Ballet Tote Bag

I just completed my latest project.... A little tote bag for Mallory, my friend Shirley's granddaughter. I can hardly wait to give it to her....I hope she likes it. I got the idea for it from a quilting friend of my step-mom a year ago this past spring. Sadly, my step-mom passed away on July 16th. She was instrumental in developing my love of quilting. She was an awesome quilter and I will miss her and her guidance.

Here is a picture of the little bag. I found the ribbon garland at Michaels as well as the black tote bag and the iron on ballet shoes appliqué. I used 3 meters of the ribbon garland and layered and zig-zag stitched it 4 times around the bag. Initially I was not going to use the satin ribbon and bow but I thought it was needed so I went back to Michaels and picked up a darker pink satin ribbon to finish it off.




I am just about finished the little placemats I am making for my grandson so I will take pictures and post them soon. I am really pleased with them.

Hugs, Liz


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My little man is two tomorrow

My daughter had Reid's birthday party yesterday. There were 5 little ones including my little man and it was a big success. Sarah did an awesome job and used a "construction theme" for everything from the plates to the goodie bag holders. It was very appropriate for our little man who loves everything to do with vehicles especially dump trucks, excavators, cement trucks, etc., etc.

Here is my little man.....so precious! We can all guess what he's been eating!


Here is a pic of the cake Sarah made.....so creative! We are all a fan of pinterest and their great ideas!



Here's a shot of the table.....hopefully you can see how cute the plates, goodie bags and the little vehicles each of the kids got for coming to the party. I wasn't sure how it would work out and if Reid would give up those vehicles at the end of the day.....he was pretty possessive when he first saw them but he did let 4 of them go when the kids were leaving.



Sarah made the creative blackboard sign and huge number 2 using some great pictures from his last year.....lot's of good memories! Again, thanks Pinterest peeps for providing great ideas!






I finished piecing the first of Reid's placemats today.....I will share once they ate all done. First one is really sweet....if I do say so myself.



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Fabric from Indonesia

In my quest to document my quilting for this past year or so.....hasn't been much quilting so here goes......

My youngest daughter and her boyfriend travelled to Indonesia 2 years ago for their friend's wedding. While they were there she purchased some fabric for me and presented it to me when she was home for Christmas in 2012. She said that she bought the fabric at a street market and it looked like it had been around for some time and possibly used for other purposes. It was very lovely nonetheless but very thin in many spots. I decided that I would make them a table runner for their new dining room table.

I bought some iron on light weight interfacing so that I could stabilize the fabric. I decided on a chevron design for the table runner. I also went to my local quilt store with my Indonesian fabric to get some complimentary fabrics to use as well. I would still like to make myself a table runner as well one of these days.

Here are a couple pics of the table runner as well as a close-up of the straight-line quilting. I still have not mastered free-motion quilting but I will give it a try someday.







I took the table runner with me when I travelled out West last year to give to Erin and Paul. I labeled it "Memories of Indonesia, made with love by Mom". She loved it and it looks great on their table.

While I was out West last year one of my step-mom's good friends gave me the McKenna Ryan Sea breeze patterns. Apparently she bought the kits for the fabric but wasn't interested in doing the blocks. She was going to donate them to their Quilt Guild but my step-mom figured that I would enjoy doing them while I was visiting. Another one of her good friends brought over 2 very large bins filled with batik scraps for me to use. While I was there I did all the tracing of the patterns onto steam a seam and then auditioned the fabric scraps and ironed the steam a seam onto the fabric and started to cut all the appliqué pieces out......I kept each block in a separate zip-lock bag so I could keep them organized. Yesterday, I came across these blocks so I put them on my WIP list. I was going great guns with them last summer when I came back from out West but then everything came to a halt when my brother-in-law passed away at the end of August. I spent all of September up North at my sister's helping clear out their apartment so that she could move to my house. All my sewing stuff got moved downstairs to my third bedroom so that my sister could use the second bedroom. My new sewing room has been over whelming and I didn't start to get it organized until yesterday and I pretty much finished it today. It feels so much better now so hopefully I can back to quilting.

I even visited my local Quilt Store today and bought a little fabric.....I decided I want to make "my little man" some "I Spy" placemats.....I'm going to start them tomorrow.

That's all for today......I still want to get this "blogging thing" down as I would like to be able to link up and do other fun stuff most bloggers are doing.


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Trying to get my sewing room organized

Finally I am trying to get my sewing room in order......making a list of all my UFO's, WIP's and other stuff I want to do. Once I get everything listed, fabric, threads and tools organized I will figure out how to get started and get things finished. I also want to share the little things I have done since last summer even though it is not much.

I completed this little "Grow Chart" for the sweetest little man's first birthday last July. It turned out really great.....if I do say so myself. When Reid was a newborn my daughter to his little footprints in this kit my youngest daughter gave her in her shower present. I photocopied the foot prints and used it as a pattern and quilted them on either side of his name. I don't know if the photo will show them but they are really sweet. Isn't the "I'm this big" holder adorable? It looks really cool on his bedroom wall.




