Christmas Eve

Almost random thoughts...

Merry almost Christmas everyone!

We are spending the morning with our DS and DIL. I am so happy that they aren't morning people so I get to sleep in. She is promising monkey bread so we are looking forward to that.

The weatherperson is saying that we may get snow. Imagine ...a white Christmas in North Texas! How amazing is that?

Big thanks to my dear aunt in Auntlanta ( I couldn't resist) for the Honey Baked Ham. It will be the centerpiece to our Christmas dinner which may be either two, four, or six people. How is that for a definite plan.

Sad that we have to have the holiday without our DD and SIL. They will be here next month so woot woot Christmas part deaux for us.

Christmas present, ya'll!!

Prettiness

So I really liked the ________'s that I made for Christmas gifts so I decided to run out and buy some more the focus fabric. <play sad music> Apparently everyone else like Blizten by Moda and they bought some too. Like most of it but there were some other really pretty fabrics at the store. Here is what I ended up with:

I can't wait to start working with them.

Here is the current state of the studio:

It looks like I have been hard at work but it is all a lie. Work has been nutso so not much has been accomplished. I am taking Thursday off so I have big plans.

See you soon!

Before Christmas

Ah, the trauma that is the holiday season. What to get? What not to get? Did I spend enough? Did I spend too much? Will they like it? What if they hate it? Argghhh!

DH and I surprised everyone by putting up the tree last weekend.

Usually it doesn't go up until after the 15th. You could have knocked me over with a feather when hubs asks where the tree is. So off I go to the garage attic and there it is. The ornaments faired pretty well this year especially since I kept the fragile ones in the house. We did have a box of red balls that had managed to vacuum pack themselves into the container. I had to pop them out and was afraid that I would break one. Lots of our old ornaments did not make it out of the tissue paper this year. They were either too big for our five foot tree or they were just too hookey. Sorry moose collection.

And the tree won't come down until mid-January when dd and sil make it to visit. So much for the 01Jan deadline!

Happy Holidays!

Pointless Wonder

I have not made many bed quilts but here is first one I made.

I saw the pattern at Quilt Country http://www.quiltcountry.com/ in Lewisville and just had to make it. So I bough some fat quarters in  assorted batiks. The fabric may have come first since I was in an intense stash building stage back then. No idea of a unified color scheme except what said "pretty" to me.  Followed the directions and made lots blocks.

Pretty but how to make it my own and bigger?

Alex Anderson had a guest who showed an attic window setting on a quilt. That's the thing. So off I go to find blue (why blue? cause I like it!) fabrics for the sashing.

I used a fold and sew method to make the windows Now it didn't seem quite big enough so I cut squares out of  the leftovers and added side borders using the same fabric that was in the sashing.

Quilting was not so successful at first . I  had tried four or five times to quilt it but couldn't figure out how to baste it and no clue how to quilt it. It was finally basted with safety pins. I auditioned quilt ideas and even started quilting and then unquilted it.  It was finally done with a big loopy meander in the stars and swirls in the side borders.

Start to finish:Eight years.

That is why I say I am not a bed quilt kinda girl!

Would I use the pattern again: Maybe. Great directions but might want to make smaller blocks.

Keep or give away:Keep!

Happy Sewing!

Odds and Ends

Today is a glass half full, glass half empty day.

Half full.

The lost licence has been found. It had fallen out of my purse and into one of the files in the drawer where I keep said purse. I opened the file this morning to file a vacation trade away and there it was. Son of a gun! So I am happy that I found it and it is not out wandering around the universe.

The glass has a crack.

DS has a cute little Versa that is about to lose it's warranty. It has an engine issue that is, thankfully, covered. He calls today to tell me that is car is very, very ill and is being towed to the dealership where he works. It must be mostly fixed because I thought I saw him zip past as I was sitting at a light on my way home. Text. Text. Yep, that was him.

