Sewing Satisfaction

It feels like it has been a very productive weekend!  And I was SO ready for some uninterrupted time at my machine.  It's been a loonnnggg tough week.  Ever feel like life is throwing a lot of fast balls at you at once?  This has been one of those weeks....very busy at work, my kids are both going through tough times right now, it's HOT (too hot for June if you ask me!)  Whew, I just feel "wrung out" as my grandma says.  Like a wash rag, you know?  So, Friday afternoon I told my husband that I had plans to sew all weekend.  Cause I knew that some time at the sewing machine creating things would help the world make sense to me again.  And just as I suspected, it worked.  And I got a LOT done.  Ready to face the world again, and ever so grateful for a kind and loving husband who supports me each and every day  no matter what is going on in his life.  Not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm taking it!

Friday night I came home and finished this block for my virtual quilt bee,

It's off in the mail to my bee partner tomorrow.  I had to email and ask her for more fabric last week, because I got confused which fabric went where when I was cutting late one night and cut the last piece of pink fabric into two 3.5" squares....oops.  She graciously sent me more and I finished it just in the nick of time.

Saturday morning, I headed off to the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild's Saturday Sew.  I have been to several of these and have so much fun and always get a lot done.  Friday night after finishing the bee block, I cut out the squares for the pink and yellow quilt in the picture below.  Saturday, I got the blocks all sewn together and finished the quilt top this afternoon.  Tonight, I got them both layered up for quilting.  They are for a friend's grandchildren, I can't wait to give them to her.

And are you ready for this???? I had all of these fabrics in my stash, so they will qualify for the countdown on the challenge.  Two more down, Yeah!  (well, as soon as they are quilted and bound anyway).  I also finished this tote (pattern by Anna Maria Horner called The Multi Tasker Tote)

The embroidery on the front is by Anna Maria too.  She has a whole design disk of patterns and projects.  Too cool!  Not a bad weekend, if you ask me.  Lots of time sewing, hanging out with friends, and realizing that life may have it's ups and downs, but there is good in every day.

Friday Night Sewing

I am looking forward to the Friday Night Sew-In tomorrow night.  I am trying to decide what I feel like working on.  I have so many projects I want to be working on!  The list is so long and I am paralyzed with indecision.  Crippled by it.  Do you ever get like that?  I come up to my sewing room to work a little and end up sitting in the chair just looking at all the projects I have going at one time!  Sometimes I even turn in little circles picking up one project, putting it down and grabbing another one.  I'm so weird sometimes!  So, tomorrow night I think I will start a whole new project.......I want to join in on the Crazy Mom Quilts Quilt-A-Long #5 so I think I will cut my fabrics for that and sew the strips for week #2.  (yep, I'm a week behind already!) I think I'll use this lovely stack of Nicey Jane for the quilt.  I just love the soft colors in this line of fabric.  And doesn't it match my cool retro phone????

My other option would be to start a new project with these cool orange charms.....

My friend Lisa (over at Vintage Modern Quilts) gave these to me and I have been dying to sew something up with them.  I have a few more orange and white fabrics to mix in with these, but I am still undecided on the pattern I want to use.  Oh, well.....I guess I'll decide tomorrow night what to start on.

If you are interested in joining me on the virtual sew-in, head on over to  Crafty Vegas Mom and sign up!  It's going to be a lot of fun and she's doing a cool give away to boot.  See you tomorrow night.

Creative Juices are Flowing

I am getting so much inspiration and information from the eCourse I am taking over at Kelly Rae Roberts site.  I have never done an eCourse before, but I have to say I'm really enjoying this.  She has put together some amazing information on how to nurture a creative side to your life.  There are some wonderful business tips in there as well.  But the really amazing thing is the sense of community that is forming between all of the participants in the course.  I am really in awe when I think about the people I have met since beginning to blog back in December.  And it seems that everywhere I turn I meet more people with similar goals and interests.  And they are all so friendly and so open to share knowledge and ideas.  It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside!

I signed up today for a Friday Night Sew In - its virtual!  How cool is that?  If you're interested in joining in on the fun, you can check it out here.  It's next Friday (June 18).

Okay, I have stayed up WAY too late every night this week, so I am bound and determined to get to bed before midnight tonight.  So, I'm signing off for now.  Busy, very creative activities planned for the weekend, so more posting to follow soon.  I'll leave you with my completed embroidery project....so fun and I think it's going to be very cute with a little cotton skirt for summer, what do you think?  I think I'll make a skirt out of Nicey Jane-Picnic Bouquet..I picked the colors for the embroidery from a cut of that fabric.....

Summer

I have been holding off posting because I didn't really have any new pictures to post about.  I can get hung up on the idea that I need to have pictures of projects I am working in order to write on my blog.  I think I sometimes forget that I started my blog for me.  As a place to document the journey that is my life.  And I love my life!  It is the "busy" season at my office and we are working long hours and it is stressful and chaotic.  We have a very short number of weeks to get a lot of work done.  There are deadlines and missing a deadline can be extremely costly so everyone is worried and snippy and occasionally there are blow-ups.  It is bearable to us all because it is short-lived and the rest of the year is a very slow and relaxed pace.  Shorter hours, no chaos, no blow-ups.  I have had jobs in the past that were like the summer is with this job, only all 365 days of the year.  This is better than that.

