I DID IT!!! (and I'll be happy to never do it again)

I've enjoyed participating in Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM.  Well mostly, anyway.  There have been two months so far where the block included set-in seams, so I've skipped those months.  I'm a wimp, I know.

But in light of my recent victory over my fear of machine quilting, I decided to suck it up yet again and give those Y seams a try.  First stop, March's block, Sweet Gum Leaf.  Lord have mercy, that block nearly killed me!  I labored over it all day long! (well, in between helping customers and restocking yarns and paying bills and all the rest that goes on during the course of a day in my shop)  But still, just one block to show for my day!

It isn't perfect, but it is done.  I can safely say I'll never make an entire quilt out of that block.  At least not without redrafting it to include all HSTs instead of those blasted parallelograms!  And even though I typically do needle turn appliqué, I sewed that stem on by machine just to be done with it!  Tomorrow, I'll give the other block I skipped a try, August's Chimney Rock.  You can bet the farm that I'll be doing the version WITHOUT set-in seams!

In other news, I shipped out 4 of the projects that I adopted out for the Quilty Adoption Event last weekend.  Congratulations to:

• "Miaismine" for winning the Tropical Fish project
• Christina P for winning the Snails Trails project
• Kelly O for winning the Christmas Stars project
• Jackie for winning the Flannel 9 Patches project

I've emailed Anonymous at valekort at yahoo dot com as the winner of the Scrappy Spools project, but haven't heard back.  If I don't hear back by the beginning of next week, I'll choose a new winner.  Thank you to all of you who volunteered to take some of these projects off my hands.

Since I've divested myself of 10 projects in the last 6 months, I couldn't help but throw my name in the hat to adopt someone else's orphans.  I scored these pieced setting triangles.

Photo credit: http://quiltyfolk.blogspot.com/2016/09/quilty-orphans-up-for-grabs.html

Woo hoo!  I love the idea of pieced setting triangles, but doubt I'd ever take the time to make them.  Now I don't have to!  I do have to come up with a project to set them with, though, and the prospect of that just excites me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!  Tomorrow is my 45th birthday, so I'm having a 45% off sale at my shop, you know, to ensure that I won't be sitting there sad and lonely at work on my special day.  Last year it was a blast, people there all day long.  Hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

Birthdays and yarn bombs!

Last Thursday was my birthday, and oh, what a fun birthday it was!!  First of all, I had a sale at the shop, 44% off all yarn since I am now 44.  Nothing brings people in like a sale!  There was a cluster of five women waiting for me when I arrived at work, and they starting singing to me as I crossed the street, and then started shopping as soon as I unlocked the door.  At no point was I alone for the rest of the day!

Second of all, I got lots of deliveries of wonderful stuff!  A carrot cake, a chocolate ganache cake, two cheesecakes and a pan of brownies. Good thing there were plenty of folks in the shop with which to share it, not to mention growing boys at home!  In addition to edible goodies, one friend brought in a bundle of vintage fabric and rick rac (all orange - yay!), another brought me a pair of her handmade silver earrings (she's a silversmith), and yet another made me a gift of anything in the shop that I had been coveting but not allowing myself - I chose this handmade reversible hobo bag.

When the work day ended, however, the fun didn't end.  A local knitting group of which I am a member, The Wednesday Night Knitting Society (WiNKS), had been asked to yarn bomb a particular block downtown in preparation for an Arts of Lexington Block Party.  The Block Party was Friday, September 25, so the yarn bombing was scheduled for Thursday, September 24, as soon as it got dark.  We hung out at my shop until the agreed upon time, then donned our dark clothing and hit the streets.  Rather than post all the photos, I'm embedding a link (Click here for AWESOME yarn bombing photos) - it's worth clicking through to take a peek.  The Winksters worked on this project for about two months, and did a fabulous job!  I wish I could take more credit, but all I found time to do was the trashcan monster. Don't you just love his furry feet?

Word on the street, though, is that the bike may find a permanent home outside my shop - won't that be cool???

Our yarn bombing was even featured on the morning news broadcast and written up in a local paper.

Life has settled back down now, which is good.  After all, I have baby quilts to finish!

Planning Ahead

The beginning of this week presented a couple of milestones to celebrate. One month of my shop being open - woot, woot! This week, it was downright busy in there! I have not spent more than 15 minutes alone in the shop all week. Twice this week, there were people waiting outside for me to open! The word is spreading! This harebrained idea of mine might actually work out!

