooling on it for me to get a picture. This one is from the Ant Man movie.

I had to take a picture of a Jeep for my friend, who has her own rough and ready yellow Jeep.

There were some cool displays and details in the cars too. The Hellcat has its  symbol in the headlights.

This display was in the Michelin booth.

It’s a 3d printed tire. Surrounding it are ideas for things that it could be made of including wood fibers, plastic bottles, cloth, and orange peels. Also, the Michelin man was there and the little kids were so excited that it was cute.

I have lots more pictures too, but they’ll be posted on Wednesdays probably.

Now for the sewing/evil fairies part of this post… My deal is that I have to finish something from the UFO box before I can start anything new, since I want to get halfway through the boxes in the next year.

I’m running out of tea wallets, which are, of course, the easiest, but I did find four more red ones that were almost completely finished. They just needed outlining mostly.

Three of them are complete. The one that has a button loop will get finished when I do the button. It’s a fall themed one, so I don’t have to rush. I also tied off the ends of more of the brown ones, so those have been added to the stack.

So in addition to the red tea wallets, I had a fairy bag, which is the last of this fabric that I have. It’s pretty adorable, with fairy mushroom houses, mushroom lining, and cheery red background fabric.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t finished because it may have been infested with evil fairy vibes…Let me list the things that went wrong…

The straps were already sewn, meaning I would have to exactly match the stitching, or sew them on differently. Then, because they were made to go across the pockets, they were super duper long and I had to cut them down twice. I had two zippers that were too small and one that was five inches too big..The fabric got twisted up while I was sewing the corners:

I unpicked the wrong seam and had to sew it twice. The backing fabric was a weird size and I ended up ripping strips off of it. Fancy doesn’t like the sound of ripping fabric apparently and almost took a header under my chair trying to make sure I was safe. Poor dog, running on slippery floors doesn’t go well for her.

I ended up with 5 pocket bag, because I sewed the pocket sem in the last place and one of the times I cut the straps, I cut my new slouchy sweatshirt sleeves as well.

Oh, and there were missing threads on one of the pockets and a strap, which took me about six tries to fix. My thread kept nesting on the strap.

Like I said, evil fairies.

I did get it finished finally, but I probably should have stuck it back in the box and worked on something else. I was so frustrated by the time I was done with it that I wasn’t up to doing anything fun. Plus, it took me at least three hours, for what should have been an hour tops. All of the pieces were already cut out!

It needs to leave my house. I’m still mad at it. If anyone wants it, I’ll give you the “possible evil fairy” discount. 🙂

In a related note, this fortune came up in our “Make Your Own Fortune” book and I’m slightly concerned what my day will be like, considering what I do for a living..

Eek. I only have four appointments today, so hopefully they all go well and this wasn’t a sign of things to come. Send peaceful thoughts!

Weekend Sewing and Being a Midwestern Housewife
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Weekend Sewing and Being a Midwestern Housewife

LSieh2 Comments

My family didn’t decorate full out for most holidays. We decorated the sideboard mostly with seasonal things, or lovely picture arrangements. Christmas was our all out holiday and we did it up good! It never really struck me as a problem, or something weird. In fact, I never had a desire really to have all holidays celebrated or to decorate for them.

Now that I am a nice Midwestern housewife though, I’m having all these decorating urges. Not for all the holidays, I won’t go all green for St. Patrick’s day. I’m more likely to put out something purple for St. Urho’s day the day before (he drove all the grasshoppers out of Norway, I believe.) We don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, except to buy half price candy the next day.. Gosh, I make us sound so pragmatic and unromantic…

I just want our house to look pretty and maybe have a few nice touches. We’re simple people. This has totally come on just this year. I must finally be adjusted to actually owning a house. 🙂

The Lego bridge that was on the mantle since we moved in is downstairs for a bit, which gives me that surface and the top of the encyclopedia desk to play with. We’re celebrating Chinese New Year with friends again this year, so I’m doing a little bit of decorating for that. Those are artificial cherry blossoms on the mantle. I have some red and gold things too, but they aren’t set yet.

We also have the leaning shelf, which was partially cleared for the angel host at Christmas. I’m probably going to switch out the pictures and decorations on there as well, because, why not? We have a bunch of decorations that we didn’t have room for, so it would be nice to see them again. Change can be good. 🙂

And before you ask, Mom or Dad, I’m not going to start serving pickle tray with every meal or drinking coffee. I’m not that Midwestern yet. 🙂 Just a little light decorating… (Isn’t that how it always starts though?)

In a very grown up and not at all Midwestern move, the Husband and I perused a model train show this Sunday. My phone died about 2 minutes in, so I only have a couple of pictures. The Husband kindly took some for me, which I will see if I can get for a future Wordless Wednesday post.

