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Pillow for Syd

This is one of those quick pillows that you make with 5 squares of fabric.  Put your backing fabric right side up (first picture is back).  And then you fold the other 4 pieces in half, either straight or on the bias (wrong sides together).  This pillow has them folded on the bias.

 Then you lay each folded fabric piece, one at a time, on one side of the backing, going around on all 4 sides.  The first fabric will need 1/2 folded back so the 4th fabric can lay down and then put the 1st fabric back as it was, like a pinwheel.  Pin and sew all the way around the square.  Turn right side out and insert the pillow.  Use or make 2 buttons to coordinate and then stitch the back button to the front button through the pillow, catching all 4 fabrics on the front, and cinch tight and knot.

Heike from Flensburg taught me how to do this!

Lots of fun!

Creativity

The thing that boosts my creativity is laying in bed at night with a drawing pad and crayons (yes, as in crayola!) and just letting things roll out.

I mostly use crayons because it reflects my art...basic, simple.

Kindergarden level in my mind.
Because of the crayons I can convince myself that I’m going back to a mental state where I didn't care what it looked like in the end.  It all looked like great art to me. No room for criticism. 
And the delicious smell of crayons; like the smell of lumber, or fresh cut grass (After the gases of the lawn mower blow away!).
And journaling about ideas...you start writing notes on one idea as you go along and then a bunch more ideas start bubbling up.

Tis' bliss!

Quilling

Yes, quilling.  Not quilting.

I want to try a little bit of it so for Christmas I put some of the tools and a few kits on my Wish List.
This is my first attempt using the instructions that came with the tools.
They are tiny.
I also got a kit of beautiful flowers but mostly I want to do the snow flake kit.

All about Isaac

My favorite nephew Isaac has gotten into some bad habits lately. 
He can't seem to get up before 3 pm.
It's apparent that he likes to sleep on his knuckles.

But when he did get up, he made Christmas Dinner! 

Can you believe it? 

He said he wanted to do it! 

Well then, let's take out double the ingredients so he can make 2 meals for us! 

So here he is, hard at work mixing Grandma's meatballs.

He also put together and baked the Scalloped Corn, and peeled and mashed the potatoes! 
Below is my plate, a normal persons plate...except the meatballs and gravy were passed before the mashed potatoes, so my mashed potatoes are actually on top of the gravy.



But Isaac preferred his mashed potatoes, gravy, meatballs and scalloped corn to be mashed up in one big heap. 

The green beans on the side were added to Isaac's plate by Eric AS he asked Isaac "Do you want green beans?"

Isaac custom made this beautiful train display box for his Grandpa. 

It is so freakin' gorgeous!

Did I tell you I love my nephew? 

He is such a fantastic kid and growing into a generous, thoughtful young man.

Christmas in the Cave

Last night Cave Woman had their Christmas Potluck.  It was such a lovely evening.  Good food and lots of laughter.  I need Sarah to give me the recipe for the India Rice she made...or whatever it was called, is was perfection.
I thought of showing the postcards I've received in my recent trades from Postmark'dArt but I forgot to bring them.  And I remembered to throw my camera in my purse but forgot to take pictures! 

Sharon had her cave perfectly decorated for Christmas, with the little tree in the corner and all her fantastic works of art hanging on the wall like it's a Cave Art Gallery. 
Hey, that's kinda funny, her 'cave art', only not quite prehistoric.     Yet.

Pet Pillow Projects Performance Progresses Prolifically

Pet beds.  Center black pillow is a kitten pillow with my machine quilting pattern Sunrise.

It drives me nuts when I turn a mole hill into a mountain.
When Edith Dalleska said she wanted pet pillows to raise money for animals she proposed that we ('we' being all those with in ear shot) sew two hunks of any fabric together, leaving one end open like a pillowcase, and as we're doing all our quilting, we're just throwing all our threads and little fabric scraps into them and when it's full, sew it shut and we have a pet pillow!
How easy is that?
Sharon Englund is making hers out of scraps of polar fleece and actually has a small (clean!) trash can that she puts the pillow 'case' in as if it was a trash liner.  Then all her threads and scraps go in there and when it's full she sews hers shut and puts in a new 'liner' for the next pillow.
I already had lots of chunks of fabric that I used to practice machine quilting on.  It wasn't a big deal to sew them together and do the same thing.
Then I started looking for scrap fabric to sew together so I could sandwich it to practice machine quilting on just so I could make it into a pet bed.
Then I started looking for old panels, cheaters, and left over blocks and kept going.
Where did my regular projects go?
I don't know.
Now I'm all of empty pet beds.

Green Egg and Ham

We're getting eggs from a neighbor.  All different colors.
Dr. Suess, eat your heart out.

Binding Quilts

A woman generously donated a huge amount of quilting fabric,kits, notions and some UFO's that belonged to her deceased Mother.

Some little UFO's only had a little left to do so Doris and I took them home to finish up and then they can be sold at the MQ Small Quilt Auction next summer.

I added the binding to the little appliqued heart and the Christmas table runner.

 All the items belonged to her Mother, Eleanor Eggan.



Christmas table runner, 44" long



Potential Postcard Problem Predicts Potentially Poor Postal Performance

I tried taking a few more pictures to get the image without the shine of the flash.  This lamp I used is fluorescent, producing the white background of the postcard as yellow-ish.

