Where to start?

It's been a while. A busy while. And posts have been written in my head but never on my 'puter

I know you all are just bursting to know all about the Puyallup Expo. Well, I just say it was a blast. For the Seattle weather in March, the weather was ok. A little chilly, a little rainy, a little sunny, a little breezy. Yep, Seattle in [insert your favorite month here]. I "only" attended on Thursday and Friday, took a few classes, and did a boat load of shopping. For whatever reason (I refuse to blame myself for this) my camera battery was completely dead - so I have NO, NOT ONE, photo of the Expo!

My best class was a serger class: "Getting to know your serger" I believe it was called. We got to use the Babylock Imagine which was awesome. NAYY, I have a Bernina which is a fantastic machine, but that air threader was like magic! Like an automatic garage door opener or a self timer on a coffee pot. Probably good I DON'T have one, I'd spend all my sewing time rethreading it just to watch it do it. And the wave stitch is pretty cool, though not a deal maker like the threading. **ahem**, sorry, I wandered off for a threading second. The class was great, we got a nice book with nice directions, fabric samples to try out the technique, hands on help. It was a great intro to the real capabilities of a serger. Most of what we learned is available on any serger - only the wave is BL or high-end model only.

My other classes were all lecture format. Interesting but not really blogworthy. The notions class was fun though. Just a little, tiny bit enabling. Just a **ahem** little. Funny thing was that I'd already bought about 1/2 the stuff she showed us, on my first booth stop on Thursday. Great minds and all that.....

Karen took many more classes than I did, so that meant I had lots of **yea!** shopping time. I did take some photos when I got home and played around in my sewing room. Zippers were a big item this year. Fun and fancy and not available at JoAnn's. So I picked up a couple, including a pack from Vogue for $7 for the bag of them. I bought long ones, for the most part because they're much easier to shorten than to lengthen. And fun fun fun notions: Notions that photographed very poorly. But include binder makers, a threaded needle keeper (at 6 o'clock), some markers from the Japanese notions shop, some glass head pins, an aqua Grabbit, double hole machine needles (who knew they made these?), and so on. Back to closures are buttons, buttons, who's got the buttons? I got the buttons: That also didn't photo well - but are fun and lovely. The two cards are old glass buttons. And finally I went a bit overboard with folder elastic. But I'll get over it, I'm sure. And a couple of panels to quilt. Don't yet know how I'm going to do them - but I'm sure it will be fun and interesting some rainy weekend. That's the last of the shopping.

We did a little driving around, had a bit of wine, a bit of food and some catching up. Then I flew over to the Richland area for a couple of days.

Look out Expo, here we come!

I'm sitting at a hotel bar right now near the Seattle/Tacoma airport. Karent will be joining me in a bit and tomorrow morning we will hit the Puyallup Sewing Expo. I went to the one in Novi a couple of years and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. This will be Karen's first venture into such a venue. We both have classes scheduled for early tomorrow morning and I have worked lots of shopping time into my schedule. On the hunt, primarily, for trims and notions though if I find a nice piece of faux fur... Emma Seabrook had some in Novi that I'm still sad I didn't buy. But since my fabric closet is full I really don't want to add to it right now. (Yeah, I know, check back later to see how strong I was when faced with row after row after row after row after row after row....).

I got a few photo's uploaded last weekend, though I didn't have time to post. Now I have loads of free time since Seattle's weather has just turned typical (yes, that means it's raining right now oops, spoke too soon, now the sun is shining through the rain - there must be a rainbow somewhere!). So, without further ado (and I am a big ado-lover):

The brown slacks that have been pining away on my table after the big pocket adventure. Or, in other terms, proof that I CAN and DID to those dang pockets. And why they couldn't just be skipped (though Lord knows I would have at one point). A bit of wonkiness at the waist band, but not too bad. The buttonhole went in first time and that may be a first. And a peek inside. Though the wool is pretty lightweight and (I think) blended with silk, I wanted a less heavy waist band. SOOOO glad I did this or I wouldn't have had enough fabric to do the pockets (3 times). Plus I love a bit of bling inside. I still have more of this fabric, too. I made a nightie out of it last year.