Etched glass

So my Christmas projects are coming along. They would go faster if I would just sit down and actually just sew the things together. I was up early this morning and got the remaining ones pinned. Unfortunately, my excuses to veg are bigger than my desire to be done. This week has been a bear at the office. It was exercise day. And...I am just bone tired. So maybe I will wake early tomorrow inspired and do some sewing in the morning before I head into the office for day three of post-bid run hell.

OH!

New favorite product alert. We have hard water here and the laundry feels icky. Add borax and ta da...the natural water softening properties make the laundry nice again. Well, almost as nice as you can get old towels to be. Be warned however. You may occassionly find what looks like little white rocks in the washer. They are very loud in the dryer.













Craft on!

Thread Storage

I am looking for some suggestions.

Current system:

All of my thread is stored on those nifty racks that you get at the craft store. They look pretty but...1. all my thread is getting dusty...and 2 they get in the way... and 3 just when you get one spool fourteen other ones jump off as if they are all volunteering for duty. Nice of them to volunteer but really, I only needed one. Famous piano quilt guy uses jars. They look great but no place to put them. Even Pinterest failed on this one but...

New idea!

Thinking of getting gallon plastic bags? Store threads by color and tuck in with same color fabric drawer. I foresee tangling thread tails in my future but at least they will be clean and they can hang out with the embroidery flosses.

So looking for help here ladies and gents.

Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll

A big Happy Thanksgiving ya'll!

Hope this day finds you filled with peace and contentment and the wonderful ability to be thankful for the blessings in your life.

What a week so far! Unfortunately, not much happened in the studio this week. I was under the weather Monday and didn't even make it to the office. We have huge deadlines this week so it has been crazy. We have another deadline tomorrow and on Saturday so I will not be enjoying an extended holiday but I do get comp time so I am sure that I can put that time to good use. Like going to an appointment or two. And sewing!

If you get a chance, go visit Quilter's Blogs at http://www.quilterblogs.com/. It is a compendium of blogs and I have found some really interesting ones out there. They have added my blog to their roster and I am so excited! Thank you Quilter's Blogs! Welcome to my world!

Sewing plan:
     Complete the awesome Christmas presents
     Make a hanging sleeve and figure out how to put more applique on the quilt I want to enter into the     Dallas Quilt Celebration in March
     Add the eyes to the crows on the wall hanging.

Here is pattern for the wall hanging called Out to Lunch by Debi Hubbs who make the most whimsical patterns. Love 'em all!

Realization

So I am hard at work this morning cutting up the fabric I just bought and loving how it looks together.

"Hey, I should take a picture."

So I grab my camera and take a quick snap. Oh goody, I should post the pic to the blog when I have the next thought.

"Hey, the people that you are planning on sending these to for Christmas presents will see them."

Which brings up the question of whether to post since I have not a clue who is reading the blog or not post since I hope they are reading the blog. So...not posting.

Lunch:Hard Eight Barbeque in Coppell. If you haven't been there, drop everything and get over there right now. I have developed a mac and cheese addiction (yes, I know why am I eating mac and cheese at a bbq place?) Totally yummy and your car will smell awesome. Unlike my car that now smells like car cleaning chemical.

Go here! :)

Name

HI all!

So I took my DIL to Cabbage Rose and to the Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild last night. Found exactly the fabric I was searching for to make Christmas presents. The ladies at the guild are quite a handful. Maybe a little too lively for my quiet DIL but I had so much fun. Almost makes me wish I didn't live in the mid-cities area. Still trying to decide if I want to make this a regular thing because I did not enjoy driving through downtown Fort Worth traffic (about 35 minutes) but then it didn't take anytime at all to drop her off and get on home myself. I liked them waaaay better than some of the other guilds I have visited though.

Our cat making sure the newspaper doesn't fly off.

Suggestions needed...

I need to change the name of my blog. It is too close to too many other folks which is what I get for not Googling my ideas first and Blogger let me use it so I thought it was okay. Wrong. I have been trying combos of our address, hobbies, nicknames, etc. Anything that someone else isn't using.

