Row-by-Row 2018, Part 2

Saturday saw me driving southeast of where I live to the towns of Mineola, Longview, and Tyler.

First shop was Stitchin' Heaven in Mineola.   The store is huge and filled with more fabric than I've seen in a very long time.  After a tour of the store by one of the employees there, I was totally sidetracked by their scrap bin.   With bags the size of pattern bags for $5 and you fill them, I had lots of fun.  Their scraps are what is leftover after cutting the pieces needed for the quilt kits that they sell.   Large scraps and lots of them!

 And no I haven't figured out how many yards there..... but probably 4 at least, and maybe 5.  And yes, I really did leave some.  I also picked up the kit for their row, and they gave me a free pattern.

The contents of the first two bags was all batiks.   The start of two quilts here.

Next bag was stuffed with a stack of precut civil war squares, some black tonal scraps, and quite a few blue width-of-fabric strips.   The blues will be the start of a quilt that is percolating in my mind.

The final two bags I bought had precut strip sections in rust and yellow, scraps of brown and grey, remnant pieces of WOW, black/white striped, and a yellow moda.   Then more scraps of tans, greens, creams, fuschia and blue.   Lots of yummy stuff to work with in the future.

Next up was Sharman's in Longview.  Here I picked up the free pattern for their row.  Wasn't impressed by them putting everything on one side of one sheet of paper for the free pattern.  Good thing I know how to draw because their pattern needs to be enlarged by 380%!   I did find 3 black tonal fabrics here and a cool brown print that I plan to use part of for the neck of the guitar.  

The final shop I visited on Saturday was Sharman's in Tyler.   Being the sister store to the one in Longview, their pattern is the second half of the guitar on the pattern picked up there.   Two pieces were found there - the batik will be used for the sky in a design I'm working on for publication later this year, and the other is a black tonal fabric.   Notice a theme here in the fabrics I picked up this weekend?

Gratitudes:

1. for safe travels, even when I inadvertantly went the wrong way on one street....yikes!

2. For progress in settling in here.....

Row-by-row 2018, part 1

The first weekend of the 2018 row-by-row is over and I've made it to 9 shops.   Not all of these rows will make it into the quilt so I'll still need to pick up a few more in order to finish off my quilt.

First stop was Rockin Bobbin in Dallas.  This shop is one of the two that are closest to where I work.  Picked up the row pattern and have this one made except for the button eye.  Both FQ's will be used to make blocks for the F2F swap that I'm in.

Next up was Sew Let's Quilt It in Dallas.    Neutrals (remnants), a black tonal, and a grey for the same swap that the two above will be used for were my purchases here.

Their Row pattern

Best of Bernina was the next stop on the trek Friday.  Found three neutral FQ's in the sale bin.   They were in the midst of retesting their pattern so it was not ready for those that stopped in.   It is supposed to be coming by email at some point.

The third stop on Friday was at Fabric Fanatics in Plano.  the store is located in a business park, but is roomy and filled with only batik fabrics.  A wonderful selection and I always drool when I go there.  I picked up the row pattern, a ruler and a stack of quilting themed sticky notes for a steal of a price.   And believe it or not - NO fabric was bought at this store!

And to make up for no fabric at the last store, I found several black tonal fabrics at Stitched With Love in McKinney.  I also picked up their free row pattern.

And the final stop on Friday was Not Your Mama's Quilt Shop in Plano.   It's a real cute little shop and the owner is a sweetheart.  I picked up a fall panel there, a black tonal batik, and their row pattern.  One of the panels is planed for a Christmas gift, and one for me for the Fall season.

Gratitudes:

1. A holiday is coming up

2. Good coworkers

Sewing Again!

I've finally gotten things arranged / unpacked enough that I can think about doing some starting to quilt again. 

Since I still haven't found the missing materials for the projects I need to work on I've started picking up row-by-row patterns for this year.  This is the first one and I got it at Rockin Bobbin here in Dallas.  Everything is fused down, I just need to dig out the threads I need to do the stitching on it.

I'm playing hooky for a few hrs this weekend to row-hop and pick up more of the rows.   Should have enough of them by the end of the weekend to make a quilt to turn in.

The larger totes minus the ones that have FQ's or fancy (silks, linens) fabrics in them.    The left hand side of the room that can barely be seen has multiple stacks of the smaller totes and 7 xerox boxes of stuff that needs to be gone through and dealt with.   Hopefully the stuff I'm missing is in one of them!

West wall of the fabric room.  41 xerox boxes of yardage along that wall....

The closet that is full of batting.........and yes I have one box of batting that doesn't fit in there.....gotta use some of it up!

Two drawing/paintings that I've been able to hang up once again.  The left one is from my time in Boston, and the one on the right is the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.   I bought it when I was on a tour of the Holy Land and then framed it once I got home.







Found a place for my ironing board!  I've got it set up between the second desk shown here and the bakers rack that holds my spice racks and cookbooks.   I pull it out to use, and then push it back to the wall to tuck it out of the way.