And, I've kept this under wraps. But I have a new addition to the family. Well, the sewing family. Introducing...... Lizzy. When I was kid and in trouble my dad would call me "Lizzy" - so when I heard that yelled, I ran. Oddly, he also called me that on the few occasions it fell to him to wake me up in the mornings. But now that he's gone, I think Lizzy needs to come out of hiding. She came from JA's the last time dress forms were on sale. Free shipping. She's not the highest tech form you'll ever see but I think she'll work well for me for a while. And, high on my list, her waist length was able to adjust enough for me.

Ok, I suppose I've rambled on enough for a while now. Even the dog is bored.

No, wait, she usually looks like this when I sew.

The haul, ya'll

Karen and I hit Michael's (A Fabric Place) this morning, after a leizurely start and an early lunch. Michael always has the best wools. Period. Hands down. And no contest. So, without further ado (and I do like ado), I introduce you to the newest members of my stash (thanks, Kristine, for that phrase - I really like and and plan to keep it). The large plaid on the far left is 100% wool and the checks are really large, with a 4" repeat. I do love me a black and white, and a check. So there you have 2 in one. It will either become a "Channel" jacket or a pencil skirt with part of the fabric on the bias. Hmmm. Next row are the browns. The top and bottom are wools, for slacks most likely. The center is a crisp silk for a blouse or maybe just a shell. Far right are also wool (remember we were at Michael's), the top will become a skirt (and Karen bought some of this fabric, too. In fact she found it and gets all the credit). The lower right is also a wool, made for Lowe Donald of Sevile Row. Slacks for sure.
And there's an update for my newest quilt. It is all pieced (and partially quilted, but no picture of that). Seeeeeee:
Thanks for checking in, we're off to order some Chinese food and open another bottle of wine. It's all good.

A brand new weekend

In the interests of keeping all my readers jealous, nay, pea green with envy (to quote Scarlett O'Hara) my BFF from forever is in town and we're spending the weekend acquiring. That's shopping to the rest of you guys.
She arrived late yesterday afternoon and we managed to obtain a couple pairs of new footwear, some cosmetics and even some sewing/crafting stuff in the brief time we had before it was time for pizza, wine and the West Wing, season 2, disc 2, second side.
We just hit Hobby Lobby - which was every bit as underwhelming as it was the first time I was in there for their grand (mediocre, if you ask me) opening. And JoAnn's so Karen could stock up on crochet hooks and I could get some fabric for binding my husbands quilt that is YES! ready for binding. Well, almost, but close enough that I wanted the fabric on hand.
Over the rest of the weekend we plan to do some more intense (read expensive) fabric acquisitioning. Maybe even with photos if I can remember to charge my camera and don't get overwhelmed by the fiber gods and forget to pull it out.
So wish us luck, sisters, we going in......

I was asked, today, over on Stitcher's Guild about my Aruba waves quilt. In response to the question I realized I'd written quite a bit on how I did this quilt. So, since I'm always looking for fodder, I mean fascinating and meaningful dialog, for my blog I thought I'd pop over here and put some more information on it.

