It seems like it's been ages since I've blogged about anything sewing related. I hadn't been in the sewing room much lately because work had picked up. Now that things seem to have leveled out for the moment, I hope to make up for lost time.
I got my fabric order from Pink Chalk and have been admiring that pretty FQ bundle, 12 Joys of Christmas by Sheri Berry. Now I have it all prewashed, pressed, and ready to cut. Yay!
I've also been working a little on the game case my sister asked me to make for her school project. It's basically going to be an envelope-style case (bag) with inner pockets for the various game pieces, etc. Except I didn't really think through the whole pocket thing and how the stitching lines for attaching the pockets on the inside were going to show through to the outside. Duh. My sister said she did realize that and is okay with it. That's good because I really don't want to have to make a lining, as it would add bulk, and there's a lot that has to fit inside that thing.
I saw a zigzag table runner pattern in the book, i heart patchwork, by Rashida Coleman-Hale and thought it might work somehow as the outer design of the game case.
I am thinking of using a dark brown background color that will perhaps camouflage the stitching lines of the inner pockets. I'd like to also maybe incorporate the stitching lines into quilting lines so they're less obvious, but imagining exactly how to do that makes my head want to explode.
Last night I put this together from scraps. Then I had a dilemma about how to orient it, etc., and after staring at it way too long, I decided to give up and sleep on it.
This morning, I woke up with the idea to make it a rectangle that will wrap from front to back. I added the corner triangles and a polka-dot border. So we'll see. This is a work in process that is likely to change. I've got a couple weeks to play around with it, anyway. In other words, this may be Plan A of what is ultimately Plan P. :)
Stopped at Joann's yesterday and looked at upholstery fabric, which was all 50% off through the 5th. I am having some oak dining chairs refinished. There is an interesting story about that set of chairs, which I'm saving for later when the chairs are done and I have some pictures to go with it. Right now, I just want to show you the fabrics I picked out for the seats. I'm so excited!
Yes, that is fabrics, as in plural, as in two. We decided we'd do three chairs in one fabric and three in the other -- the mix-and-match look, if you will. Although I did order enough fabric so that if I change my mind, we can have all of them done in one pattern. But I hope no one talks me into that, because I love them both! I should have extra fabric for pillows and/or a table runner, etc.
And will ya look at that, my African violet that crawled out of its container across my windowsill has decided to bloom for the first time in many years!
I had forgotten it had a variegated bloom, it had been so long!
I have yet to repot any of my violets, because I'm lazy that way, but they don't seem to care one bit. They're just blooming away, happy with the light!
Py as in Pyrex, that would be. I found several pieces of Pyrex yesterday, but these were the only ones I brought home. I had yet another divided dish in my hand, but I put it down at the last minute, as well as an olive bowl that was a bit bigger than this one. It had some condition issues.
This yellow one was too cute though. It'll have something in it later today, maybe fruit salad or baked beans to go with grilled burgers, if the weather holds out. Thunderstorms are predicted this evening.
The little salt and pepper shakers were 30 cents! I call that an irresistible bargain.
I ran into an old friend from school days while thrift shopping yesterday. (Hi, N.!) She gave us directions to two thrift stores in the area that we hadn't been to before. They were both nice stores! I hadn't seen her since several summers ago when serendipity threw us together in seating at a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert. I mean, what are the odds? I have a lot of fond memories of hanging out with N. back in the day, and it's nice that we still have much in common. I wouldn't have predicted it would include swing music and thrift shopping, but that's cool!
I'll have more thrift store vintage finds to chat about on Thursday. Hope you're all having a great weekend. Happy Independence Day!
We did a little thrift shopping today, hitting four stores, two of which were new to us.
The first place, we've been to many times. In this particular store, our routine is this: I make a beeline for the sewing and craft paraphernalia aisle, and Norm secures the perimeter. Meaning I zone out for 10 to 15 minutes and he wanders.
He scans the shelves for vintage paint-by-numbers and other things he thinks I might be interested in. Although that may seem really sweet and helpful (okay, it is), I know he also has an ulterior motive -- to direct my attention and get us the hell out of the store before he gets too creeped out.
Sometimes, if I'm spending too much time in one spot, he'll circle around me. Other times, he'll call me over to look at something else in hopes it will break my singular focus. In these situations, I may resort to waving him off like a pesky fly (knowing he will return), or employing a delay tactic such as, "In a minute."
But today, I was actually ready to move on when at one point, he said, "Come here, you've got to see this." And, oh, am I so glad I had my camera.
Behold this vision on black velvet:
I mean, come on. Are those not the most whacked out unicorns? Just look at their eyes! Don't stare too hard though, they might try to hypnotize you and control your mind!
And what about their...their...glowy sticks! What are those green things emanating from those horns, moonbeams? Nuclear radiation? Something treatable with Mucinex?
Hey, I'm the first to admit ignorance when it comes to unicorn lore. And I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much.
And then there was this one by the same artist.
Awww... Still creepy though.
Needless to say, we left the mystical herd there to irradiate the rest of the shoppers and transmit their secret unicorn agenda. We did stand there snickering in the corner for a while though. Okay, it was more than snickering. We full on busted a gut.
