Not quite finished book

Pages from the next book.

Pigs!


A bunny with a butterfly and some Christmas bears.

A black bird and a fish. Not sure I like the bird page. I might leave him out. He has some dinosaur parts and pawprints with him. Hmm.. We'll see.

A little red bird and a chicken. I might have to put a chicken in every book I make! OH!! Note the peppers all around the red bird. The bird has a wintry background and he's surrounded by peppers. He's chilly!! Get it???

A kitty surrounded by fish (happy kitty!) and a frog. Froggie has a flower.

Don't have a hard, fast plan for this book. Have pieces picked out for the next one. The next one will be a little 3" one again.

Another book

This one is for my neice (Jilly, if you are reading this, email me with your new address so I can send this to you!). She is very tactile, so every page has something to touch on it. I have a few little things I want to write in it and then it will be ready to go.
Elephants. Remember the Sesame Street song, "There's a Bird On Me?" I love that song! This page reminds me of that.

A goose and a shark. The goose is safe - the shark is swimming the other direction. Phew!

Kitties and a fancy frog. I love those kitties! I have a lot of them. I may get around to making a book of just kitties.

A boo-boo bear and a bunny. My lovely assistant loves her boo boo bear page, so I added one for cousin, too.

And a chicken. Chickens are just too cool. Have you ever noticed how many chickens there are on Sesame Street? Hmmmm....

Quilting machine update: the machine is home again! And it seems to be sewing much better. It still wants to break cotton thread, but the tension is good. I'm OK with poly thread. Today I did a lot of practicing with a cotton wrapped polyester and it didn't break at all! That felt good. I have a lot more practicing to do, but it sure is easier when I don't have to stop every 30 seconds to rethread the machine! I have several other threads to test, too. Maybe in a week or so I will be ready to do an actual quilt! I'll take some pics of my practice soon and post them.

"B" is for book!

Still on the book kick.  They are just too much fun!  Here's the latest one.  But first, since blogger won't let me move the pics around.....

My lovely assistant being very helpful again!  I love it when she helps like this.

"B" is for book.  A book all about things that start with 'b'.  Here's a challenge for you - go see how many 'b' fabrics you have in your stash.  This book started to be a 'b' is for bunny book.  Then I decided to add bears.  Then bugs.  Oh!  And butterflies!  And it just grew.  I discovered a ridiculous number of 'b' things in my stash and even in my scrap tub.  It was astonishing!  The book is finished and I keep going back and writing more 'b' things that I find in it!  Like, the 'b'ow on the 'b'ear!

The boots got stitched on wrong side out.  Ever had one of those days?  I just didn't feel like ripping and re-stitching and you can see them just fine, so wrong side out they stayed.

The boy on the right has a ball, but it got lost in the seam allowance.  He was tough to cut out.  Do you love the 'b'lue 'b'amboo?  Can you believe that?  I pulled that out of the scrap tub as I was building these.  What a surprise!  The boots were like that, too.  Surprise!  Boots!!  But really, blue bamboo?  Who woulda thunk that would be in my scrap tub??  Not me.

This is a 'b'allerina with a 'b'ouquet and 'b'londe 'b'angs.  I mean really... did somebody plan this???

I like the bigger size.  It does allow for bigger pics, like the ballerina.  It's harder to build, though.  Pieces on the edges/corners tended to be really big.  That's OK if they are focus pieces, but just for fillers they kind of overwhelm, or at least I was afraid they would.  I guess I need to piece a bunch of crumbs together to use in spots like that.

I may take a book break for a bit.  I think I'm getting ready to do a memory/siggy quilt real quick.

More later!

Another funky book

This is what I did last night instead of watching the debate. It's not that I'm uninterested in the debate, just that I know I'll be hearing/reading about it everywhere and all the time until bigger news comes along. I'm sure of who I will vote for, don't think anything said in the debate will change my mind. I'll refrain from saying who my vote is for and why so that this blog can remain all about quilting. Or I might say something stupid and then it would be here on the internet forever embarassing me. Sewing is much more fun anyway!

Sew, another book for my lovely assistant!


A fish.

Moo cow and chickie. It was tough to get a good pic of chickie. The flash kept making such a glare. This one is not so great, either, but it was the best I got. I was trying to get a picture with this sitting on a pillow in my lap.

A frog and a lamb.

Doggie and chicken.

And a jungle bird.

It's really fun making these little books. It's a very haphazard, grab it and stitch, it is how it is kinda thing. I like that! I have several thoughts/ ideas about this:

- I wanna make a bigger one
- more pics on the page
- maybe coordinate the fabs a bit?
- textures?
- trims?
- tags?

We'll see what time allows.

More books

Here are a few more books:

A Christmas Story book and


B is for bears. There are actually 2 of these. Think anyboby will buy them? We'll see. If not, they will be presents for my lovely assistant and the small people we know.

I have some cool black fabric with retro looking yellow owls on it. I want to make a pinafore with it and maybe a little matching purse? I also have lots more fun fabric for little books. Now for more time....


And here's a shot of my other lovely assistant modeling a pinafore. Note the littlest lovely assistant in the shot, too? We simply cannot function without her. In case you don't recognize that look it's, "I'm ready! Take the picture already, dad!"

New stuff!

I've been sewing. Haven't been doing laundry or dishes, but have gotten a few things stitched up. Check it out!


A cute little reversible pinafore with a kitty in the pocket for my lovely assistant. Also have one for sale in my Etsy shop.



And a couple of fabric books. Ten Commandments

and the Rainbow Zebra. These are also available in the shop.

More on the way!

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.......

Busy, busy, busy....

Life is busy! Lots going on. I have had some opportunities to sew, however. I've even taken some pics! I'm working really hard not to post it all at once, so today's pics are a little fabric book that I made for my lovely assistant.


Peekaboo lizard!


A bear and a piggie. Something I learned about making little fabric books - pick bigger focus fabrics. The bear and the piggie are kinda lost....


A kitty and a duck. The kitty is my favorite!



A puppy and a cardinal. Cardinal is a little small. I had to add him - I love cardinals!



And a bunny. I really don't like this bunny. Don't know why. I put him in because I needed another animal.

This was so fun to make! It's small - about 3 x 4 inches - but just right for little hands! It has no batting so was easy to stitch together. It's completely washable, too! Quiet for church, Ok to chew on, would be a cute gift - I'm making more!

I discovered I really don't have many novelty/conversation prints in my stash and this is akin to a crime! So, my new quest when it comes to stash building is novelty prints. It was all I could to not to run out to Hancock's today looking for some! Besides the fact that I am absolutely, totally and completely broke, that's not how I shop. I really like to 'find' fabric as opposed to shopping for it. I haunt estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores, and occasionally the really cheap bins of scraps at fabric stores. It's better for my budget, makes decision making easy (there are way too many fabrics out there to choose from! I need a limit.), and makes my stash very, very interesting.

More soon!