Tuesday was my 42nd birthday. Well, mine and my twin sister's. We are at a stage where I don't think we look that much alike - our hair is different lengths right now. But can you tell, am I "Thing 1" or "Thing 2"?

Having a birthday in the shop was FABULOUS! It was Knit Together day, so there were knitters there from the time I opened (yep, someone was waiting outside for me when I arrived), until almost 6 PM. They brought flowers and cookies and chocolates and a doll made just for me. And when I opened my email, what did I find? I had won the Hawthorn Threads weekly giveaway! On my birthday! What are the chances?

They mailed it right away, and my goodies arrived already - I wanted to share photos of the Amy Butler goodness, but Blogger is fighting me about adding more photos and I just don't have any fight left in me today.

I haven't been doing too much sewing for myself lately. I taught one 3-session Quiltmaking 101 class, and started teaching the second 3-session class today. I taught rag rug making to an oversized class of 10 (my classes are supposed to be 3-6 students so everyone gets individual attention). I'm teaching that series again starting this Saturday. I can't believe how popular that has been.

I took a Learn to Knit class here at my own shop and made a hat. Now I'm working on a matching scarf.  I took a Beginning Crochet class here at my own shop, and have had fun learning the different stitches. We've only met once so far, so I only know 3 stitches. Crocheting seems really easy to me.

And my after school program kids have made 3 projects so far - aprons upcycled from pillowcases, snap shut coin purses and fabric composition book covers.

Now I am turning my thoughts to October and Breast Cancer Awareness and what I can do in my shop to support the cause. Any ideas out there? Right now I am thinking of having the following:

1) Knit Sessions to make Chemo Caps.
2) Drop in sessions to make paper pieced Pink Ribbon Pins to wear.
3) Drop in sessions to make quilt blocks for a quilt to raise money for cancer research - but what pattern? And how to raise the money - by raffling the final quilt or by having folks make a donation to make a block or some other way?
4) Pink Ribbon fabric for sale either as Fat Quarters or yardage with the proceeds being donated for Breast Cancer Research.

What do you think? Do any or all sound viable? Do you have other ideas? I'm going to deck out the display windows with pink ribbon stuff, and might ask the vendors if they might agree to having part or all of their sales for a particular day to be donated. I welcome any suggestions from any of you!

Much better!

Remember how I said there were some things I would do differently if I were to make those pocket potholders again?  I didn't want to forget, so I tried again.  I used an 8.5" block of pieced 1.5" scrap squares (that I already had made) for the front, a 8.5" block of "made" blue fabric for the back (that I had already made), some gold bias binding (leftover from the last potholders I made) and I piece of red binding (from my binding scraps bag, so already cut and pressed).  Gosh, it makes a project much quicker if you just use pieces you have already pieced for other projects!  All I did was quilt the top and the bottom, trim and bind. I made this potholder smaller - 8.25" compared to the 9.5" potholders I made previously.  The size works much better for my hand.  And instead of trying to attach the binding by machine, I did it by hand, and it looks so much nicer!  For some reason, I sewed onto the back and then finished by hand on the front, which is the opposite of how I usually do it, but it turned out fine anyway.

The front

The back - you slide your hand into the pocket so it doesn't fall off your hand. 

Now to make another one. I'm pretty sure potholders like to have a mate for life...

My birthday was fabulous from start to finish.  I had to rent a car for work this week, and look what they had on the lot...

Yup, I rented it.  After all, it was my birthday!

I received a letter from the President of the University passing on some positive feedback he had received about me.  He wrote it two weeks prior, but I was out of the country, so I didn't receive it until my birthday, so it was like a present to me.

My kids bought me some Swedish Fish (one of my favorite candies), and wrote a sweet card that said, "All the years we've known you and you don't look any older!"  Ha!

I bought myself some new sneakers, and my hubby and I had a great workout together on the heavy bag with our new boxing gloves.

I received some flowers and chocolate from my mom and younger sister.

I just love  the view on my porch, with or without flowers!

Everyone I know either called or emailed or Facebook'ed me.  I felt so LOVED!

The sun shone and birds sang.  It was just a FABULOUS DAY, and I felt like I was on top of the world!

OK, so this isn't the top of the world, but it is 3000 feet above Quito, which is already 10,000 feet above sea level, so it is pretty darned high!

So I decided to do a giveaway, but I don't quite have the whole prize together yet.  Stay tuned - there will be a giveaway later this week.  Until then, may your days be as wonderful as mine have been lately!