No quilting, but....

Here's a pic of my oldest doing color guard duty for CAP.



Note the military face. Something else I noted - he looks a lot like my lovely assistant in this photo. I've never really thought they looked alike, but she can make this face really well, too. Interesting!


And these little lovelies are tie-dyed eggs. Literally dyed with ties! Via Martha Stewart, you take men's silk ties, cut them apart so that you just have the silk, wrap it tightly around the egg, wrap tightly again with some other fabric, cover with water and about a quarter cup vinegar, boil for 20 min and voila! How cool is that??? No dye mess. Way cool results. See how clearly the print from the tie came out in some places? It was way too much fun. We blew these eggs out before we dyed them. I won't do that again next year. Gave me a headache. At least now I can say I've done it. This is definately how we'll dye eggs from now on.

And of course, a lovely assistant shot. Here she is disguised as an eggplant, sharing a sucker with her baby.

Managed to get a quilt loaded into the frame over the last few days and started quilting it this evening. Had to stop cuz I couldn't see what I was doing. Getting dark outside and lighting in my living room is just plain bad. Gonna have to do some looking around for inexpensive and easy lighting options for my frame. I just don't have enough daylight hours to work with.

Also got the binding stitched onto the back of the fan quilt, now need to stitch the front down. That's on my list of things to get around to this week. Must also clean up my sewing dungeon. Rain comes in the spring and if it comes hard and fast my room leaks! Must get everything up and out of harms way before a big storm hits. Not to mention, the basement is our tornado shelter. It would be really sad if we all died in the tornado because we couldn't get into the basement because all my fun stuff is everywhere!

Organizing....sorta.....

So I was looking through my fabric for more novelty prints to make fun little books out of and I realized that I have stacks and piles of fabric stashed all over my room. Really, this isn't any sort of brilliant realization, it's pretty obvious. I just didn't realize how much fabric is stashed all around and how much of it I couldn't see.... or even remember! Time to organize. Or at least re stack and stash...... Let's not get overly optimistic.

I found several fun novelty things! See?

All kinds of ideas are running through my head. I also got two more pinafores cut out and ready to sew. Did I blog that already? Haven't gotten to start on them yet. Had to do stuff like laundry and grocery shopping - you know, the trivial stuff.

Oh! And here is a shot of my lovely assisant in her most helpful state. I took this picture and headed downstairs, turned off the dehumidifier (so I could hear when the lovely assistant woke up), turned on the light (so I could see) - and she woke up. Turned off the light, turned the dehumidifier back on (so the air in my room won't be thick as pea soup next time I go down there - we have 87% humidity today! I've had drier showers!!!) and called it a day.

Tomorrow I'm off to the fair! It only costs $1 to get in tomorrow, so I'm there! Anymore it costs an arm and a leg just to get in and the food is sooo expensive. I can afford $1 and I've talked a few friends into going with me. It's raining today and probably will tomorrow, too, so I'm planning to get muddy - that's just part of going to the fair. I doubt there will be much quilty stuff happening, but my friend and her daughters have entered several things and we are anxious to see how they did. My husband has an aunt who always enters lots of yummy things - jellies, pickles, bread, etc - and usually does well. Excited to look for her things too! Going to treat myself to a philly cheese steak sandwich, an ear of roasted corn and maybe even a chocolate dipped strawberry/banana skewer!!!! Mmmmmmm.......

Studio pics

Getting a jump on my daily post here! These are pics of my 'studio', also known as the basement. Here's one of my thread holders. That's my baby sister (who isn't a baby anymore, but I love this pic!) and a few of my favorite toys.



This is the sewing machine I use the most. It's a Singer 201 and I love it! Very nice.

Another one of my favorite machines, a 401 - or 501???? I can't remember!!! This one zigzags, so it gets a lot of use as well.

A shot of some shelves with all my stuff on it. This isn't the fabric shelf, pics of that may come later. This is just stuff - beads, notions, machine parts, baskets (I love baskets....), and other stuff that I think might come in handy some time.

This is my work table. It's an old tilting table and it's terrific!! I made an ironing pad to lay on top and I have a big cutting board that lays on top, too. It's pretty clean in this shot, usually there's way more stuff on it. I have a problem with stuff - can you tell?

More tomorrow!

To keep us busy...

Here's what we did to keep ourselves busy the other night.


















We made people! Got the idea from Family Fun. We have a little wooden village and it needed some inhabitants.

My helpers:


















Miss Goose.


















Oops! Did I just cut my dress??




















Mr. Man.



















Big Sister.

Great fun!

Stuck at home - woohoo!

So, what do you do when the roads are covered with ice and everything is cancelled or closed and you have no place to go or any way to get there? THIS!!









































































Now, I understand that this may not look like much to you, but trust me - this is way cool! And 150% improvement over having all this stuff ( I mean treasures, of course!) scattered all over my house. I have room for everything and everything has a place! I even found the Sunbonnet Sues!!! Pictures and story to follow.

The sewing room

OK - I've decided to blog about my new sewing space. I've been really 'down' about the whole sewing thing. I don't want to do it. But not really, I think I just don't want to do it the way I've been doing it. We are making some changes around here and it's been decided that all my sewing things are going to the basement. I've decided this is a good thing! They will all be in one place and this will be MY space that I don't have to share with anyone. Unless there's a tornado, in which case we'll all go hang out down there till it's gone. I can live with that. So, I'm starting to be inspired. I want to make this space really cool. Not necessarily fancy, but very workable. Also, I'm determined to do what I want, not what I think I should. I don't have to use up fabric just because I have it. It's OK to send it on someplace else. I don't have to follow the 'rules' - I'm going to experiment and do what makes me happy.

Here are some before pictures. Things will probably be in a state of 'before' for a while! Eventually, it'll change. Also, I gotta think of a something else to call it. It's more than a sewing room or even a quilting studio. It's gonna be my whatever it is I'm doing room. What do you call that?

OK - this used to be the quinea pig shelf. I shoulda turned the pic before I uploaded it, but didn't. Sorry. Just tilt your head to the right a bit. We're down from 20 piggies to 3, so didn't need a big shelf for them anymore.




Inside the sewing machine case is my Singer 99. I have gottan rid of a lot of my machines, the 99 I had to keep. There's a 301 sitting in front of it. Another keeper.
















My trusty 401, waiting to be put back in the cabinet so she can be used. Gotta figure out where she'll go first....














My
The treadles and a handcrank, also awaiting a place to 'live.'














Miscellaneous stuff. Will be sorted and placed at some point.

So - this is all that came out of the living room. I still have a bookshelf of books in my bedroom that need to go down, another sewing machine (my Singer 201) upstairs and a whole bunch of other stuff upstairs, including my fabric stash and countless other things. It's been up in my daughter's room since we moved into this house. Now that we have 2 daughters, they need the bedroom space. All that will come down later.

Stay tuned.....