Strings

My scrap organization has taken on a life of it's own! I am almost finished with my pinks. There were these little bits that were really too small to save but I just couldn't throw them out. So I started to sew them together.

It was a nice break from standing and cutting. I like the bird heads, marching along. This will be an ongoing project.

I did some experimenting and was not thrilled with the results. I just don't like the colors I selected. What I did do was to free hand cut the angles and then mix them up and sew them back together. I will try again.

I have been torn between reading and sewing. This book is so good! Camperdown is the last name of the main characters. I like finding a new author, now there is another book of her's to try, called Apologize Apologize.

In my quest to change my eating habits I tried these. Yes they are good but too expensive. Does anyone know of a good recipe to make them yourself? I tried to make them once before and they were not good. Could they have any more labels on this?

Bob

Kitchen update. The cabinets are in and the hardware is installed.

Johnson

This is on the other side of the kitchen, the great room. My son, Johnson and his helper are preparing the fireplace for some stone.

It's getting there.

Kelly

Taming The Scrap Basket

We all probably have some of this, a large pile of scraps. While I love these, it is an inspiration kill when you want to dive in and use them only to see they have to be ironed. It also not fun to have no idea what sizes you have, especially when you want a certain sized piece.

So yesterday afternoon I dumped out the pile and started ironing.

I piled them up into sizes..... strips, big chunks and smalls. The Halloween fabric went into my Halloween stash.

Next I started cutting them into usable size pieces. Next will be how to store them, by color? by size and color? Let me know if you do this and how you decide.

This is all that is left! Pretty amazing. I started with the orange because it was my smallest pile of scraps. I needed an instant sense of accomplishment to get through the rest, especially my blues! I feel like this will make me more productive.

Here are all the orange scraps completely cut up.

It's hard to tell from this picture but they are in the basket that is usually overflowing.

Now on to the pinks...

I wanted to show you this tree block that a fellow quilter, Debby sent to me. I love the polka dot background that really feels like snow! If you ever make anything you see here, send it to me and I will post it.

Kevin

Kevin and Bob

Just because we love to see how things are created, I thought I would show you a kitchen in progress. My husband is renovating his brother Jimmy's kitchen. His wife is Denise, my trainer so I get to see it twice a week. I will show you updates as it goes along.

Today is another freezing cold day here so I believe lots of fabric will get cut up!

Kelly

Getting Organized

I always wish I was more organized than I am. I showed this cabinet in a recent post and a friend from my guild and loyal blog follower, Lynne asked me if I would show you the inside.
I feel like you will be disappointed.
A little history......my sister-in-law Ann was visiting my in-laws in North Carolina. She found this in an antique shop, called my husband and said you have to get this for Kelly it will be perfect for her 40th birthday. She was so right, I loved it as soon as I laid eyes on it. I have 7 great sister-in-laws who do nice things like this!

The cabinet was originally used to hold embroidery floss. I have miscellaneous threads in here.

This holds my DMC thread. One year for Christmas I asked my husband to get me one of each color, not knowing there were this many! He bought every single one they had in the store.

This one holds more specialty threads that I don't use all that much any more, but you never know...

In here I have a bunch of new & old buttons, some antique buttons and Bakelite buttons. The ones in front all the way to the left came from my grandma Aggie's button box. There are some glass ones in there.

I occasionally do other crafts especially with grandchildren now. This is a perfect place to keep all those little things that have a tendency to get lost.

If I really can't find something and it is small it is usually in here, somewhere.

If you look to the bottom of the picture you can see the hand written colors of the floss. It is also a perfect place to store all the pins I bought back in the day and can't seem to throw out.

This weekend we had a mini getaway at Christine's. Her birthday is in January and this was her gift from me. She already has a spot for it picked out.

It was also Terry's birthday and she has always coveted this quilt. It was one of my favorites but I will make another one. She was very surprised and is hanging it in her studio.

This little painting is very inspirational to me......

and so are these eggs from the neighbors. What is inspiring you today?

Kelly

Never Ever Say Never...

Once upon a time I used to do cross stitch. It is just as bad as quilting as far as the amount of cute things that there are to make. I did very elaborate time consuming pieces. It was when my children were small and quilting took a back seat. It was easy to pick up and put down and could be done anywhere.
Once I got back into quilting, I put my cross stitch away, I was never doing it again. I couldn't be swayed by all those wonderful patterns that were tucked into the Blackbird Designs quilt books, or at least I thought so....
I am limiting myself to a few projects, I am not going to get sucked in, so I tell myself. I. Do. Not. Need. Another. Hobby. Oh and the projects are small.

I got a start on the Valentine pillowcases for the grandchildren. These are for Maddy who is 6 and has bunk beds. The top one is pink, which is the edge of the pillow, the bottom is purple.

Captain America for Elliot.

The Incredible Hulk for Griffin.
Fallon's is on the machine so I will show it later on this week.

I found this magazine and thought I would give it a peruse. I love magazines, perfect reading material for those night I am too tired to read my book.
Snow for us again the is weekend, this is turning into a very long winter!
Have a good weekend.

Kelly

Pacing and Valentines

So quiet and pretty!

It is snowing here today and we are to get a ton of snow. Usually on a snow day, my husband is out plowing and I am home happily sewing away. Today he was home pacing the floor waiting to go out. It isn't supposed to stop until late tonight, early tomorrow morning. Timing is everything when you plow, too soon and people complain about you having to plow twice, too late they complain about not being able to get out (even when there is a state of emergency!) and the number one thing that makes me laugh out loud, everyone and I mean everyone wants you to plow them first! What they don't know is they have a route, think of a paper route and you will know what I mean. Ok didn't mean to go off on a rant....

Today I made my grandchildren some fabric valentines, the same way you would make a post card.

I had some leftover very stiff interfacing. I am not sure what type or kind it is. They were cut off pieces from some post cards that I made, the size is about 5 x 7.

I got out some red scraps for the boys and some pink scraps for the girls.

Backgrounds that were also in the scrap baskets.

I cut out my hearts from un-fused fabric because I was too lazy to fuse them. In hindsight I should have done that.
Notice the background fabrics are over sized and will be trimmed later. You don't want a back on it yet, that will come later. I would fuse these too.

I did a little swipe of glue stick to hold them in place, not much so it wouldn't show through.

Next the hearts were free motion quilted around the edges. I am ok with it being a little uneven as I like that look. It feels like sketching.

This one was more flowy {is that a word?}.

I like the frayed edges.

You could use a walking foot to make them perfect but they are pretty small.....

After the quilting is done, turn it over, trim the background fabric even with the card.

Now use it to measure out a back for the card. By putting the back on now it will hide all those stitches, and give you a nice area to write on. I know some people who have used paper or card stock here too. I prefer fabric.

Now it is time to finish the edges. I used a zig zag stitch set to 3 wide and 1 long on my Bernina. Start in a corner and sew down to the bottom corner, go all the way to the end as shown above.

Turn the card and again start right at the beginning of the corner and continue in this way all around.

You could get real fancy and be a bit more creative than I was here. Add some beads or buttons...

These are not going through the mail as is, but why not some stamps?
Fuse some cute fabric and fussy cut out the motif. Fuse some background fabric {the red and pink}and fuse the motif to it.

Use pinking shears and cut around the edges, I pinked it 1/8" away to make it look like a real stamp.

Cutesy!
I am making them all new pillowcases along with some candy too. A perfect Valentine for my little loveys!
Enjoy this snowy day!

Kelly