The quilt was done from a jelly roll or maybe honey bun (which is larger? this was the larger roll) knock off I bought at JA's just because I loved the colors. I'm a sucker for pretty colors all rolled up together and it kept grabbing at me as I waited at the cutting table. Then I didn't know what to do with the pieces (not the first time that's happened, I assure you ) so I just started looking around for things to do with strips that didn't take a boat load of cutting. And the French Braid kept popping up as I surfed the web. I took the strips I had and cut them down as the pattern suggested (found it on the 'net - it was free. Google French Braid quilts) and then just started piecing. This is the link I used, it was free, easy to follow and well deserves my link back to the site, as all my piecing techniques for this came from that site. It's a very simple quilt to put together. I did some maths so I would divide out my cut down strips to make the use up my strips and make the pieces the same size. I divided my cut strips between 2 colors: Blues and everything else. And then pieced at random with the blues on one side and the everything else on the other side (for the "wave" affect). I actually put the strips in 2 bags & pulled them out randomly and pieced the number for each section (3 sections) and then trimmed to make it rectangular. This trimming always hurts a bit - you loose quite a bit on the tops and bottoms. The only time I didn't follow actual randomness was if I got 2 of the exact same right next to each other and that may have gone by the wayside towards the end as the fabric selections weren't distributed evenly. Of course after trimming the sections, putting them together would have been too small so I trotted off to Hancock's and found the edging & back fabric - I got very lucky there with the fabric I found - it was a great color and even has a slight 'wave' design. And, believe it or not, I owned the binding fabric that I'd purchased for some fabric postcards that I didn't get to participate in. I'd wanted to piece the binding (like Kathryn did - I'm such a copy-cat) but didn't have enough pieces left. I used almost every scrap so I was quite pleased to have some purple quilting cotton just lying around. Seriously. I free-motion quilted it - only 2nd FM project ever and the first was just place mats - using purple machine quilting thread. (if you look very closely you will see where I did some wavy quilting down each strip - I'm slowly picking that out as I don't like it) It doesn't show up much but it was fun and I love purple. Oh, and the gecko - when I first posted the pic and called it Aruba Waves, my friend said it did remind her of Aruba but was missing the gecko. So I laid it aside for quite a while (and a move and family disaster along the way) until I remembered one odd night that I HAD the gecko - on the t-shirt I bought in ....wait for it.... ARUBA! It's quilted with warm and natural, I believe. That stuff makes my nose itch until it's all done so I need to find another batting for the next round.

It made a nice TV watching quilt - not too hot and a good size. It would be too small for a bed, though approaching twin sized.

Nothing much...

Just a quick update, gotta keep up the readership, no?

We were up early this morning as there was a house showing from 10:30-12:30. I cleaned last night and finished this morning and we left and had a leisurely, early lunch. It isn't the custom for agents to leave their cards in this area but I know they were here: one of the males used my bathroom. Is is weird that this really bothers me? He could have put the seat down and I'd've never known. hmmmfffff.

I have my serger class this afternoon at G Street. The class is $85. How much for the fabric I find on THE WALL? Well, a girl's got to have something to sew on her new serger, doesn't she? Doesn't she? I need a loud "Hell, yeah!' here. Let me hear it!

And a sadder ending for the day's posing. My BFF's dog passed away this morning. She (the dog, not friend) hasn't been well this summer/fall and then slid fast this last week. She was much thinner and calmer when I visited earlier this month. It used to be hard for me to tell the difference between her 2 corgis, but this time it was sadly easy to pick Bridgett out. She still ran to the door to great you, but within a few minutes she was back under the bed. Then she was sick all night a few nights ago and has been with the vet since then. Karen had to go out of town so she was due to be boarded. My heart is with my friend who didn't get to say good-bye to her pet. I'm sorry, she will be missed.

Acquiring, part deux

I told you, when we last visited, that I had more to share. I've been holding on to a surprise for as long as I can stand it. When I returned from visiting Karen last week I brought something else home with me.

A SERGER! SQUEEEE! Did I say SQUEEE?!? Yep, I did. I've actually serged, in my house, in my kitchen, on my table. My son wanted to see how it operated and I was willing to hang out in front of the TV while I played around with it a bit. I had to get some serger thread and then I tied it off to the threads still in the machine. I think it's not quite right, but it sews, um, serges! SQUEEE! I still need the manual - it didn't turn up in Karen's loft. I ordered one from a local dealer that I expected to come in this week but didn't (no squeee, there - 'ja notice?) And I'm going to take a class at G Street next weekend. Another week is a long time! I did download an older model that's close but no cigar. Mine is computerized and the manual isn't. Among other differences. But it's helping.

