GETTING READY FOR OUR GIRLS DAY OUT !

This Saturday my aunt, mom and I are heading to the local convention center for "The Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza".  I am super excited and can't wait.  The three of us went to a small quilt show at the local 4H Center a few months ago.  We had a GREAT time and it was a wonderful "girls day out". 

I knew I didn't want to be carrying a handbag around the quilt show, so I took my Pocket Pouch filled with just the absolute necessities for the show.  Since it was less than a mile from my mom and aunt's house, I left my main purse at their house and just took my license, money, keys and camera.  The size was just PERFECT!  This time, however, we will be going to a much bigger show and will be spending many more hours at the venue, and eating a meal there...which means I need to carry a lot more with me.  And I STILL don't want to carry a heavy bag!

So yesterday I pulled out some denim and two cotton materials that I really love. One is a cheery "button" pattern and the other is a pretty blue that picks up the color of one of the buttons.

I used the pretty blue material as an accent on the front of purse and the button material as the lining, with alternating blue and button material slots inside for my license, insurance cards, credit cards and AAA card. The top slot/pocket goes all the way to the bottom of the purse...plenty of room for my camera.  The main section of the purse is big enough to hold my medications, insulin, emergency sweets, glucose meter, a tiny wallet just for cash, and my dry mouth spray, dry mouth lozenges, tissues and EpiPen.  There is no such thing as "traveling light" for me, lol.  Hopefully, though, it won't be too heavy so as to make me hurt any worse than I already do!  I am going to make a long thin strap that can go crosswise on my body, so I have my hands free for shopping and checking out quilts (with gloves of course).

I like to use key rings to attach the straps to small purses, so I went to the thrift store this morning and bought 8 keychains for $.25 each.  I slipped matching rings onto large paper clips and stored them in my new accordian "hardware box" (another thrift store find).  I threw out the novelty parts of the keychains, except for this caribiner and really cute small photo album.

After the "thrift" thrift store, I went to the variety thrift store and bought a beautiful pink leatherette desk accessory for the desk in the yellow sewing room.  I know I am going to have to keep some basic sewing supplies in the room (unless I want to run back and forth to my main sewing room).  This piece was $3.50 and looks absolutely PERFECT.  There was a Ross store tag on the bottom of it!  As you can see, I still haven't gotten the desk back against the wall, or hung the curtains...but it will all get back together again...slowly. 

After the thrift store I made a stop at JoAnn's and picked up the last large skein of yarn I need to take on vacation with me so I can crochet by the ocean, and a a bottle of bead glue.  I have several beads in my sewing box that I had bought in Myrtle Beach last year.  They were a small bracelet but I cut the bracelet apart so I could use them separately.  

 

They are a great match to the button material!  When I got back home I glued them onto the front of the purse.  I have to let them dry for 24 hours before I can take a picture of the inside of the purse or work on adding the strap.   I am also going to try my hand at making a flower brooch out of the button material to pin to the strap loop.  I will use a button covered with the blue material as the center of the flower.  I've never tried to make a flower before...wish me luck.  

But the strap, brooch, and sewing together the completed blades for two dresden's of my mom's quilt will have to wait until tomorrow.  I am REALLY hurting and heading to the sofa to rest.  Our weather has cooled off dramatically over the past few days and we had rain this morning.  My body knows when there are changes brewing!  Thank goodness we are just having sandwiches for dinner.  

I'll post again soon when I have completed the purse and have completed the next two dresdens, so I have something to show you.  I have made a bit of a change in the quilt design (which will continue to happen until I put the first quilting stitch through the sandwich) but I think it will look a bit more balanced.

Take care and happy crafting.   

PROGRESS...CHANGE...AND A LOT OF FIRSTS !! (picture heavy)

Lots and Lots of things are going on around here these days! 

First and foremost...I've made progress on mom's quilt.  I may just be HOOKED on dresdens!  They are so easy and so incredibly quick to make!!!  I have pulled the "nonpareils" dresden off of the design curtain for now.  I think it was too overall "white" to play well with the other plates.  I will probably use it to make a pillow for mom to rest on when she naps on the couch. To bring a bit of "matchiness" to my dad's quilt (they will be in the same room) I'm backing each of the dresdens with a beige fabric similar to my dad's quilt.  His beige is a faux suede while mom's is a plain cotton, a GORGEOUS Moda Marbles, but they are pretty close in color.  The beige also picks up some of the lighter browns in the candy, ice creams and assorted sweets.  

It also tones down a bit of the bright pink in the Valentine's candy, lol.  Since my mom will NEVER live down the entire box of Valentine's candy she killed in one night, I just HAD to include this fabric, lol!  However, since I didn't want the quilt to end up with a "garish" hot pink look (she isn't a "teeny-bopper", lol), this fabric is only slated to appear once on the front of the quilt.

