Weekend Doings

I had a great weekend with some shopping, some cooking, and some quality time with my baby boy. I have yet to take pictures of anything I've been working on, but hopefully I'll get around to it soon.

I had some strawberries from my mother-in-law's garden that I needed to do something with so I made some preserves. Those strawberries are just so tasty! You can't get that kind of flavor from a store-bought berry. I tried making jam/jelly one other time and I guess I thought it would turn out really thick and jelly-ish. But it was thinner and runnier. I thought I had done something wrong so I got rid of the jars. :( I actually think I just didn't realize the recipe was for jam, not jelly. But it tastes great, so who can complain about that!? Next time I'll use more pectin or another recipe if I decide I want different results. (My husband thinks it might slide off his toast. Hmph.)

I got to spend some time shopping with my best friend in Des Moines, which was time well spent as usual. I went to church on Sunday to say goodbye to our pastor who is retiring at the end of this month. He baptized my son and welcomed us in as new members, so it was kind of sad to see him go. Hopefully the "new guy" will be just as good!

I have made some progress on this play tent and I can't wait to get some pictures of the finished product. It is turning out really cute! Just a little more work to get the fabric to stay on the structure and then some girly accessorizing is probably in order. Ribbons! Glitter! PINK PINK PINK!!

I'm also halfway done with the applique for my Christmas quilt. It's going well, although I'm not good at the sharp points on the stars. but I'm learning and I've already decided it doesn't have to be perfect to be something I really enjoy.

Lastly, I finally got a new darning foot for my sewing machine. I currently use a Singer 212-2 and I love it. I thought the quilt was pulling too much so I lowered the feed dogs. That didn't help, so I figured it must be the foot. I think something with the tension was messed up after a tiny part fell off. I originally thought it was inconsequential, but I guess it made a difference because now that I have the new foot on, it works incredibly well. In fact, too well. I have to slow down so my stitches aren't an inch long!

Well, looking forward to a 3-day weekend. Maybe I'll get some more things done. My goal for this week is to get some pictures uploaded here! Wish me luck!

What a Sham!

I had put together a scrappy Irish Chain quilt about a year ago and my brother's girlfriend had offered to have her mom machine quilt it for me. I have tried to take pictures of this quilt but because it's so large, the pictures haven't turned out very well. My husband and I decided to use this new quilt for our bed in the summer since our down comforter can get to be a little much. Of course, I realized that our duvet cover shams didn't really go with the quilt, so I toyed with the idea of making shams. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it, but I sketched out a plan and the last time I got some free time, I just started sewing. I decided to put the same binding on them that is on the quilt, and I think they turned out well. The only hesitation I had was that they aren't quilted so they have a different look than the quilt. After some reflection, I decided I was too glad that they were finished to really care.

My next time-sensitive project is a play tent for a little girl who's turning one year old soon! It's going to look like a teepee of sorts but with PVC pipe poles and lots of pink and green fabric! I've seen projects like this and have a plan in my head sort of, but I still haven't bought the PVC. We'll see how much work it takes to get it standing.

I took some time to fold and reorganize all my fabric last night. It's not the first time I've done it, but after you dig through and pull stuff out and put stuff back, you'll need to do some re-organizing. It's always an eye-opener. It makes you see how much fabric you have (too much), and cringe at some of the ugly stuff (why why why did I buy that?), and it makes you ready to start new projects! I also saw some fabrics that brought back memories of when I bought it, quilts I'd already made using some of it, etc. and that was nice, too. I really don't spend a lot of money on fabric because I try to get them on sale or better yet clearance, but sometimes the lure of the sale has, I'll admit, bitten me in the butt. A few years ago, the Hancock Fabrics next door went out of business. I was excited about getting their usually pricey fabrics on sale. But they were very stingy in their marking-down process AND they required a 2-yd cut of the really cheap stuff. Boo! For someone who rarely makes large quilts that use more than 2 yards of fabric total, that isn't very useful. I waited them out until they were like $1.99-$2.99 a yard and then bought! I got some good ones to be sure, but I also got some that I'm not sure how I'll use them, if ever. I guess they are destined for backing!

