Sewing withdrawal...

So it's been a while since I've not only blogged but been able to sew.  Between work, working on work stuff after work at home and doing all sorts of visiting and things, I've just been too beat to do much more than read my blog roll and dream about sewing.  I'm hoping to get in gear and get a bit done this weekend...but seeing as not much was accomplished yet and the house needs a major cleaning...we'll see.

I have stumbled across a couple great new projects.  First, I'm dying to try some hexagons.  I think they'd be great to do in front of the tv instead of being on my computer all the time.  I've seen so many cute projects with them lately and I think there's even a sew-along or two going on.  I've got a head full of ideas for them and I hope I won't have to wait until next fall!  (I just realized we've got a several hour drive to Iowa next weekend...I'd better pick out some fabric and learn how to do them before that!!!)

I also found Sew Spoiled's blog and website.  Does she have some of the cutest things or what?  And she's got excellent tutorials and is beyond generous with them.  I so want to make her Weekender Travel Tote.  Seriously, it's high on my list.

And lastly, my sister has a bday coming up and she'll be spending the summer in Austria as an au pere.  She thinks that having 'nanny skirts' would be fun so I want to make her some for her birthday.  There's kinda a deadline on this project that is quickly closing in on me...I need to do this soon too!  I've been thinking about making summer-y skirts for myself too so at least I have some patterns and ideas ready to go.  I really want to use this fabric from Joanns (which I can't find a pic of at the moment and Joanns.com is being stupid..) for one and since I went back and bought extra, I'll just have to make two.  :)

And I am still working on my t-shirt quilt.  I'm hoping that things at work will normalize and I'll actually have the after work hours to myself instead of for work.  Then maybe I can get a bit of sewing in!

Quilt 1

I've been meaning to share the story of why I started quilting and the pictures I took along the way.  It's going to take a tad bit more organizing just to the collect the pictures and all so I'll just give away the ending.  

National Quilting Day

So yesterday was National Quilting Day and I thought what better day to break my posting hiatus than March 20th.  However, no quilting or blogging got done.  My sister was staying with us and we wanted to get some shopping and outside time in (HAPPY SPRING).  Plus, DH and I watched a movie last night after she left which I proceeded to fall asleep about halfway through.  And to top it all off, I am completely obsessed with reading other quilter and sewer's blogs.  My Google Reader (which I adore btw - use it) is very full and always provides me with wonderful pictures, tutorials, tips and of course, links to other quilter's sites that I'm pretty much obligated to add to my Reader - therefore creating a viscous circle that may lead to an intervention from my DH.  Oh well.  : )

I did get a quick sewing project in yesterday however.  My sister wanted to pick up some ribbon to make a headband, but didn't really see any that struck her.  So we decided to raid my fabric stash, find a tutorial online (and in my Quilting Desk Calender) and make her one.

The top fabric is from an Easter basket I made for her last year.  (I'll post about that sometime..)  And she picked a solid purple for the other side so it is reversible.  It's actually super cute and she might be making them for friends for the end of the school year.

I am planning on getting some sewing in today.

(But I unexpectedly have the house to myself and sitting in the sun with a gardening magazine sounds really nice...)

My current project:

This t-shirt has been an idea in the works for a while.  It's finally becoming a reality...slowly.

I also got these cheap solids at Wal-Mart and I'm totally inspired by this Crazy Mom Quilts (who is sadly no longer blogging) bento box quilt.

(Terrible lighting but really they are nice colors...)

Someday.

If Only...

...I spent as much time updating my blog as I do reading blogs...

I [heart] my Google Reader.

: )

Where It All Happens

I had one of those days last Friday where I felt exceptionally motivated.  And since these days are sadly not all that common, I took advantage.  It feels so good when you get a bunch of things done before 10am.  One of the things I did was clean up my craft area a bit.  I had just picked up a few more supplies on a brief shopping trip last week and they needed an organized home.  I'm pretty happy with how clean it looked so I snapped a couple of pictures yesterday.

My area is just a little corner in the second bedroom of our little house.  I use my Great Grandmother's desk as my sewing table.  The side table is actually the top of an entertainment stand we got for free.  We use the bottom part as our TV stand but the top is the perfect height for a cutting and ironing table.  Plus it comes with some shelves that make visible fabric and supplies storage.  I also have those plastic stackable drawers slid underneath.

I use a shelf or part of one on our too full bookcase for more fabric storage.  It holds the colors of fabric that i have the most of...blue and green.  And the green pile is soon going to become blue and green because I have a hard time resisting a good blue.  I'm learning tho!

A few things I'd like to point out:

• My laptop is usually sitting in the corner of the "L" shape and is playing music or an episode of a TV show I missed.  
• I never wear shoes around the house but recently we've seen a mouse and it just really freaks me out...especially when my feet on the foot pedal are right near the wall.  But I can't sew very steadily with sneakers on, so I have to tough it out anyways.
• I keep a blanket around because we're cheap with out heat.  Usually it's wrapped around my waist so that I can stay warm even when I stand up to cut or iron.
• I have a little table top ironing board that tucks beside the desk.  It's not very old and already I really should make a new cover for it.
• One of my dear friends got me the 2010 Day-to-Day Sewing Calendar for Christmas just because she saw it in the store and thought of me and it's so fun to have it on my desk.  I'll admit that I get impatient for the next project and often peak!
• The heart on the wall is the other one I made and still haven't decided what to do with it...I'm hoping it will come to me if it's always staring at me up there on the wall.

And I course I had to make sure there was a WIP in the picture.  I had some St. Patrick's fabric from last year (only a half yard of each...what was I thinking?) and decided to get a head start on some kind of decoration.  Like the heart project, I'm still thinking about what direction I want to go with this.  There might possibly be an attempt at machine quilting...if I'm brave enough!

Thursday's Finish

I finally finished a project last thursday...seems like it's been a while.  

My mom really liked the patchwork heart that I made and blogged about.  She had some ideas about how it would work for a table runner.  And since it was her idea and she said she'd use it, I made it for her.  She even gave me the solid red fabric because she never used it for the project she originally got it for.  It ended up being about 33 inches long and just under 15 inches high.  I just eyeballed how long I wanted it.  She has a large oval dining table and the size seemed to work.

The back gave me a little trouble.  Mostly boils down to me not always being a very straight cutter.  I thought I had measured a bit extra, but as you can see, I had to add just a teeny bit of fabric on the ends.  Annoying but it was better than making the solid red on the front left side shorter than the embroidered side.  So you just can't flip it over.  : )

Extra Padding

Part of this busy weekend was celebrating more family birthdays.  My mom and BIL share the small birthday.  So we actually celebrate for both of them on Friday night and then just had a family dinner with my mom on Saturday.  It was a whole weekend of family.

I made a camera case for Mom.  She carries her camera with her all the time.  She sometimes uses a case but I really wasn't sure.  So I decided to make one up anyways.  I used this tutorial from Sew-Mad for the design.  I drew out the pattern and ended up enlarging it as I went along because I thought it looked way too small.  Turns out I didn't have to add as much as I did.  But now she has room to grow.  : )

The purple fabric is the same as the purple in the totebag I made for her last birthday.  The green polka dot is darker than the one from the totebag, but matching anyways.  : )

I'd also like to say that I am so grateful and ever thankful for the wonderful people of blog land who post tutorials.  They are the reason I'm sewing!