It was fun as usual, but also kind of sad. We don’t have a train space yet. We didn’t stay for too long. My back caused issues on Saturday, so I couldn’t walk that much on Sunday. I was able to sew some and have been working on a new scrap quilt.

Honestly, I know I have all these projects to make, but I was jonesing for a rainbow scrap quilt. This one has a home, but it is super secret still.

Now, on to the real question, how to put these quilt squares together? I made 8 of each color, pink, green, yellow, and purple,  and they are wonky log cabin squares.

4 patch, alternating colors?

4 patch same colors?

3 squares, one white corner square?

Or, the Husband’s choice, alternating colors arranged in a diagonal?

It’s going to be a small quilt, with a white, or black border.

Thoughts? I’m leaning towards one of the last two.

This is what I’ve been working on this week. I kept having to dig through my scrap box and am thinking about trying to sort them by color for easier use. Since these types of quilts are my favorites right now, it would probably make more sense. It would be a huge undertaking though. These squares were made mostly from my smaller scrap box. I didn’t pull any fabrics from my stash other than those. Sadly, it doesn’t even look like I made a dent…

My next sewing project should be something from the UFO box, if I can drag myself away from rainbow quilts. 🙂

Fancy is telling me that I should be sleeping, or providing her with belly rubs, if I insist on being awake.

I’ll go ponder the quilt in my dreams. Stay tuned tomorrow for more train show pictures!

 

Back to the Sewing Machine!
Sewing

Back to the Sewing Machine!

LSiehLeave a comment

Now that the busyness of the holidays is over, I can finally get back to my own sewing goals. Fancy’s picture pretty much shows how I feel after all of it is done.

My fairytale fabrics came in the mail and I have them washed and the patterns that I think I will use have been pulled. I have a few more details on the dress to work out, but the shirt should be pretty straight forward. That’s probably my next project.

While waiting for the fabrics to get washed, I made a simple elastic waisted skirt. I’ve actually talked about this fabric before. It was a birthday fabric purchase, I believe.

It has pockets, but they sit oddly and things fall out when I sit down. I self-drafted, which is really a fancy way of saying I didn’t measure… It’s possibly a little too heavy of a fabric to be in this style, but I think it’s cute. I wore it yesterday with a sweater, leggings and boots.

I also worked on the Rainbow Chevron quilt. I now have all the strips sewn together and it needs to be ironed and trimmed.

As we all know my feelings about ironing, I’m sure you can understand that I have to break that up into smaller bits. Plus, when I finished it, it was bedtime.

It’s draped over a 4 foot folding table, if that gives you an idea of scale. I don’t know how long it is in inches, but each strip is five of the rainbow patterns long. It will have a black border around it, probably about 6 inches to match the strips.

I also made more tea wallets. They’ve been selling on Etsy and I had black thread loaded on the machine and bobbin. These four were from my UFO box, waiting to be finished.

I try to remember to check for tea wallets when I switch thread colors. It’s super annoying to load half a bobbin, just for those.

Speaking of UFOs, while I was thinking about what to sew for clothes, I finished a bag from the box. If I can sew just a few things from the UFO box between big projects, I should be able to hopefully make a dent in it.

The Husband had to remind me that I probably shouldn’t keep all the bags. “Other people need cute bags too,”or so he says. I think he just wants my stash out of the house.

But it’s books! 🙂

Since I had brown thread loaded, I finished up the entire stack of brown tea wallets. I have broken my rule about not making multiple things with the same fabrics with tea wallets. I bought 1/4 yard pieces to make the wallets for Hawthorne and Vine and Etsy. This batch has three fall leaf ones, but they all have different inside fabrics.

I ran out of time before bed to tie and clip the strings. I’ll post another picture of the insides when they are completely done. That’s another step I have to do in batches. It drives me batty if I have to do them all at once. While I was looking for these, I found a stack of spring ones that need strings and buttons too, so I’ll have a tying marathon soon.

Tonight, I may try to cut out my castle blueprint shirt. I managed to catch the fabrics before they got wrinkly in the dryer and can maybe sew it tomorrow.

Fancy is being crazy dog and playing catch with herself and one of her treat dispenser toys. It’s pretty cute. I should probably go give her some more attention. Poor thing thinks she never gets enough.

Have a good night!

Yearly Review- Sewing and Crafting
Crafty · Life Posts · Monthly Review · Sewing

Yearly Review- Sewing and Crafting

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It has been a crazy year! I switched jobs twice, lost my serger pedal, but found it yesterday (!!), made a dress in 5 hours, found a favorite dress pattern, and used up an entire notebook.