I experimented with not wrapping the binding around the edge of one card. The left one is folded over the edge.  In the right postcard I cut the bells canvas slightly smaller than the written side, and used the "binding" to cover > 1/8" of the canvas piece and also be flat on > 1/8" the back of the written side (which is cardstock this time).  You can almost see the ridge from the edge of the bells canvas. 

I was going to test this card in the USPS by mailing it with an actual postcard stamp of .29 cents, but even in the picture you can see that to the right of the corner the postcard gets a little thick where there are several layers of fused fabric and a few layers of tulle.  That little area is more than 1/16" thick and following postal regulations it wouldn't fly.  IF I can find a hammer this morning, and IF I can pound it down to 1/16" I'll test putting a postcard stamp on it, drop it in the mailbox and see what happens.  It's going to Maureen Egan in Massachusettes.  If she ends up paying more I'm going to spend .44 cents mailing her an envelope with another .44 cent stamp in it to pay her back!  A potential .88 cents loss to test saving .15 cents.  The hardships of an artists life!

First-Class Mail® Postcards

Maximum size: 6 inches long by 4-1/4 inches high by .016 inch thick
$0.29
First-Class Mail® Large Postcards
Maximum size: 11-1/2 inches long by 6-1/8 inches high by 1/4 inch thick
$0.44

All the other cards are just a smidge less than 1/8" thick so I'll put .44 cents on them, but the reason they're not as thick as all my other cards is because of the cardstock I used for the written side.  Normally it would be Timetex or Peltex inbetween and fabric on both sides, but the cardstock doesn't require more stiffener.

Two of the cards I used a vellum for the paper.  This did not work as well.  I used a thin line of glue around the edge of the postcard to hold the vellum in place while adding the fused binding.  Then ironed the binding on.  This ever so slightly shrank!  The postcard is slightly bowed.  It's going in the mail anyhow.
 
Off to the postoffice for stamps!

Jingle Bell Postcards

I finished my cards for the Postmark'dArt trade.  I'm not really happy with how they turned out because I had something totally different in mind when I started them.  They have a layer of tulle over them, so the camera flash makes that shine in the picture.

They all have paper or cardstock on the written side.  Except for one they all have fused fabric for binding.

If you want to trade fiber postcards you can inquire about it at http://www.postmarkdart.com/

Inside corners

I'm doing another binding for someone.  It has inside corners, how's it look?

Ho Ho Ho?

My projects are coming along, slowly but surely. 

I'm in another trade with Postmark'd Art...the deadline was last Monday!  I don't totally feel terrible about being late since I haven't received all my cards from the others. 

I may be tardy all the time but all my traders get a postcard no matter what. 

One time life wasn't all peaches and cream.  I don't know why I use that to refer to life not being good, because I don't like peaches or cream.  I should say "One time life WAS all peaches and cream".   

I was in a stressed out mood and all my postcards were mailed, but they were ugly. 

Art always reflects what going on inside you.

These are 3 pieces of the puzzle.  I have to make many more for my postcards.

Hell froze over

The quilt sits like this in my sewing machine so that when I have time, I pick up right where I left off.


IF in the future I comment that my job can get monotonous I do not want you to remind me of what I am about to say:  I can hardly stand waiting until everything at work is settled and working smoothly!  I thought all would feel a bit more like getting into a routine after we FINALLY got internet and phone working Friday the 21st.  (I guess it's been a while since I've said "Comcast Sucks!", so Comcast had to remind me). 


Doris ran out of ink on her printer.  And not that I monitor that, but I do need to pay attention to how many extras she has and at least order some when she's on the last one.  But it's my fault that our shared printer is out of toner...that darn "you're almost out of toner" warning starts so early that I kind of get used to seeing it and therefore ignore it.  Kind of like when a bill comes so early that you want to wait to pay it and after a while it just becomes a piece of furniture and you don't notice it anymore. 
And I never take the cartridge out before it's actually empty...I'm using it until every last drop, or in this case, every last granual of powder is out.  Of course, if intelligence reigned, I'd have ordered the new cartridge when the warning came on.  But no such luck. 
This is where I spill the beans on a well kept secret... "I went to Open School".


But the real crux of the matter, the nitty-gritty, the meat and potatoes of the situation is that there is no heat in the building that the office is in!  The person who runs it doesn't want to turn it on and gives a different excuse for doing so any day you ask him.  This said building is a religious institution, run by religious people, so in my heart there is a little extra twist of the knife associated with the casual deceit in excuses.


It's 60 degrees in the office and with the body heat of Doris and I and a space heater, after about 4 hours it's 63 degrees.  Yahoo.
We both wear our coats the entire day.  And at 60 degrees, if I'm typing or using the mouse I wear gloves!
Both Doris and I percolate a little hotter than most people and we both prefer a cool room.  I would say that I'm getting a little education in how the cold people feel, but you know when it gets hot in there again I'll go right back to complaining and be void of sympathy. 
There are laws in the State of Minnesota for a workplace that would reverse this situation, but they don't apply to religious institutions.
And that probably explains why there is no smoke detector or sprinkler system in my office.


If I get fired for this verbal observation made public to the 3 people that read my blog I'll have lots of time to finish that binding.

Bought fabric for the binding on the quilt without bringing the quilt...
now I have to go buy more fabric for the binding.