More on the rest of the shopping trip later. There will be Pyrex.
My mother passed away a year ago, on Friday, July 3, 2009.
I have been feeling somewhat melancholy and distracted as the one-year mark approached. Things I wouldn't have expected have reminded me -- the smell of the air on my evening walk, the color of the summer sky. Those sensory impressions registered deeply somewhere during the days that followed that one. I walked a lot, praying, thinking, and having silent conversations.
There wasn't much that had been left unsaid, really. That was comforting. Two days before, I had called her and woke her up from a nap. She wasn't awake enough to gather her thoughts for a conversation, and we both laughed about that. It was a short call, and, in the way she ended all our phone conversations, she said, "I love you."
Mom taught me to sew when I was very young. At first, it was hand-sewing simple doll clothes or patches of scraps from her overflowing scrap bin. My first formal lesson was when I was a preteen, and she showed me how to make myself a skirt. Not just any skirt, a plaid skirt. She showed me how to match the plaids. If they weren't matched correctly, she had me unpick the seam and try again. She was a perfectionist and had high expectations of her children, and that wasn't a bad thing. I wanted to learn how to do it right and I wanted to please her, so I did as instructed, even though it was somewhat frustrating and tedious. She set up the secondhand machine she'd bought for me to learn on right next to hers, and we sat sewing side by side. One-on-one time with Mom was a precious commodity in our family of six, and those early days when she was mentoring me are some of my fondest memories. I never took a Home Ec class. Didn't need to. I had the best teacher right at home.
Through the years, Mom churned out innumerable things from her sewing room. She made clothing for herself and the entire family, dolls, costumes, stylized uniforms for the waitresses at the supper club where she worked, quilts, and other handicrafts, including those knitted, crocheted, and cross-stitched.
Between raising us kids, working outside the home, and other endeavors, she somehow made the time. Many nights I fell asleep with the sound of her sewing machine whirring away in the room below my bedroom.
Mom was highly creative, curious, smart as a whip, and not afraid to crack one either. And you'd better watch out because she tended to have a short fuse. She was not afraid of using color, both in her sewing and crafting, as well as her language when it was useful to illustrate her point. Although she was certainly loving and gracious, my mother didn't always give off the warm fuzzies. She was a complex human being, just like the rest of us.
These are the last few quilt tops Mom made. All of them were done in the mid-1990s, before a stroke paralyzed her left arm.
A couple years after her stroke, she gave me permission to have these tops machine quilted by a longarm quilter. I knew it was bittersweet for her not to be able to finish them herself in the way she had intended, but she was glad they got quilted. She then gave a quilt to each of her three granddaughters.
Mom left a legacy in these and other works and deeds, and in sharing her knowledge. For that, and for so much more, I am grateful.
I did some online fabric shopping at Pink Chalk Fabrics this weekend. I have an idea for a Christmas quilt that will have me making one from my ever-expanding, ever-morphing wish/bucket list. I intend to use this FQ bundle, 12 Joys of Christmas by Sheri Berry.
I've never bought a FQ bundle before and I have no idea if it's going to be enough, but I'm hoping it'll all work out. This fabric is just too cute with the vintage-inspired holiday theme!
Bummer: My Creative Zen mp3 player decided to take a dump this weekend and won't charge. Now I'm faced with the fact that it may become a paperweight if it's not fixable or may cost more to fix than replace. I'll see what customer service tells me when I call.
Something else sewing/quilting related: My sister has commissioned me to come up with a case for a game she has designed for a school project. We went over the specifications yesterday, dimensions, number of pockets required, etc. She would like it quilted because --believe it or not-- that is somewhat like what myelin does around the axon of a neuron, in that it layers, insulates, and protects. It's a health/anatomy-related course she's doing this for, and that is the subject of her learning game. Anyway, it ought to be interesting.
The BP oil spill disaster makes me angry and sad and worried about the future. It is such a helpless feeling to stand by as efforts to slow or stop the flow have failed one after another.
But this YouTube video made me laugh out loud. It's been around for a couple of weeks, but I just saw it last night. There is a bit of strong language (2 words, basically), if that bothers you or if you're in a public setting.
I am thinking of using a dark brown background color that will perhaps camouflage the stitching lines of the inner pockets. I'd like to also maybe incorporate the stitching lines into quilting lines so they're less obvious, but imagining exactly how to do that makes my head want to explode.
Last night I put this together from scraps. Then I had a dilemma about how to orient it, etc., and after staring at it way too long, I decided to give up and sleep on it.
This morning, I woke up with the idea to make it a rectangle that will wrap from front to back. I added the corner triangles and a polka-dot border. So we'll see. This is a work in process that is likely to change. I've got a couple weeks to play around with it, anyway. In other words, this may be Plan A of what is ultimately Plan P. :)
Yes, that is fabrics, as in plural, as in two. We decided we'd do three chairs in one fabric and three in the other -- the mix-and-match look, if you will. Although I did order enough fabric so that if I change my mind, we can have all of them done in one pattern. But I hope no one talks me into that, because I love them both! I should have extra fabric for pillows and/or a table runner, etc.
I had forgotten it had a variegated bloom, it had been so long!
