Busy Monday

two big buckets worth!

Now I know Mondays are always pretty busy, after all the weekend stuff.  Today, though, I am spending the day with my grandson.  V and his mom have moved into their own house, so I am really doing the grandmother thing now.  We went to the local strawberry patch this morning and picked!

 This afternoon we will run a bunch of errands, and we still need to make our shortcake biscuits for the shortcake for dinner.  Yum!

biggest berries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

As promised the new IKEA cutting table

unfolded

from below

ready to cut

cute pillow from the Moda Bake Shop tutorial

two extra squares made great art!

That was my weekend project that brought me to Monday.  Hope you're having a great start to your week.

My New Sewing Room

Well it has finally happened.  I have a sewing room again.  Well, sewing, crocheting and crafting room.  Maybe now I can keep the rest of the house cleaned up from all my supplies.  We'll see.

I spent Sunday moving all my stuff from the corner of the kitchen to the newly emptied room.  I have to laugh when I thought that it wouldn't take as long as it did.  I got the desk set up and the shelves and books.  I want to spend some time organizing it soon, so that I can find everything.

I bought the Sweetwater print just for this room.

The sewing desk

New IKEA bookshelf.

Lots of fabric!

More books and stuff.

The windows face south, so lighting is minimal.

For now, It is like some of my quilts; a work in progress.  I am finding UFOs I forgot I had.  This is gonna be great when it is done.  Have a sew-full week.

Sometimes

My sister with Babette

Sometimes when you start to make something for yourself, along the way it becomes obvious that it was always meant for someone else.  Enjoy Babette Sue.  I'll start another one soon for myself.  I hope for myself.

Monday, Monday sometimes it just turns out that way

I can't believe, or maybe I can, how busy life is right now.  Time is flying with so much going on.  Only 4 days left until my daughter and grandson move.  I am as excited to help them with putting their new home together as I am in redesigning my sewing room.  We made a trip to IKEA this weekend to get some storage items for her new house and some for me.  The only deal we had was that it all had to fit into her car for the 2 hour trip home.  And may I say, we are masters of packing.

I got a couple of book shelves to store my quilting books and fabric and the coolest table to use for cutting.  It attaches to the wall and folds down when not in use, so a space saver too.  I will post pictures when I get it put up next week after the move.

In spite of all the crazy, I did finish two projects last week.  Babette and the Sunkissed Squares quilt top.

Love this, can't wait to quilt it.

Here's Babette in all her glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I have to quilt the top and I am making two cathedral window pillows that I found in the Moda Bake Shop to go with it.  I will make the time for these projects.  Plus I need to get started on my Birdie Stitches BOM for April.  Looks like another busy week ahead.  Happy stitching y'all.

Best Laid Plans...

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.  And so mine did.  I was supposed to take a mini vacation this week; four days off in a row.  I was going to sew a lot and finish crocheting my Babette Blanket.  Then, life stepped in.  Fate laughed at my audacity to try and schedule such a thing.

So instead I flew to San Diego to help my sisters with moving my mother, who has Alzheimer's, to a new facility.  When asked to help, I immediately said yes.  No thoughts of anything else, this is family after all.  So I packed up my Babette Blanket pieces for the plane trip and off I went.

Was it hard?  Yes.  Was there some fun too? Yes.  I love seeing my sisters and one of my brothers was their too.  We did what needed doing, but also did some things for ourselves.  Mostly cooking dinners and talking to make up for the years and miles that we have been apart.

I did get to do some work on my Babette, which my sister is seriously coveting right now.  She kept telling me how good it looked on her couch.  I found out some new information about our family history to help me with the family tree I am building.  And I loved spending those few days with my family.  Again, time was too short.

this is what I am working on today

here's Babette

Now I'm home and back to work.  I don't know when I will be able to take some time off for just me again, but I don't want fate to find out if I do, so I can really get some projects done.

Happy spring everyone!

Project Started

Well, I finally decided which project to make with my new Sunkissed fabric.  The choice was tough, but I decided to go with Sunkissed Squares by KarrieLyne of Freckedwhimsy.  I love the pattern and the way the colors on her quilt pop.  My time spent checking out other blogs has shown me how popular it has become to have lots of white borders or sashing on quilts right now and I must say I love the look.

So I started yesterday morning.  Cutting, cutting, cutting.......and now that's done!
In between all the cutting was laundry, cleaning the kitchen and answering about a hundred questions for my grandson, V, whose momma is out of town.

Next I began sewing.... strip piecing makes me smile!  It's ever so fast and I like to imagine it is saving me some thread.  I love feeling thrifty!  So I'm sewing and sewing....see how fast it grows?  In between all this sewing I am folding clothes, making lunch, opening play doh, setting up a painting station, cleaning up the play doh and painting station.  And don't forget, answering about a hundred more questions for V.  I finally got dinner on and had to stop for the day, but I think I made lots of progress, don't you?

Fabric Photography

One thing I have learned from my daughter is that taking photos of fabric, yarn and all the tools of crafting is fun and interesting.  She has a BS in photography so she really knows what she is doing.  I on the other hand, am a rank amateur.  I have a nice digital camera and I only know how to use it on the preset mode.  F-stops... I know nothing about them.
So after following several blogs and seeing how they photograph things, I decided to try it.  I fell in love with the Sunkissed line from Sweetwater.  Then I went to the Moda bake shop and saw all the cute ideas there.  I still have not quite decided which one(s) I want to make with the fabric I bought, but while I am waiting for the motivation to begin one of them, I decided to take advantage of a sunny day and try looking at them through a lens.

Notice the crazy shadows?

I love this angle.

So here they are.  When I finally decide what to do with them, I will share all the steps here.