Metal wall decor from Hobby Lobby and mini-clothes pins from Michaels.  I'll be using this to hold the pics of friends and family that I get through out the year. 

And the first decorative piece for my kitchen, with one of my life verses on it.  This also came from Hobby Lobby - that place could be dangerous to my pocket book!

ScrapHappy June 2018

The past three weeks have been filled with the stress of moving, and of course, with that comes having to pack everything up.  And one of the things I had to do was to get all the bags of scraps back into the two totes where they normally reside.  Several of these had migrated to the sewing area of where I was living where I had left them instead of putting them back after pulling fabrics from them.

Well when I went to put everything away I found that I had more than would fit, so I ended up pulling on bag to work on using over the three weeks.  This particular bag was filled with strips and strings of various sizes, widths and colors.  Here is what the pile looked like before I started sewing with them.

I first sorted them by color, ending with with piles in reds/pinks, blues/purples, greens, cream background prints, and yellows/golds/oranges.



After my sewing over the last 10 days or so I've sewn up all but the latter two groups.  Pinks and reds were first up.




















Blues and purples were next up.





















The greens were the final color grouping that I was able to get sewn together. 

The yellows/golds/oranges will be my next ones to work with.

I have an idea of what I might do with them, but nothing is set in stone at this point.   And i'm not sure when I'll get to work on them again because I've got several pressing projects coming up.


Gratitudes:
1. Things are slowly finding a place in the house.

2. I'm slowly finding the things that have seemed to go awol in the move....lol.

June Teddy Bear BOM

The teddy bear is Leah and she is busy sewing up a storm at the quilt retreat with her friends.

The pattern can be made with fusible or hand applique.

With this pattern just a little tweak in where you place the sewing machine will give you a different look to the finished block.

You can find the pattern here in my Craftsy store.  It will be free until I upload the next Teddy Bear pattern in July.

Enjoy the pattern!

Gratitudes:

1. For the fun that I have in designing new blocks.

2. For others liking what I design

After move pics of the house.....

The move is over but the unpacking and arranging........... here are a few pics of what the place looks like as of last night.    I managed to get more put up this evening while the cable debacle was going on, but no new pics.

 The fabric room....the last one that will be arranged. 

 And yes, I do have enough to stock a quilt store.....

 My catch-all room - most of the smaller totes are in the shelves.   Cross-stitch, beading kits, quilt stuff are all in here, along with cards, batting and gift stuff.

 Other corner of the room.   Batting will be stored in the closet.

 Bedroom......still to go in somewhere is a 4 ft tall bookcase that I'll use to hold clothes that don't get hung up.

 Living room, unpacking progressing in there.

 Sewing corner and where my computer is.

looking towards the kitchen.  Second machine will be on that table where the chair is.  Cutting table moves to where-ever is open for it.


Gratitudes:

1. I have internet!

2. I work in an air-conditioned building.

Playing with layouts..........

............ furniture layouts that is.     I've learned that moving goes much easier when you know where the furniture is going to fit before it all gets to where ever I'm moving into.

First up is what will be my bedroom.  Still to be placed in here is my cedar chest which will mean that I have to rearrange things a little (turning the bed 90 degrees).

 Then comes bedroom 2 - I've two sets of metal shelves that will go in here, along with most of the umpteen small totes of assorted quilting and crafting things.

 Bedroom 3 - the bulk of my fabric totes and boxes will be in here.

The dining room - where I'll be setting up my sewing machines and cutting table.  It sits next to the kitchen (off to the right side of this picture). 

I'm considering putting up 1 or 2 shelves in this room so that I can display things on the and use my stocking holders.

 And the living room - yes, I'll have one, but that doesn't mean that I'll be able to have company over.  The sofa, 4 different bookcases, and my quilt frame will find a home here. 

And yes, I bought a "Quilt Studio" that just happens to have a bedroom and kitchen in it....lol.

I plan to put up a curtain rod on the wall behind the sofa so that I can hang quilts for display there. 



Gratitudes:

1. The move is almost here - Yeah!!!

2. The budget is looking good for getting a couple of bills paid off by the end of the year.......wooohooo.......

Making Lemonade from Contrariness

I had been wanting to make myself a 'painting' to help keep me focused as I work to lose weight and get healthier.   A friend from church had made me a wall art stencil that I was going to use on a canvas that I would then embellish...........well things don't always do don't quite work out.....

It ended up with the stencil not wanting to stay attached to the canvas.   So  changed plans....I ended up positioning the words on the canvas and then painted over them with a green acrylic paint. 









Once the paint was dry, I pulled off the words, and was left with the lettering being white. 












Once that was done, I then took a black marker and colored in the words and ended up with this.  I've also finished painting the canvas green.  At some point after I move I'll add flowers to the canvas in the same manner as what I've done for paying off my bills (and now I need a new one for the house!). 

Current progress in paying down the bills......I'm getting closer on some of them!

Gratitudes:
1. Hives are better with the high dosage of anti-histamines.

2. I move in one week..........yippee!