Now, remember I had to get serger thread. Well, no trip to Joann's is complete with a run through the fabric department. I really was going to be a good girl. Really I was. But, I wasn't. This just jumped out at me, ran up to the cutting table and out to my car. It's a wool/poly blend, and the check is as large as it appears - I should have put a ruler on it for photographing, it's about a 2" square. I'm not sure which side I like best. The houndstoothy side or the plaid side. The hounds tooth was showing on the bolt and I've developed an unhealthy obsession for hounds tooth. Seriously, I may need a program. The first step is admitting you have a problem, right?

And, in closing, the complete haul. And a dog.

Been aquiring a bit....

As previously reported, I spent last weekend at my friend Karen's House. You saw a couple of her newly acquired machines in my previous post. Now it's time to see what I got. Because we didn't JUST play with vintage sewing machines. We also shopped. Kind of a lot. I even spent a bit of time shopping on line while there.

When Carolyn first posted her Fabricmart shopping spree, I promptly "ran" over there and put the yellow/black/white floral border print in my shopping cart. And then procrastinated and it was gone when I went to check out. I was quite sad but decided it was meant to be, put on my big girl pan-ties and moved on. Then I heard via the Internet grape vine that there was more available. Well, not to miss out twice, this time I double-timed it over and snagged my own panels. I also picked up some navy Vera Wang (far right), also Vera Wang black/white wool, and a grey wool. All really nice, though the navy is shinier than I'd expected. But it's lovely stuff. And because I'm an odd sucker for mysteries, I purchased a mystery package for $5. Not fabric, just sewing stuff. And I was quite pleasantly surprised. There are around 15 zippers (well worth the $5 all by themselves), about 5 yards of some odd, blue homedec trim (hmmmm), about 5 yards of elastic, a big handful of prefilled bobbins that don't fit my machine, some other trims and a WALKING FOOT! I haven't tried it yet, I have one for my Viking but I'll give it a shot on my New Home and Singer. And a couple yards of some blue lining fabric. A nice little grab bag.

When Karen dropped off her machine at the repair/quilting shop I browsed through some boxes of vintage patterns. For $1 each I picked up 3. I love the neckline on the Vogue - not the collar, but the pleats. Remember Vogue Paris Originals? Take a look at the sleeves on the short sleeved shirt. I love the way they're attached. And the long sleeved shirt still has the monogram stencils. Eat your heart out, Laverne. They also had some UT cotton that's hard to find when you don't live in East Tennessee.

Now, lest you think it was all fun and games, there was an ugly wind storm that knocked down trees and power lines. This tree was in Karen's front yard. And to escape the dark and powerless house we had to drag off more than a few branches off the road.

I have a few more things to share, but will save them for another day. And don't forget to change your clocks! (next week - um, thanks Carolyn - where's my embarrassed face? and glad I didn't mess with my clocks!)