I’ve watched multiple seasons of weird British shows (Death in Paradise, Doctor Blake, Great British Baking Show) and some Project Runway. Also, some action shows like The Flash, and Wynona Erp, much to the Husband’s dismay. 🙂

My space is getting organized, slowly but surely.

All my larger scraps are now housed in two containers. I have a shoebox style container full of tiny scraps as well, but they get lost if they are in with the bigger pieces.

Umm.. there’s a slight chance I need to stop saving scraps, or work exclusively in scraps for a bit…

I made about a million tea wallets, which does help with the scrap piles. They’ve also been selling a lot on Etsy all of a sudden. My tea wallets are in a brick and mortar store as well, Hawthorne and Vine, which makes me more confident when trying other avenues in the future.

My Etsy and vending events went decently well. I’ve been better about posting to Twinflower Fancies and am investigating other options for advertising.

One of my favorite clothing makes for the year was my Dita Dress, otherwise known as the “5 hour dress.” I did make some modifications to the pattern,  but got a ton of compliments on it from complete strangers. It’s very exciting to say “Thanks, I made it!”

We discovered that Fancy is not a fan of my dress form unless it is dressed. Silly dog.

I also made two other versions of my strawberry dress, after finally remembering which pattern it was. I like them all, but was so pleased at how the lace worked out on my rose dress. I think it’s my favorite. I wore it in my professional head shot for work too. 🙂

Quilt-wise, my absolute favorite quilt was this rainbow one for a friend’s baby.

I love this quilt. Maybe that’s what I can use my scraps for! I’ll make a version to keep. It does use tiny pieces if I make the 5 inch squares first. Plus, I’m fairly certain I have some extra black squares somewhere.  The Husband is shaking his head at me and suggesting that I should maybe finish the projects I have started for other people first… Silly Husband, deadlines are for other people… (He’s probably right though.)

I also took a huge leap and made the pictures for my office. I was nervous about putting my almost non-existent drawing skills out for display, but was inspired by someone who repeatedly makes me draw things to “help build my confidence in drawing skills.” In the end, I’m glad I ended up choosing the songs and images I did. I’ve had positive responses from people and take pride in embracing my space as my own.

I found a source for my quilts, since they don’t meet Project Linus requirements. My friend has an OT room for kids with emotional disturbances and they will be getting some of them. I have one completed and two tops waiting to be finished.

I used 7 craft books. I added a few more in the process, but have tried to pull patterns or books that I am not using to be donated. I actually was able to connect through the bellydance world with a high school sewing club and they will be getting these items. The box of fabric I had for them is getting bigger and bigger. I’m excited for it to go to kids who are just getting into sewing.

Overall, I completed 67 total projects. This did not include actual numbers of tea wallets. I lost track somewhere in one of the rushes. If you know any tea drinkers, send them my way. I’m sure I can find one for just about anyone.

And what did you learn? 

Things I’ve learned from this year is that I don’t really like working with paper very much, despite having a bunch of scrapbooking stuff.  There is not one paper project on this entire year of blogging. I’ve brought a bunch of it to my office and most of it will probably make its way there.

I need to have a firm hand with the supplies that I keep. I have random craft supplies, Christmas ornament supplies, and beading supplies that I rarely use. Is it really worth having it take up the space, when it could go to someone who would use it?

Organization is my least favorite part, well, along with ironing, of the whole process. Losing my serger pedal is the perfect example of the reasons why I need to get this under control.

Do you know where it was?

It was staring me in the eye from behind a box of elastic and hidden by my thread boxes. The thread boxes that I go to every time I need new thread… that sit next to my sewing area in the basement. That I swear I searched. I’m a bit annoyed with myself to say the least.  My dad is going to say “if it was a snake, it would have bit you” when he reads that.

I may make this picture my background screen on my Ipad if I’m having trouble getting to the organization bit later. Maybe it’ll shame me into actually doing it.

Speaking of actually doing things, here’s my yearly goals.

Yearly goals: 

* Continue blogging both successes and failures.

* Be more involved in the online sewing community for support and growth.

* Continue to develop my Etsy store.

* Learn to take better pictures.

* Learn to use (and not be scared of) the serger. It dishonors my friend’s memory to have it just sit there and not use it.

* Get halfway through my UFO boxes.

* Donate items I am not using/that don’t work for me.

* Be fearless with new projects and techniques.

Whew. That’s a lot of words. Here’s a new cute sleeping dog picture, if you’ve made it this far.

I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along on my journey with me! I know I’ve learned a lot, maybe I have inspired you too!

Here’s to another year of creativity and adventures!