Soon, before I can blink, it will be the end of summer and the craziness will be gone and I'll have much more time to sew and create again.  That makes me happy.  Don't get me wrong, I am finding (making) time to sew even in this busy time.  I played more with my embroidery machine this past weekend.  (Anna Maria Horner has some new machine embroidery designs available from Westminster Fabrics.)  And helped a friend go "test drive" some sewing machines.  She wants to learn to sew and this makes me very happy.  And I gave a private sewing lesson on Sunday to a very new quilter.  It was nice and very rewarding and I think we both had a lot of fun......

Here's a shot of one of the designs I did on a simple white t-shirt....

I want to leave you with a very "summery" pic of my granddaughter taken several years ago on the 4th of July.  She had a new puppy and was giving him some lovin...she's 8 now and SO grown up!

Another project

A quick post tonight, because I finished another project in the Spring to Finish Challenge over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.  I had listed three items in that challenge and was only able to complete two of them.  I just finished the Schoolhouse Tunic by Sew Liberated.  It was a lot of fun and it even FITS!  I have to admit I'm a little surprised.  I haven't sewn clothes for myself in many years (maybe 15 or 20).  I have sewn clothes for kids a few times lately, but nothing for me.  I am fairly short  and us short girls don't pull off tunics over jeans very well, so I lengthened the tunic and made it into a little short dress.  I have worn it twice since I finished it on Friday.  Yeah!

My other project I finished for the challenge was the quilt for my friends wedding that I blogged about
here.  I had also listed that I wanted to quilt a top that my husband had pieced.  I didn't get to that project, but I did get another top pieced on the quilt retreat I recently took.  Maybe I can still count that as a finished item.....and that quilt will definitely count towards the challenge that my husband issued earlier this year.  You remember, the challenge that started with my blog?  I hope to have that one quilted in the next couple of weeks and it will go on the completed list.  Cooking along on those UFO's.......right now I'm off to do my homework for the eCourse I mentioned last night.  Happy dreams, everyone.

Lessons

I spent Sunday afternoon at a friends house teaching her to sew.  She got a sewing machine for Christmas a couple of years ago and has played around with it a little.  She wanted to make curtains for her guest room and she wants to make some throw pillows and whatnot for around the house.  She had tried another teacher that she found online and it didn't work out well.  The person that was teaching her before had never done piping, and seemed a little overwhelmed with the pattern my friend was using.  Finally after a few lessons, they agreed it was best if they both moved on!  So, off I went on Sunday totally looking forward to afternoon with her.  She has three of the most adorable dogs, and they were a huge help.  Here's McTavish being a little pouty because we wouldn't let him sew on the machine (okay, he really just wanted on Susan's lap)

We accomplished quite a bit, and she made me the most WONDERFUL goat cheese quiche with hash brown crust for lunch.  YUM!

Alfie, well he just slept in the other room  escaping the camera and Muttley got really bored with the whole process.

I got an email from her this afternoon that she had finished both panels today and had discovered another oops from the previous teacher.  She had cut out the wrong pattern pieces for the valance so Susan has to head back to the store for more fabric.

It was such a fun afternoon and it was another sign that I am moving in a positive direction towards teaching.  I find it extremely rewarding and exciting.  I am scheduled to teach again at City Craft next Sunday, but we are waiting to see if the class fills.  So far there are two people signed up and that won't be enough to justify the class.  I really hope it fills.  I'm sending positive vibes out and picturing it full.  I really believe in that universal law of attraction.

Speaking of, I started a new eCourse yesterday.  It's called Flying Lessons by Kelly Rae Roberts.  We are two days into the course and I'm pretty impressed so far.  It is a five week course and you can still sign up for it.  It is geared toward starting a creative business and being successful.  Kelly Rae has a very successful art business.  I love her collages and paintings.  A friend of mine had told me about her last year and she also was the one that told me about this eCourse.  I was a little hesitant at first, but I'm really glad I signed up for it.  This year has really been amazing so far.  I started this blog right at the end of 2009 and began to journal about a more creative life.  Many doors have opened up in a short time and most important of all, I have met some really amazing people in the last five months.  People I would not have know about if I hadn't started blogging.  I have learned a ton of new techniques and really spread my creative wings in my quilts since then as well.  I think I have completed more projects in the last five months than I did in the last several years combined!  Time to head off to bed, tomorrow it's back to the ol' nine to five......

Ahhhhh.......

I'm feeling very relaxed and happy tonight.  I went to the 1890's House in Cedar Hill this weekend with my fellow officers of the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild.  What an amazing group of women!  We had an absolute blast.  It always amazes me how many wonderful people I have met through quilting.  The type of person that is drawn to quilting seems to have a big heart and a joy for life.  I have found this to be true in almost every quilt guild or group I have belonged to.  And I have been quilting for over 10 years, so I have meant a significant number of quilters over the years.  This particular group of women have become dear friends in an amazingly short amount of time.  We come from all walks of life and range in age from 26 to 51 and we just spent three straight days together talking non-stop, laughing til we cried, eating and sewing. None of us wanted to leave on Sunday.  I got a lot done over the weekend too!  I finished the May block for my virtual quilt bee New Kids on the Block.  And I finished this quilt top.  It was a kit I purchased several years ago and promptly put up on the shelf.  I think it needs a border and then I just need to layer it up and quilt it!  A very productive weekend.

I finished this quilt a couple of weeks ago and it has gone off to it's new home.  The recipient seemed to be very happy with it.  It was a wedding gift for a very dear friend.  I had a lot of fun making this one.  I love how the channel quilting turned out.  I pieced the back with leftovers.  Too fun!  I think it's a very happy quilt, what do you think?