I am thinking at this point that the assorted candies block to the left of the embroidery will be repeated on the right of the embroidery...

 ...and the kisses on top of the embroidery will be repeated below...

 ...and the miscellaneous sweets in the upper right will be repeated in the lower left.  It also includes just a wee bit of pink and actually brings in a bit of green to pull from my dad's quilt.  It wasn't easy finding fabric that held a special significance for my mom and also fit into a very limited colorway.  Brown, beige, white, pink and a tiny bit of green...all on a sea of black to hold it together (and also match Dad's quilt, lol)

The ice cream dresden pulls just a tiny bit of pink coloring to the bottom right corner.  So all four corners contain a bit of pink, while the four remaining dresdens are plain chocolates.  

 

When my shaking got too bad for actual sewing, I set up my machine to embroider the center block of the quilt.  I intend to use quarter dresdens (one in each corner) on this block in the beige material and the white.  The original design included a blue dress...which I changed to pink (with a hot pink scarf) to match the Valentine block and carry the touch of color throughout.  While I would really like to do more sewing of dresdens today, I'm a bit shaky so I think i will stick to machine embroidery.  Plus, I might as well get as much done as I can while the machine is set up to embroider.  These are the times I wish I had another sewing machine!

I did mention "firsts", right?  This is the first quilt I have made using dresdens and the first quilt in which I have also used machine embroidered designs.  My quick and dirty sketch of the quilt also has embroidered sweets appearing in the four corners of the wide border and POSSIBLY an embroidered cupcake border between them.  Again, I don't want to OVERDO, so that decision will be made toward the end.  Too much is gaudy!  The next first?  I'm actually going to try to quilt this one block at a time and then connect them all at the end with a skinny white sash.  I saw a wonderful tutorial on YouTube by Leah Day and need to look it up to review the process before I get much further.  I'm going for a "window in a candy store" look.  I THINK all of my quilting will be in the dark brown of the wording above.  I'm planning on something "apropos" for the label...maybe a "menu" for my "Breakfast At Tootsie's" quilt.  I think half the fun of making a quilt is tying all of the little theme threads throughout! 

And the changes I mentioned above?  This!  After 23 years in this house I am sick and tired of this border.  It has been on the walls of my guest bath, along with light silver paint, for all this time.  The painter should be here any minute to begin removing the border.  

They will be repainting the bathroom in the same gray as my Expanded Sewing Room (above).  The next change?   My ESR is ALSO going to be the guest bedroom!  When we moved J's old bed back into the room temporarily we realized how well his black bed, black nighttable, etc. went with the gray walls and the furniture of his that I am using for storage of my crafting supplies.  And since it is only a guest room that will be used by guests once in a blue moon...if I empty out one or two drawers in the chest, there should be plenty of room for their clothing!  The rest of the room can still be MINE for sewing supplies!  

  

I have already purchased a new shower curtain for the bathroom...gray, navy blue and black.  I will paint the white dixie cup holder and the toothbrush holder with black Krylon paint to match the current trashcan.  I will purchase navy blue towels to hang on the towel bar.  I plan to make a gray, navy and black striped valance for over the existing miniblind.  

Now that the GUEST bath is also going to be painted the same color as the GUEST room...I'm going to make matching valances for over the bedroom blinds and will make a modern type quilt in black, gray and navy.  I'm thinking tumbling blocks!  Like I said before...I'm nothing if not adventurous!

And the original yellow guest room?  (sorry the picture is blurry, I'm shaky) It is being repainted in a similar light yellow (the border is staying...my painter says it should be no problem cutting around the scallop of the border).  Since the fold up tables my husband purchased are not going to be sufficient for my quilting needs (I don't have the ability to set them up and take them down on my own), my Dear Hubby has suggested we purchase two Expedit cabinets from Ikea, put a top on them and center them in the yellow room to be my "third" sewing room!  YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT!!!  My dear, wonderful, loving husband has suggested that I use THREE of the four bedrooms for sewing and crafting or sewing/crafting storage!  Oh, and the quilt that I started when the yellow room was going to be the guest room?...it will still be used!  Dear Hubby is going to make me a large design wall (goodbye design curtain and good riddance!) and he will hang the quilt from a rod above the design wall.  That way I can have the design wall covered up to look all pretty when company is coming and I can just slide it to the end of the rod to access the design wall when I am working on a quilt!

 

That same sweet man has just phoned me to tell me of an upcoming Quilt Extravaganza at our local convention center and has suggested I call my mom and aunt and see if they want to go with me.  Dear Hubby could never walk that much, but he has offered to drop us off at the door and pick us up at the door whenever we are ready!  HE IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!!!  God, how did I ever deserve such a wonderful man?