Rambling

We had a new Hobby Lobby open up in Columbia this month. I was quite excited, waited breathlessly (OK, not really. I did breathe) for it to open and have a chance to check it out. And may I just say "meh". I was soooooo disappointed. The sewing area was all pink and brown quilting fabric with about 3 feet each for zippers, trims or thread. Yarn was all Michael's rejects. And the home dec fun items all picked over. I was looking for pillow forms for a friend - they had 3 total in the required size. I wanted a large wall hanging for my bathroom - the isle was empty. Did they underestimated the excitement and demand (actually a common theme in this particular area - we are grossly under served by a number of businesses, including groceries and restaurants)? Do they normally not restock regularly? And their prices? Certainly nothing to get excited about. I was soooooo disappointed. Only spent my friend's money.
So I packed up my pillow forms into my son's little car and headed back to JoAnn's. Safe and comfortable with pillow forms by the score all at BOGO. And a line an hour long at the cutting table (that helped me stay away from the yard goods - ha! when did you last hear THAT phrase?) Picked up my black and navy thread, a few black zippers and some quilting gloves. [Melody - I tried my shower gloves - thank you! - they helped a lot, but these were just $3 and I needed my shower gloves back in, well, the shower]. My son's little car now looks like the Marshmallow Man exploded in it. I've got to get out there today with my Ikea bag and bundle all these pillows up for my weekend.
My weekend that my BFF and I are going to spend serging, shopping, watching TV, drinking wine and yapping. Likely lots of yapping. And perhaps some pillow sewing.
And maybe by tonight you'll finally get the finished photo of the Aruba Waves quilt that I started oh so long ago in a land far far away. Now complete with a gecko and free-motion quilted (see gloves above). I should not name my projects, they become much too personal and then I'm afraid to finish them because I'm afraid I'll mess them up. This sat way too long while I stewed over the quilting. I also didn't have enough fabric for the binding, but I sat down in the floor on Friday evening and dug through my cotton scraps box. See Elizabeth, this is why we keep our scraps. I found a quarter yard or so of some pretty purple batik I'd bought for postcards that I never got to make. It coordinates very well with the quilt (in fact, I did my quilting in purple thread). I got the strips cut and the quilt squared off yesterday, so I just need to piece the binding (I'll make it straight - not bias, there's no need in bias for a square quilt) and put it on.
So after sleeping way in (for me, anyway, and the dog who was very patient for her breakfast for a change), I'm going to grab another cup of coffee and go do some binding. Have a nice Sunday everyone - or Monday almost for our friends "Down under"

It snowed, I sewed

It snowed. A lot. If I could find my camera cable I would show you my patio with drifts past my waist and some cool (ha! pun soooo intended) cornices and shapes. We watched season one of the Tudors while about 18" of the white stuff piled up outside. Timing was perfect, it started snowing while we walked home from dinner Friday night, allowing for a decent commute home and even stopping at the store. It wound down around 8 or 9 on Saturday night. We live right on a main highway so we could see the plows come by at regular intervals. They expect the Metro to be up and running in the morning for rush hour. Most of Saturday regular TV was displaced for "Storm Watch, the Blizzard of 2009". But, yes, it was a lot of snow.

I traced BWOF November 2009 trousers #122 this morning. I must be out of practice, as the whole tracing and cutting thing consumed an extraordinary amount of time. Or maybe it was the company of my husband who needed something every other minute. Or most likely both. I'm using a slightly stretch wool blend from (drum roll here, please......) G Street's $2.97/yard wall. What else would you expect? Seriously. It's a brownish-gray pinstripe purchased on my last run through there when my friend was here for a conference. She stayed the weekend and, of course, we shopped. But what a chore this tracing was. I really must keep up my skills, this took all morning! As for the sewing, back darts in and one back leg seams finished. Not much, is it? Maybe will get a little more, but not likely. Need to get some packing done for our Christmas trip, then I'll be gone for a week. I SWEAR I will sew over New Years. I Promise! It was a bit of a leap to get back in there and get started.

And speaking of starting. Or stopping. The vest/waistcoat that has been languishing for months has been officially banished to UFO land. I am forced to admit that I don't know how to finish this. I have the outside together and the lining together, but don't know how to make them into a lined vest. So I rescued my pins, labeled the damn thing, and shoved it on a shelf. Pah!

And I want to thank Cidell for reminding me of my love for this dress:

From the September issue that I circled and then never got to look at again. Don't know about the super short sleeves, though, or it would be on my New Year's sewing list. Maybe back on the shelf until spring. I do really love it, though. Thanks, Cidell.

Ladybug, Ladybug

Sorry, all. The Ladybug was a gift purchased at a farmer's market in a small town in Southwestern, Virginia. It is made from wool from the seller's sheep and quite cute, I agree. I had to add eyes, things without eyes kind of creep me out (years ago someone gave me the Micky-D's Beanie Baby "Lizzie the Lizzard", as my name is Elizabeth - it hung out on my cube wall like any self respecting lizard would do, but I had to put push-pins on for eyes. Those pale cave fish are kind of freaky, too). And the nose just followed. That was when I really saw the porcupine in it, with all the pins everywhere.

