A Sew Relaxing Week

Before I batten down the hatches and hunker down to meet Hurricane Sandy (or Frankenstorm, as forecasters are calling it) I wanted to share some of my recent sewing and quilting endeavors.

I was on vacation this week and I spent the majority of the week sewing and playing with fabric. Best. Vacation. Ever.

I spent all day Monday sewing with my sisters Jean and Jan.  I didn't get much done, just a small attempt at a wonky scrap block, because I spent a lot of time cutting up some fabric and digging through the ton of scraps that Jan was getting rid of.

I've been really into blues lately so my scrappy block is all blue:

Since "wonky" drives me nuts, I'm not overly thrilled with it, but it will make a nice potholder or mug rug once finished.

During the rest of the week I skipped from project to project, testing out things I have wanted to try.  My main focus was to complete a new mini quilt for the Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative.  It's a great charity and one that both my sister, Jean, and I have made projects for before.  The finished quilts they collect are no bigger than 9 x 12 and are auctioned off the raise money for Alzheimer's Research.

My latest quilt is one I call Shattered Blues:



Since I wasn't able to participate in the yearly walk in our area this weekend, I wanted to contribute another way.  Serious props to my sister, Jan, and  brother-in-law, Jim, and their family for participating in the walk and raising $750!! 

Another small project I completed is something I've been wanting to try and have kind of been intimidated by: a quilted notebook cover.  I'm not the best at measuring and adding seam allowances and having them actually turn out correctly but I threw caution to the wind and tried the cover.

I'm so glad I did because I love how this turned out!

It was not nearly as hard as I had thought and now I want to cover every book and notebook in my house!

I ended my week of vacation with a sweet treat for J and I this morning: Cream Cheese Cookies.

It was a simple recipe I found somewhere on Pinterest, but I can't seem to find it again.  Basically it is a package of cream cheese, a stick of butter, a box of yellow cake mix and a 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract.  You mix it together, chill it for 2 hours then roll into balls.  Then coat the balls of dough  with powdered sugar and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Once cool you sprinkle some more powdered sugar on and viola!

Not my favorite cookie in the world, but definately tasty and worth a try!

Also, my Boston's wanted their pictures taken while I was taking pics of the cookies, so here they are:

This is my 13 year old Boston Terror Terrier, Blair.  As I've mentioned prevously on the blog, she has been through a lot in her 13 years.  She has lost her left eye, most of the vision in her right eye, a toe and the majority of her hearing but if you could see her when the pizza man comes to the door, you'd never know it!  She's our pitbull in a 20 lb body.  She's never met a stranger she didn't bite terrorize let know that they were unwelcome.

This is Jovi, my 3 year old Boston.  She what you might call fat a tank chubby. It's hard to get a picture of her upright because this is literally her favorite position.  She sleeps like this and plays like this (what we call "back wiggles).  If we would staple her food bowl to the bottom of the table she would eat like this too.  Her personality is the polar opposite from Blair and she is always wagging her tail and wanting love from every stranger who passes by...not that easy to do while Blair is trying to bite those strangers at the same time.

That's it for today, I have a few more  quilty things to share soon, mostly WIPs!

Always,

K

Gift Giving

I love to give handmade gifts.  I try to give them as much as I can.  I try to not nitpick my gifts and immediatly point out the flaws when I give them. (Am I the only one who does this?  I will literally interrupt someone as they are thanking me to say "Sorry about the little bit of crookedness on the side" even though they didn't even notice it!)

Sadly, my absolute favorite coworker left our team at the end of this week.  I'm sooo sad.  She is so awesome and even though she is in California and I am in Maryland and we've only met twice I consider her a great friend.

The best way I could think of to tell her thank you for your hard work, good luck with your new job and I will miss you terribly was to make her something.  I threw around lots of ideas before I decided on a business card holder.

I was really happy with how it turned out.  I didn't use a pattern and I did have a couple of failed trials before this success, but I'm hoping she will love it as much as I do!  I'm tucking in a Starbuck's gift card and one of my own business cards so she won't forget me!

My other project this week was ruffles.  I will admit that ruffles scare me, or should I say scared me.  I am all about the ruffles now!  I read a few tutuorials I found on a google search and armed with some  good tips, I went to work.  How exciting that I got some decent ruffles on my 2nd try!  I've been wanting to try one of those multi layered ruffled towels that I've seen on Pinterest and I did it!

These ruffles are hand done, but once I fell in love with the ruffles I immediately went on Amazon.com and bought a ruffle attachment for my sewing machine.  I'm hoping it gets here before I go on vacation next week so I can spend some ruffle-y time!

This towel is made out of a cheap flour sack towel that I cut in half.  I used half for the towel and the other half I made into the ruffles.  I love the white on white look.

I'm planning to make a few towels and potholders for another team member who just got married yesterday.  (And I STILL have to do bibs for yet another team member who just had her first little one!)

Needless to say, I'm keeping busy and I couldn't be happier!  I'm hoping to get together soon with my Stitching Sisters for some girl time and sewing time! (We've happily added my sister, Lucy, to our sewing circle and she is SEW excited to quilt and sew!)

Always,
K