Now these days, those cute little feet are running, kicking balls, jumping, you name it.....Next week my sweet little man turns two and my daughter asked if I could appliqué "two" on a t-shirt for his birthday party. I think she got the idea from pinterest. His party is construction theme and he loves all vehicles so I went searching for some cute fabric and let Sarah pick out the owns she wanted me to use. Here is the little t-shirt....I did get the chalk marks out too!



Hope I can use this blog to track my quilting progress and keep myself accountable. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Lizzie

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It's been awhile

It has been a long time since I posted on this blog and I have been really lax on my quilting journey but time to get back at it. Time has a way of flying by and it seems faster the older you get. I'm retired but it seems like there is not enough time in a day. It seems like every week I plan to do some quilting and then things happen...friends drop in, housework, laundry, need to go shopping, playing bridge, weight watchers, meal planning, cooking, playing with my grandson and I am planning to join a gym.....busy, busy.

My sister moved in with me at the end of September because my brother-in-law passed away. This required a lot of reorganizing and purging to make room for her. I have a small bungalow with 2 bedrooms on the main floor and the third bedroom in the basement. Once my two girls moved out I took over all 3 closets (mine is even a walk-in) anyways, I had way too much stuff. My computer and most of my fabric and quilting stuff was in the second bedroom upstairs, which is now my sister's room. We moved our PC's down into the family room along with my sister's TV and entertainment unit so we can watch different programs if we want. I also moved all my sewing stuff downstairs but It still needs to be organized.

One of the things I am working on is a quilt for my sister made from some of my brother-in-law's clothing. I have made a good start but I need to get back at it.

My sister and I also recently joined weight-watchers which we both need. Weigh in is tomorrow....we are both doing pretty good. It has been kind of fun. I enjoy cooking so I like trying new recipes. Tonight I made Buffalo Chicken Chilli (8 points plus), which was so good. The great part is that we have 5 more servings that I put in the freezer for quick future meals.

I am going to sign off for now and hope to be back soon with some quilting progress.








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Things were going along"swimmingly" on Monday night until I flipped over Diane's table runner and realized that when I machine stitched (1/4 inch) on the binding I "short-changed" the table runner side and as a result I could see the batting.....frustrating! I tried making another seam at a little less then 1/2 inch but realized it would be difficult to flip it back and hand sew to the back. I soon realized that I was going to have to "un-sew" the entire approximately 150 inches of stitching plus the 20 inches of the newer seam I tried. To make it even more difficult black thread on black material is very difficult to see with these 60+ eyes. So there you have it, I had my work cut out for me. After a couple of hours Monday night, a couple of hours Tuesday morning and another hour or so late yesterday afternoon....the binding was free.

Initially I thought I would recut new binding at 2 1/2"s rather than the 2 1/4"s the pattern called for and then just take a bigger seam, however after some thought I decided to square up the runner a second time and take off about a quarter inch on each side. I used the same binding after re-ironing it and refolding it again....phew! Finally I was ready to machine stitch it back onto the runner, taking special care that I was catching both sides of the runner. Success!

Last night I started to hand stitch the binding on while catching up on some stuff on my PVR. I watched the Biggest Loser finale.....gosh this year's contestants did an awesome job and really transformed themselves. I was so happy for Dani...she was my favourite this year. Bravo started to air "Homeland" on Wednesday nights from the beginning so I watched the first 2 episodes last night and I must say that it is a very good show and can't wait for tonight's episode.

I managed to get about 3/4s of the binding hand stitched it last night and got the rest of it done today including the label. Yeah! I met my deadline so I can give it to Diane tonight at our get-together.....I hope she likes it.

Ta-Da........



I played bridge again yesterday afternoon with Deanna and we came in second in group A and first in the B and C group. Hurray, after weeks of coming in near last place.

Anyways, gotta run and get ready to go over to Diane's. Tootles......

When I previewed this post the picture is the little shamrock plant I posted the other day even though I attached the table runner??? I'll have a look once I save and publish this.

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Location:Un-sewing ggrrrrrrrrr......

Bridge, table runners and other stuff

I missed posting yesterday as I was trying to catch up on laundry and I also took Jessica out to get her weekly groceries.

A few weeks ago I purchased some lovely pork chops at Costco and I wanted to try them with sauerkraut .....I googled it and found a recipe and made it last night for dinner but I wasn't too impressed....oh well, ya win some and you lose some.



My friend Deanna and I played bridge on Saturday night and out of 10 teams we came in second and just a smidgen out of first. We won the above cute little shamrock plant for our efforts. I suggested that Deanna take it home with her but she insisted that I keep it....it's very sweet and I have a cute little black ceramic pot that I got from my friend Janice a couple of years ago that is just the perfect size.



I finished hand stitching the binding on the disappearing nine-patch table runner. I am donating it to the the Leukaemia fundraiser this weekend. I just need to label it now.

I started to quilt Diane's table runner yesterday and then finished it off this morning and got the binding sewn on. I'm going to start hand stitching it tonight....I need to have it completed by Wednesday night.

I volunteer with the Special Olympics as a bowling coach every Monday afternoon so that's what I did this afternoon. I love it.....not that I know very much about bowling but I'm a great cheerleader and I love all the "kids"....

Okay, I'm off to do some hand stitching while I watch Dancing with the Stars. Tootles.....


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