Fabric Acquisition Adventure

It has been the Year of Fabric Acquisition the past few months, starting at the end of last year.  There have been some real good sales and I opened a few too many of the emails coming into my inbox every day.

I bought a large amount of fabric from Connecting Threads, telling myself that the Year of Fabric Acquisition was over. I had quite enough fabric, thank you very much. But what was I supposed to do when I found out that there was going to be a big warehouse sale where things were up to 75% off? And especially since that the said warehouse was right here in my hometown?

I convinced my sister to come with me and got the free tickets online. We wanted to get an early start, but the tickets for people came before 8 was already sold out.  That's okay, we like sleeping in and decided to go at a more reasonable time.  We wound up getting there a few minutes before eleven and before we even got completely into the parking lot, the workers told us that there was a 2 hour wait. They would give us another ticket to guarantee our place in line and we could have lunch or whatever and come back in 2 hours.

We weren't expecting our adventure to include time away from the shopping!  We drove around to see what looked interesting. No, not the casino. We decided to go to the flea market!

Every vendor at the flea market only accepted cash and the ATM wasn't branded by any bank, and I decided not to take any chances. We enjoyed looking around and seeing what they had. Definitely worth coming back for, with cash! We did hobble together enough cash to buy a big bowl of fruit to share. She asked us if we wanted chamoy sauce on it. What? It is a pepper sauce. We said yes and it was quite delicious. It was a trip back memory lane since these tables are from the original Wendy's. It has vintage advertisements which are even more vintage since the tables are now vintage!

I also found some perle cotton thread at 25 cents a spool.



We headed back to the Connecting Threads sale, and since we had tickets and our group had already gone in, we were able to get ahead of all the people standing there.

The whole warehouse didn't have things on sale, but there was a big area in the front that had a lot of yarn, and quilting supplies, and a little bit of other art, which was my sister's lure.

We had Ikea bags which I filled up. They had charm packs and books for a dollar each.  They had other things, like kits, at 50% off. Yards of fabric were already cut and were $2.50 each. My nephew was the bag man.

Then it was time to get back in line to go to the cashier. That is where we got to see the actual warehouse region. Go down one row and admire all the boxes and rolls of fabric.

Then down another row and yet another. It was nice talking to the line mates, who drove in from Indiana for the sale.  After a while, I went back and got some more stuff while my sister and nephew waited for me. I am glad I went back because they I got more quilting books for a $1. There were plenty of people who were working there and they were all very helpful in finding things.

We finished our adventure at a Yemeni restaurant for some Chicken Shwarma.

Quilt Reveal: Eyes

When my calendar said it was time to post the Mini of the Month for May, my first thought was to delete the reminder. After all, making a mini a month is optional, and I can just skip it this month.  And I didn't have any ideas. But it didn't take too long to come up with ideas and requests for compromises.  What if I make something quick, something out of the material that was on the table without looking for anything new?  How hard would that be?

Then I remembered the Sacred Threads challenge to make a quilt with eyes. They had a specific size requirements that was a reasonable amount and they gave a reasonable amount of time to make them, but of course, I didn't manage to make the quilt in time.  Since I hadn't planned on actually submitting my quilt, the deadline was pretty arbitrary anyway. And with the Mini of the Month challenge, the size was pretty arbitrary also.

I had a strip of fabric cut for the yo-yo circles I decided to use for the background and a strip of something (Tmtex, Kraftex?) that could serve as a batting.  I chose the fabrics but didn't get around to actually making it until today.

 I decided to make the eyes simple, without any eyelashes, no hair for the face or ears either. I used the reverse button to make the eyebrows.

That triangle insisted on becoming the nose. The quilt looked better with it than without it.

The pieces were cut out and sewn on, pretty much like I make my 365 circles. No glue or pinning required.  If the pieces move, they were meant to move.

I folded over the backing to the front to make the binding.

It was a fun quick project.

Some More Index Cards

It is time to show my progress for my 15 Minutes of Stitching for the Week.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 22

I made some rail fence blocks this week, but haven't pressed them yet. They are similar to all the other rail fence blocks so I don't think you will miss not having a photo of them. I will take credit for two days of stitching.



15 Minute sessions of stitching this month: 2out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 116 out of 153 sessions

Success Rate: 76%

Another small drop, but hopefully I will be able to increase my numbers during the rest of the year.

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

One Index Card a Day

So you can have something visual, I'll show you my progress on the One Index Card a Day (ICAD). I'm not good at the "a day" part, but I think I have a good showing regardless.

They are obviously not in any kind of order. This is the latest one.

 This is me and Zeus on our daily walk.

 I am working on layering. Adding interest to the background as well as the foreground. This one took a long time to do.