I also don't usually buy, say, all the fabrics from one collection or design series, either. That leaves me hunting for things that will work together when I start a project (or sometimes in the middle of one!). I think it is good for me since it forces me to think through the colors/pattern/contrast issue on my own. It also, no doubt, has lead to buying more fabric. You know...I have this great print! But I need this solid, this stripe, etc. to go with it. So off to the store. But often enough I'll look through my stash and find just the right thing to go with, and it works, and it is great.

All this to say that although I have some guilt about how much fabric I have, sometimes it's worth it because you have exactly what you need without running out to Joann's. Of course, if I needed any sort of justification, I'd more readily point to other blogs and the pictures they have posted of all their sewing rooms. I have very little fabric in comparison. "Of course", (my husband would say) "what's important is what you will/can use before it goes out of style and you won't use it anymore." True. My grandmother had so much fabric after she passed away that was unusable or at least undesirable that we gave a lot to Goodwill. Polyester in a rainbow of colors, an entire bolt of sweater-knit, and fiber-fill for days. She also had 2 freezers of food and a wall of canned items but we won't get into THAT.

My point is? Well, I realize that I need to balance projects I can actually complete with the fabric I allow myself to buy/hold on to. What good are 18 new fabrics if I will only complete 1 project each month for the next year? My inflow has to at least match my outflow for now, I think. I plan on quilting for a long time, but you also have to be realistic about how much you'll be able to complete. Another thing to think about it SCRAPS. This is an area where I'm failing a little bit. I have made several projects using scraps, but they seem to multiply when I look away. I really appreciate any patterns or ideas that utilize scraps, but they seem to hardly make a dent! Oh well. I guess you have to see the big picture. And I can continue using scraps for years and years. I'm not usually a resolution type of person, but maybe I should challenge myself to make 2 scrap projects a year. That would at least keep them at bay. For awhile. :)
What about you? Do you have stash-guilt? Do you limit the new fabrics you buy? How do you use scraps?

Delta Patchwork

I just got some fabric from Delta Patchwork and I'm really excited about it! I saw an ad for them in the American Patchwork & Quilting magazine and went to their website. They have great deals! I got some Moda fabric for $3.99 a yard. Plus, they shipped really quickly (it went out the same day!) and my fabric came wrapped in a cute package with a hand-written note! Wow!
I got a really cute Valentine's panel and some coordinating fabrics that I'm excited about. They have a bunch of their Valentine's-themed stuff on clearance now so go check it out!

Scrap Happiness

I was thinking about all of the projects that I'd like to do and then I started thinking about all the projects that are in various stages of completion in my sewing room. Kind of depressing. There are a lot of things that I get excited about and start in on and keep on going until it's finished. But there are just as many things that start with a bang and then fizzle out. One of my goals is to finish up these projects so that I can move ahead to other projects. I'm banning myself from starting a whole new set of problem projects before my others are done. But then again, I'm not the type of person to only have one thing going at a time.


Still, I finished quilting this monstrosity of scraps this past weekend. It isn't pretty and I'm not sure I'd even give it to anyone because it's really funky. But it's done and it will probably wear well since there's so many seams! I also used this Strawberry Shortcake fabric for the binding and I had JUST ENOUGH so it's gone gone gone from my stash. Yes! It was one of those fabrics that you're really not sure why you bought it and just want it GONE. Well, I can check that one of my list. Finally!



I've been looking around the Internet at some quilts, which always gets me in trouble. I see something that I just HAVE to make, and then I can't stop thinking about it until I do it. Not the greatest for someone who already has a lot of unfinished things going on. Yesterday I saw this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67604797@N00/3919285645/
Uh oh. So last night I started cutting some scraps for this new project. I got to thinking, though, that maybe I need to be careful about the colors I use. I actually bought some scraps from a fellow blogger, Kristin, and I thought it would be nice to use them. But they're not all coordinated by color or anything. So I'm going to have to see if it will look good or just too crazy. It's funny to look at a bunch of scraps and not have a single memory about them. They are not familiar to you at all. You can't remember projects you used them for or where you bought them. Some of them you like, some you don't.
Well, we'll see how this plays out. I'm also messing with my sewing machine because I'm having issues with free-motion quilting. Maybe need a new darning foot. Oh, and I'm knee-deep in a Christmas quilt. Help! :)