Well, the painter has just arrived, I need to look up the details of the Quilt Extravaganza and call my mom and aunt, and my coffee has gotten cold and needs a quick zap.  I'm off to get started on the rest of my day.  Hope yours is a good one!

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY...A LITTLE BACK STORY...AND A SNEAK PEEK!

 

This Saturday our development is having a garage sale.  For many, MANY years Dear Hubby and I organized and ran the development-wide garage sale.  Considering how much effort it is taking just to get ready to SELL this year, I'm VERY happy we are no longer doing the organization and running of a sale with up to 33 individual houses participating!

Since Dear Hubby and I are both having health issues that impact our physical abilities, we have decided to get rid of A LOT this year.  I'm trying to be absolutely brutal with my decision making.  The less we own, the easier it will be for us to try to keep up with it.  Thank God my dear mom and dad have been coming over almost daily to help get things set up.  I could NEVER do it all alone and between his ridiculous long work days and physical limitations....Dear Hubby can't do much to help.  

Getting ready for the garage sale has left very little time for much else, but I HAVE started work on my mom's quilt.  I have only finished two dresden plates so far.  Lots more to go before it is even anywhere NEAR being ready for sandwiching!  Before I give you a sneak peek I think you need a little "history" to fully understand the quilt's concept.  Here goes:

My mom has "sweet teeth".  Not a "sweet tooth"...she loves sweets WAY too much for a single tooth.  It would take an entire mouth full to generate her level of addiction.  Anyone who knows my mom knows that she looks forward to dessert, plans it from the second she picks up a menu and only fills in a small amount of meal beforehand because "she should".  Her favorite sweet of them all?  CHOCOLATE!...in any shape and form.

For most of my young life, my mom's breakfast consisted of a Hershey Bar and a cup of tea.  She made sure I ate a good healthy breakfast, but hers was all about the chocolate.  I often wonder how much of Hershey, Pa my mom has paid for, lol.  She was probably Milton Hershey's school's biggest benefactor!  And she is NOT limited to only Hershey products, lol.  One Valentine's Day my dad bought her a box of chocolate covered caramels.  Determined not to eat them all at once, my mom put them in the basement freezer.  Over the course of the night my mom made numerous trips to that freezer, two flights of steps down and two flights of steps back up to the bedroom.  One piece of candy at a time my mom finished the whole box!  At least she worked off the calories climbing the stairs all night long!

Maybe it is because of my mom's nickname since childhood, "Tootsie", or because growing up she had very little access to sweets...they have played a MAJOR role in her adult life, lol. 

About a month or so ago I was reading something, somewhere (don't quite remember where), and there was mention of the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Laughingly I thought to myself, "It should be Breakfast at Tootsie's and we could make it all about chocolate!"  Eureka, the beginning of a quilt concept was born!!!
 
Over the past month I have purchased novelty fabric having to do with chocolate candy and her other favorite sweets.  I have also purchased some machine embroidery patterns having to do with chocolate.  Amazingly, I found a pattern that says, "Chocolate, It's Not Just for Breakfast ".  Geez, it couldn't be much more perfect!!!   I knew then that that particular embroidery pattern would feature significantly in the quilt, along with other chocolatey embroideries.  I am still in the very early stages of quilt design, though.  I tend to produce the main parts of my quilts and then build in around them.  So, I will continue making dresdens (now that I have made my sample dresden and am happy with the size) and will stitch up some single color "practice" machine embroideries.  Once I have a good idea of the finished sizes of each of the components I will adjust the layout as necessary and begin stitching the good embroidery blocks.  Oh, and the sneak peek I promised?................

They are both the same size, although the angle of the picture makes the Hershey Kisses dresden look larger than the Nonpareils. 

I've just come in from a horrendous dental appointment and need to go lie down for a little bit to lower my blood pressure and hopefully relieve some of my TMJ pain!  Once I have rested for a bit I hope to work on the next dresden...assorted chocolate candies!

AND THE WINNER IS.....

 

True Random Number Generator Min: Max:  

  Result: 5 

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Congratulations, Rose Marie Andreozzi!!!!  

Please email me through my profile (click on "view my complete profile" on the right side of my blog and then you will see an email link to the left side of the next page) with your address and I will get the package mailed out to you on Monday! 

Thank you, EVERYONE, for making my blogiversary so much fun!

 

ONE WIP COMPLETED!

Well, I did it!  I finished a WIP.  I am really, REALLY happy with how it turned out.  The dresden was made completely from scrap fabric.  It is bright and cheery and I just love it.  I even added a bit of trapunto to the front circle so the blue center really "pops".  The most special scrap fabric is the polka dots...I bought them to make burp cloths when I was pregnant with J some 26 years ago!  I am fastidious about saving scraps, lol.  