The challenge designer offers prompts to help give ideas of what to do. This one is based on a prompt, something about making a title card for the set of cards.  Maybe next time I will actually make a title card that describes what is going on.

 I cut out a doodle of some flowers and pasted it on a card and added a quote.

Favorite Photos from May

Once a month (or less), I look into my folder of photos I have taken during the month, and show you my favorites.  As usual, I tend to look up at the sky and down on the ground, with an occasional glimpse straight ahead.

Here are my favorites from May.

So many maple tree helicopters flying around this day. They came down all at once this year.

The rest of these photos were taken in Austin, Texas.

These beautiful birds are grackles. They are loud.

Linked to:
Wandering Camera

1930s fabric

Why am I showing you these yo-yos  made from an English rose cottage garden fabric when I have titled the post 1930s fabric? Well, first of all, I don't really know what 1930s fabric looks like. Then I had a fat quarter pack of fabric that looked like it might fit the 1930s theme, at least Shasta style.  I bought two fat quarter packs and this was the other one. I thought these fabrics would fit right in with them since they have a similar pink / blue / green color scheme. So when I started to make the yo-yos, I just grabbed this fat quarter pack and started cutting the circles. This was my on-the-go project that fits easily in the suitcase pocket.

The other project I have been working on is the Seiring genealogy scrapbook.  It is a long-term project, just adding a step at a time when I am in the mood.  I used my stitchery project on the cover. Might as well get some use out of it. As you recall, I got the kit from the thrift store and it is made out of yarn. I'm bad enough with floss, but I think this adds a sweet old fashioned look to the book, and it feels good too since there are two layers fluffy batting underneath the stitchery.

 I haven't added the genealogy material in them, but the pocket pages are sewn in.

I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me when I came back from my trip. There was a box sitting on the porch.  My house sitter hadn't been picking up my mail, so I am glad it was still there! Wendy from The Constant Quilter sent me a big box of fabric for my yo-yo project. This is a set of real 1930s fabrics.

She also sent a big set of reproduction fabrics.Thank you so much for this huge packet!  I will be sure to make good use of them.

As you can see, my yo-yo fabrics that look like fabrics that look like 1930s fabrics are a bit off the mark of 1930s theme.  I haven't decided yet whether to turn those English garden yo-yos to their own quilt or still incorporate them into a 1930s quilt.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 21

Looks like I am farther and farther behind in reporting my stitching progress.  I know that I have been cutting circles and sewing yoyos and the genealogy book also involved stitching.  Since it has been about a month since I reported, and I am not sure how much stitching I really got in, I will estimate low and say about 50%.


15 Minute sessions of stitching this month: 14 out of 28
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 114 out of 146 sessions

Success Rate: 78%

If I had been keeping better track, maybe I wouldn't see such a big drop from 85% to 78%, but hopefully I will be able to increase my numbers during the rest of the year.


Linked to:
Monday Making 
15 Minutes to Stitch 
Friday Foto Fun 
UFO Busting 63

Yo Yo's and Cards

I've been thinking about the yo-yo quilt I saw in New Orleans, and although I thought that recreating it in muslin would be striking, I figured I would get bored pretty quickly making a million yoyos out of the same fabric, so I have been practicing with some 30s-like fabric. I'll show you when I make more progress. So far I am just figuring out how to make a yo yo that looks good using the clover yoyo maker. I've watched a video and realized my mistake so I think I should be good to go now.

Instead of yo-yos, I figured I would show you some more cards I made this week.

More Rails and 1CAD

I am late in posting my week's progress, but better late than never.

15 Minutes to Stitch

I am doing two ongoing projects. One is the 15 minutes to stitch whereby I try to stitch for 15 minutes a day.  Last week, I worked on three different projects. One was sewing more rail fence blocks. I also worked on my genealogy scrapbook, which is mostly paper but does involve sewing. I was showing a friend at work my book of quilts, and she asked me to make one for her, so I looked for fabric on sale. She designed the quilt and I spent some time figuring out the math to make it the size she wanted.



15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7

In making this report, I see  have been negligent in reporting my progress.  I was looking at 111 total sessions, but it's been 125 days. I don't know how much sewing I have done in those missing 14 days. I know I have been trying to sew every day, but I also know I've missed days. To keep myself honest, I will take credit for half the time.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 107 out of 125 sessions
Success Rate: 86%

 My 2018 end of the year average was 85% and I hope to beat that this year, so I am still on course for this year

One Card a Day

In my last post, I talked about the one card a day that starts in June. 

 

Being the rule follower that I am, I have already started these little cards.

Just having fun and being playful. I don't think of it as making art, but just having fun putting something on these small index cards.

Here are some cards, all together. The first one is watercolor only, the second one is watercolor and marker, and the third one was marker only.

Linked to:
Off the Wall Friday