Here are a few ideas:

   1. The Pig and the Butterfly (I like butterflies and hubby is a ham operator)
   2. White Willow Way Studio (can you tell I like alliteration?)
   3. 28 Willow Street (combo of old addresses)
   4. Saturnfrost Studio (my fairy name according to the fairy name generator)
   5. Old Denver Highway House (what we called our first house since it was on what was originally the road from Colorado Springs to Denver)
   6. Amnezia Annie (my log in for streetofcards.tv in Las Vegas)
   7. flygirlaa (not that it sounds in any way craftish)

Anyway, still working on the name idea and going slowly insane and taking suggestions.

Craft on!

Wordless Wednesday

Guess where I was.

FacePalm

Don't you just love that phrase? It completely sums up my life lately.

I managed to lose my driver's licence. How you ask? Well, I NEVER take it out of my wallet. Ever. I had to take it out to show the nice people when I wanted to vote. I remember looking at it and thinking, "Wow, I have to get this renewed next year," and shoved it back in my purse. Didn't stick it back in its slot in my wallet. Just tossed it in because I was so eager to go vote.

Time passes.

I open my wallet yesterday and have an egads moment. My credit card and dl are missing. What?!?! So I found the credit card in the back pocket of my jeans where I stuck it when we gassed the car on Saturday. I could not begin to recall why I would have taken the card with the nifty picture out for. So I go on a treasure hunt. No good. Still can't remember why I would have taken it out. Did someone steal it? Nah. Ding! The light goes off as I am climbing into bed. Yeah...the voting people. Needless to say, looked in every handbag and every pair of pants and even stood on my head in the backseat of the car hoping that it would be somewhere. Nope. It has vanished off the face of the planet. So off I toddle  to the lovely DPS place, sans dl mind you. Fifteen minutes later I emerge from the place with two 8.5 x 11 pieces of paper that say I can drive ( hush kids) and off I go.

Lost my licence...face palm...

 Quilting news: Didn't get much done on the nutjob project I started. It is insane. The blocks are basically 6x6. I decided to make 150 of them in case I ddin't like all of them. They are foundation pieced using my scraps. It will be interesting but still...nutjob. Here is a few of the ones that are the farthest along

At least it matches the vision I have in my head. I am just impatient to get them done.

Taking a Craftsy class on designing modern quilts with Weeks Ringle. She gave a lecture I went to in Houston and got the chance to talk to her. Really liking the class.

Laters!

Susie Q

Beginning

Welcome to Susie Q Quilts!

Where to begin...

At the beginning, of course.

The whole quilting and patchwork thing didn't make sense to me. Why in God's green earth would you take perfectly good fabric and cut it up into little bits and sew it back together? I would occasionally watch Eleanor Burns (did she really just throw that on the floor?) and just not get it. There were a few other shows on PBS about quilting and, although I loved to sew, the quilting ones continued to mystify me. Even Nancy Zeeman's forees into patchwork and quilting just didn't do it for me.

Then 911 happened.

It shook my world. I was scared and afraid. What could they do next? I thought the world was ending. Really. My airline took a huge hit and the world that I always thought was safe and stable suddenly wasn't. I found myself searching for comfort in an uncomfortable world.

Along came quilting.

I loved to sew and I recalled how much comfort I got from so old quilts that my father's aunts had made. The quilts themselves were long gone but the memory of how happy they made me remained. The memory of how they seems to make every sore throat better, every upset tummy soothed.  How that soft yumminess felt and how the colors fed the eyes. Soothed. That was what I was looking for.

So I bought a book and bough some fabric and just started. Nobody told me that you had to go to classes. Besides I had been perfectly capable of teaching myself other things so why not this? There is no technique I won't try, no idea I won't pursue, and if you ask my husband, no fabric I won't buy! I get so tickled when I talk to other quilters and tell them, "No, I've never taken a class." You have to take a class? You have to have a pattern? Why wait...just do it!

Below is a picture of my first little project ( I almost always call them projects instead of quilts because then everyone thinks they are those bed sized monstrosities)

The book said that it was four blocks with the plain one in the middle. So I thought what if... and added more blocks. Rebel that I am.

So that was the beginning.

More later,

Susie Q