The rest of the pillow cover is a really pretty white linen.  It fits a 16" pillow form perfectly.  I was planning on listing this in my shop immediately, but I really want to show it to the family first.  Who knows, my sentimental mother may just want a pillow with the fabric from J's burp cloths, lol.  It's hard to list something for sale when you absolutely love it, lol.  But it doesn't match the colors in my house...they are more of a mid-range intensity pastel, not bright.  

So I am going to sit on this for a few days and then decide if I can bear to part with it.  I'll let you know what I decide, lol.  Dear Hubby figures we will eventually begin to drown in all of my projects...but as long as I love crafting I should continue it.  He may be right!  I'd better practice my backstroke...glub, glub...

WIP and STOCKING MY SHOP FOR CHRISTMAS...

If you read my post from a few days ago, you know that I began an "experimental" dresden as a way to prepare myself for making my mom's quilt...which will contain quite a few dresdens.  Since I had NEVER made a dresden I thought using some of my scraps to see if I could accomplish the block at all made sense.  The dresden went together quickly and easily.  I wasn't quite sure about the center circle, but finally decided what made it seem "off" to me was the size.  Smaller looked better!

I immediately fell in love with this block and was going to turn my scrappy dresden into a mini quilt.  But with Christmas rolling around I decided to turn it into a 16" pillow cover and list it in my shop.  

Today I attached the smaller circle center and attached the dresden to the center of a beautiful piece of white linen (using my favorite stitch, of course, lol).  "Ellie" behaved herself today and didn't skip any stitches!  I think I put the fear of a visit to the sewing machine hospital into her!  I have sandwiched the dresden and will begin quilting the front part of the pillow when I have the next open block of time.  Stay tuned for the continuing progress on this happy little pillow cover!

Today I also listed a few scissor fobs in my shop.  Feel free to check them out and let me know if you have any questions.  I am REALLY on the Christmas binge here...both gift making and shop stocking.  Maybe it has something to do with the "burning bush" planted right outside of my sewing room window that has ALREADY started to burn!  Fall can't be too far away!

In other news...my plans for my Expanded Sewing Room and Guest Room have changed, and I am really, REALLY excited with our new plan.  I'm getting even MORE sewing/crafting/storage space!  

Take care and have fun crafting!

I'VE BEEN BUSY....

I woke up this morning with much less tremor than I have had the past week or two...so "Ellie" and I spent some time getting properly reacquainted. 

The first thing I did was try to complete MOST of the three mug rugs I am giving to my mom, dad and aunt.  I won't show you the back yet because I want the back as cute as the front and I am still looking for a particular shade of rick-rack to finish it off, lol.  

"Ellie" is still uncooperative at times.  This is my FAVORITE little fancy stitch for "prettifying" seams.  Okay, it is sort of like a baseball stitch...but I still think it is pretty and use it quite frequently.  For some reason (known only to "Ellie") she is skipping stitches all over the place.  On the first of the three mug rugs I attempted to go over the missing stitches.  Not good...all I did was draw attention to the area.  So on the last two I simply left it be.  My mom, dad and aunt won't mind as these mug rugs are not for "show and tell" but to be USED.  I think my dear sweet "Ellie" is going in the hospital while we are away on vacation this fall!  Do you hear that, "Ellie"?  Straighten up or you are going to have your guts examined!

Fortunately, even if I want to use this stitch on my mom's quilt...I won't get to that point in the process until WELL after we are home and my Ellie girl should be "all better" and sewing properly by then. 

Today was also a day to experiment and plan.  The design I have in my head for mom's quilt calls for dresden blocks alternating with machine embroidered blocks.  There is just one little catch to that plan...I have NEVER made a dresden!  I'm nothing if not ambitious!

I decided it would be a good idea to experiment with making a dresden using scrap materials.  That way I could make sure the overall block size is what I want....AND that I am actually CAPABLE of making a dresden, lol.  The result?  I am THRILLED with how my experimental dresden turned out.  I still have to properly center the circle and sew it on...but the tremor is returning and for safety's sake I am moving far away from sharp, pointy objects, lol.  But, I am THRILLED.  I keep looking over at my sewing table and smiling.  I think this is eventually going to have to turn into a mini quilt.  It is just So. Darn. Cute! 

In other news, with the giveaway just a little over a week away, I think I am FINALLY done adding to the pile.  This was SO MUCH FUN!  I can't wait to ship this bundle off to the winner!  Don't forget the drawing is September 8th and for a chance to win...please follow my blog and LET ME KNOW YOU ARE A FOLLOWER ON THE ORIGINAL GIVEAWAY POST.

Take care and have a great day!