Absolutely Thrilled

And scared spitless (as my mother would have said).

BWOF blouse is finished except buttonholes/buttons and a hem. Not scared about the hem, terrified of the buttonholes. I know this is fear from my old machine, but I've worked so hard, I like this fabric so much and it's turned out sooooo nice that I'm terrified the whole thing will be ruined at this last step. My machine picks buttonholes by default (I can change, it just a suggestion) and I like the choice for light woven - it's a rounded (not keyhole) on both ends style. I will iron on tearaway stabilizer before starting. And I don't think I'm going to put them above one above the bust. I would never button that high and I've seen a lot of RTW lately without the "extra" button holes. Which leads me to this: which buttons?

I am partial to the white ones, but don'e be afraid to tell me to go shopping. I'm a little afraid they're too big. Not sure how the colors are showing, but this is a true black/grey/barely cream fabric. Very true "no color", not shades of pink or blue or purple.... JUST black/grey. I bought this at Moods last August and the buttons are from Britex (ha! It could become the coastal blouse). It's a very very very nice 100% cotton. Soft, not too wrinkly. Tended to prick and pull a thread with the pins (there's a pull line in the - thank goodness - underside of the collar).

I'm quite proud of this: first collar in about 30 years and perhaps my first with a stand (not sure, but pretty sure), and the sleeves look great. AnnR would be pleased - I basted the sleeves in as they are kind of futzy at the top. No puckers! YEA! I think the hand basting was the key. I could fix each stitch before making it and then it held well. I started the seams at the shoulder - normally I start at the armpit. I didn't breathe for the entire process. I'm still a bit light headed. Unless I decide to go button shopping, I'll finish it tomorrow night. I also left out the elastic. It fits really well with just the pleats, so I just don't think it's necessary. I really like the way it fits.

I'm doing a very cautious happy dance, tonight.

Next up will be to trace off a couple of patterns on loan from Karent, then I'm going finish piecing my quilt. Who knows, I may even hem that dang pair of pants from, what, 2 months ago? And I really need to make some summer slacks. And I still want to make some more underpinnings. Shopping reminded me of why: $10/pair - yikes. I have the Kwik Sew book, now I just need some time.

It's been a beautiful few days here in DC. Not just warm, but hot and sunny. Rain's coming in, but that's okay. We need a mix and it is still spring. Just hope it holds off until after I take the dog for a walk in the morning.

And, just in case you think YOUR dog is stupid: and yes, that's the Jalie Tee

Plodding along...

Well, for those of you keeping score, I still haven't Steam-a-seamed the skirt, nor hemmed the pants, nor put the 5 hand stitches in a dart on another skirt - all of which would clear out some UFO's and provide me with 3 THREE 3 wearable garments that fit. And I haven't touched my quilt in a while.

But I did trace (and it was quite a piece of work) the BWOF # 125 - the blouse that everyone else made last fall. I used one of the fabrics I bought in NYC last fall at Mood's. I thought I wanted to make a skirt from it, but it really wanted to be this blouse. It's a very nice all cotton in greys, blacks and cream. I traced it last night - quite a chore, and cut it. Tonight I marked it, finished the seams, made the darts - all 8 - and did the side and shoulder seams. I do think the fit will be good, and I'm divided over whether or not to add the elastic. And I'm very afraid of the collar. I haven't done a collar in about 30 years. There's a tutorial in the issue, and I have a couple of books and the Internet, but I'm still afraid. And little nervous about the button holes. What kind of buttons should I use? Getting a little ahead of myself, here.

Karent posted a couple of pictures on her blog about our haul from last weekend. Here's what I bought in Asheville. Both are cottons for the summer. I'm thinking a dress and a skirt, but we'll see. Overall, we came home with this: The grey/beige is a really beautiful silk that will be made over a darker - navy? linen or similar. Waechter's doesn't cut their fabric. If it isn't tearable, they pull a thread and then use that line to cut. So you always get a straight cut. Maybe that's what JoAnn's does that takes so long? I didn't know fleece had a grain....

