Down sizing

Happy picking Daffodils!

Work has been busier than normal the past week or so. I usually work 20 hours a week. But recently another manager quit, and this has shifted more hours onto me and another manager. I dont mind the extra hours for a few weeks .... little extra $$ at payday is always nice. It will be worth it when I see the paycheck .. but for now I'm missing a lot of evening time with family. :(

The flip side of missing evening family time ... is that I dont have to cook. :)

Another good thing ... is that my husband is good at laundry and dishwasher loading. :) And when I have a rough week at work, he picks up some of my slack at the house. This summer I'm going to try and reciprocate and start helping more with yard work! I have an electric weedeater that my Dad gave me ... and I know I can do that while Happy runs around in the back yard. Wont Hubby be surprised! :)

I havent had any time to do anything crafty lately. I was going to get out my scrapbooking stuff and finish up Happy's ... I stopped at 10 months and now he is 2! But I did create a book on Kodak.com and it held about 120 photo's, 26 pages and is only $30.00. That's cheaper than the empty scrapbook I bought.

Hopefully after Relay for Life settles down in April ... and we hire someone at work ... I'll have time to do something crafty. There's a few things I have mind that I'd like to make!

Old Blocks

I was going through a bag of quilt stuff that belonged to my Grandmother and Great-Grandmother. I'm nearly 34 .... and so that means that these things are OLD. :) ha! There are old feed sacks and string/thread that they pulled from the sacks to sew with!


I've been thinking of making a Lone Star quilt. I found this big block (24+ inches) in the bag today. It's a small 8 point star in the middle ... then she angled the same triangle sets around it to make a circle around the star. I love it! It's in really sad shape .... it's hand-peiced and some of the stitching is coming loose and there are some burns or holes in it too. I may end up ironing it and starching it good ... and seeing if I could put it behind glass and frame it. The colors arent great, but the history of it is deeply personal to me. To know that one of my ancestors created this with her own hand .. probably at the end of a long hard day of taking care of rowdy kids... that's special. If I can get it to lay flat, I'll frame it. :)

I originally thought this block was a bear paw block, but after looking online I'm not really sure. I have about 10 of these 12 inch blocks ... and the original paper peiced block she put together first! Anyone know the name of the above block?

This was one of my favorite blocks. There's only one of them .... but there are about 20-30 other blocks around 12 inches that are all different. I could sew them all together to make one quilt sampler.

It's fun to look through old things. Then I saw my box of new fabrics and smiled to think that one day someone would be looking through my stuff and giggling about the fabric choices I made in 2008!!! ha!

Lunch bag

I found this pattern for a lunch bag/gift sack: http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/ideas/projects/objectsgarmentsother/lunchsackgiftbags_1.html

My mom and I met at Hancocks Saturday after I got off work and we picked out our fabric/beading and button for us to each make a sack.

This morning I decided I would just go ahead and make it. Happy played with scraps of fabric and acted like he was cooking bacon!!

So the pictures above show my materials, and then the finished bag front and back. I wish it was taller, though. If I made it again I would probably add about 3-4 inches on the top. I think I would have had more material out of the fat quarters to make it taller.

It was fun to make. I'll use it for carrying a small lunch to work, or as a makeup bag on overnight trips.

Magic

That's right. Here's where the magic happens ..... my office. And here's Happy too! :)

My Dad built/made this desk/bookcase for me when I was in High School.... let's see....that would be about 18 years since he made this? Probably 1990 ..and I graduated in 1992. Eek! Long time ..

You cant tell from this picture, but there are two more shelves above that one, and each side on the bottom has two drawers. It's a nice desk and it means a lot to me. Now, I should probably get started cleaning it up. I can't stand clutter, and this is the most cluttered part of my home. But by the time I sit down at my desk at night, after work or after a long day .... I just want to veg out and play on the computer (ohhh and I miss playing at www.Pogo.com!).

So a new goal is to clean up the place where the magic of my blog happens..... sometime this month.

:)

My stash

Okay, I have more than one "stash" at the moment. This is my fabric stash. Its not too big, not too little. But looking at this picture makes me hate the store bought quilt on my bed right now... only thing is that I love the weight of the quilt. Just wish it looked like a fancy designer duvet cover instead!

In my kitchen, there is another stash ..... reeses peanut butter eggs. Ha!

Snowy day here, but it was melted by afternoon. Would have made for a nice snowy craft day inside, but instead Happy and I were outside before 8:00 am playing in the snow! We even went out before eating breakfast!

My eyes!

None of these fabrics were bought with any rhyme or reason behind them .... it was one of those days where I saw a sale and had to get something bright and pretty. Our local quilt store is suddenly closing due to the owner being ill, and everything in the store was on sale. So I got 3 yards of the yellow print, and then the rest are fat quarters. I dont know what I'll do with them, but one day I'll figure that out. Until then, these may be so bright that it'll hurt your eyes!

This store was also where I could rent time on the long arm quilt machine. I have two quilt tops that I was going to schedule time to quilt them. Now I either have to figure out how to do it at home on my machine (uhhh, yeah.. handquilting is out of the question for me!)... or find somewhere else I can rent a machine.

I guess while I'm pondering how to get these tops quilted, I can just collect fabric. After all I dont even really have a stash to work from!