pinwheels

so I don't forget.....

press seam allowance to print

sew both sets with dark on top & left on bottom and right side & bottom on top

press seams toward white this time

match center seams, top and bottom and sew

oh! say hello to my little friend (Josiah's bear pattern)

press seam allowance either way....

ta-da!!

why it matters.....

ah.... better

quilted

I finished the quilting on my taking-forever paintbox on Thursday;

the binding is going to have to wait until it gets cooler.

much cooler!

simple diagonal straight-line quilting with a curlicue border

I added a word, because I just have to...

the back does have some puckers,
but not nearly as many as this picture would have you believe.

I'm thinking this may be my Gramma's Christmas present;

she used to paint, so the 'paintbox' is appropriate.

She loves bright colors,

and she gets awful chilly in the winter.

I think she'd like snuggling under this and watching her tele.

And she loves me enough

that she won't mind my puckers and mistakes.

Yeah, 

I think this one's Gramma's.

getting there

hmm - I should have ironed before snapping a picture,
ya think?!

Not surprisingly,

given how the rest of this quilt has gone,

the back doesn't look

anything

like what I had intended
when I first set out to make it.

But I'm happy with it all the same.

I used the same dark gray sheet

for my border on the front, too.

Wonder how long it'll take me to get it quilted??

50 cent swimsuits

+

2 1/2 hours and some elastic

=

quick and easy table-topper

Wow!

It's been a whole month since I've been on here.

Not much making going on these days

unless it's graduation or LEM related.

I hand sewed a little spot that had come undone in a pant's seam

and longed for some time to just stitch.

ah well.

Tony made me promise to not do any prep work
for his little graduation party.

And I'm honoring that - mostly.

I'm good with informal

(really informal, even)

but you can't just have NO centerpiece on the tables whatsoever,

so I came up with these quick and easy tri-table-toppers.

~

First, I picked three photos

(really you could use anything!)

turned them over 

and spread rubber cement
on the outer 2  inches of each side of each picture.

While I was doing that,

Lexi was hard at work unfolding binder clips.

ignore her jammies and her lunch remnants on them...

and instead - clap with her ~ those little suckers are hard to open!

I used the clips to hold the photos in place while the glue dried

then took them off 

when I was sure the photos were good and stuck.

Viola!

Quick and Easy Centerpieces

They're not as fancy as I'd usually make,

but then,

Ton's not really a fancy kind of guy....

what's up

My knitting went from bad to worse.

When I very first started,

I planned to keep 

(maybe even frame!)

 my very first little square.

Except

it's not a square.

I had anywhere from 24 to 28 stitches on my needle

at any given time.

Apparently I have a knack for 

miraculously adding stitches.

So I would decrease

- at least I think that's what I'd do -

next thing I'd know,

I'd have an extra stitch or three.

And holes.

A couple of big holes, scattered here and there.

 ~sigh~

But I'm not giving up, I casted on (cast on? cast on-ed?) again last night.

I started with 26 stitches

and, after 14 rows, I still have 26.

So far, so good.

In addition to learning to knit,

this weekend I added another skill to my 

jack-of-many-trades master-of-none repertoire.

I like learning how to do new things,

or rather - I like being able to do many different things,

but I really want to find time to sit at my sewing machine

sometime soon.

I miss creating with good ole fabric.

And the speed of creating with fabric!

progress