And finally, overlooking her deck at sunset....

The fabric that doesn't want to be made

Or an epic in sewing.
Now that I've gotten my blog to behave better it was off to my sewing room last night. To finish the now stupid easy skirt that started off as a very simple Simplicity. That I went to JoAnn's to get elastic for that I forgot. That I finally got on my road trip with karent last weekend when I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time ever. I closed in my oh-so-simple waistband made from a piece of the original midriff and threaded through the finally purchased "no roll" elastic and proceeded to sew the elastic together. Nope, not gonna happen. After about 10 tries, I gave up for the night. No matter what stitch, facing, paper, fabric or needle I used my machine just wasn't going to sew this stuff together with edges abutting or to a piece of fabric to abbut. Nope. So the next night (it had to spend some time in timeout - you know that) I just overlapped the darn things, stuck a piece of tearaway behind it and sewed it up and pulled it into the waist. Bulky? Yep. Done? Yep.
Next step. THE HEM. Ugly is the work for the "pre-chosen" stretch-light hem. So I threaded up a double needle to try. Broke on the first trip down. No idea what it could have hit. I set the machine to double needle - 4MM. Had wide throat plate and foot. And it was the right side needle that broke and the shank was shifted to the left. So I replaced my old needle, re-threaded and tried the blind hem for knits. Again, no go. Every stitch just shoved the fabric into the throat plate. Pah! Tonight, I Steam-a-seam. I can't believe how much time I've spent on this dumb skirt.
AND (DH's out of town) I will cut out something fun to make. AND (yep, getting cocky here) finally hem my last Marlene pants. Don't have to make dinner, there's nothing on TV tonight. And I'm not putting another needle to the knit skirt. EVER.
As previously mentioned, I spent last weekend taking care of some family business from my dad's estate and then hung out with my BFF, karen. We did all kinds of fun, chick things. Shopped until we dropped. My first trip (won't the be the last) to Hobby Lobby. Their fabric isn't really "me", but their notions and accessories and other stuff is top notch. And they have brands I don't see in JA's or Hancock's. And lots of other useless junk that I love to look at. And a discount shoe store, and a couple of thrift stores (came up blank there - you just never know), and Kohl's where I was reminded of why I was making my own underpinnings ($10 a pair for panties! on sale) and some much needed bras. And Books-a-million. And I stopped at Dress Barn the day before I found a couple of really cute summer dresses. Wearing one today. And Hancock's - they were in the middle of a remodel - where they had Simplicity for $1 each. And Lowe's (gotta keep the plumbing working) and got our nails - all 40 of them done. Then, on Saturday we went to Asheville to Waechter's. You can see our haul from there on Karen's blog, we used the last of the light on her deck to photograph the fabrics. And wonderful Indy patterns where they have a large number of them made up for you to look at and touch. The 2 I bought were due to this amazing idea. I'd overlooked them on the envelope, but really liked the garment. Karen bought a couple that I want to trace off, too.
So know you know the rest of the story. Film at 11.

(Dis)Organization and some quilting

A little slower than I'd planned, but here are some pictures of my organizational fit (a.k.a. Income Tax avoidance) from Sunday. See my nicely labeled box o'feet? I even have spaces for ones that I intend to purchase or have ordered and not received. Frankly this level of organization scares me a little. But I've really enjoyed being able to quickly pull out and put back whichever one I want. I'm not wild about the storage area on my machine being behind the machine, and I had more feet than it has spaces, so it works quite well. In fact, the pretty box scares me more than this:My sewing room this morning with stuff falling everywhere. See the black and white fabric on the Singer stool? That goes with the pattern pieces on the green mat that goes with the small wad behind my machine of a pair of knickers that may not make it. Having FITS over the elastic. I've seen elastic do things on this machine I didn't know it could do.

I've been making some real progress with my quilt, though. Here are all the strips cut and ready to piece.

I put 2 blocks together and laid them out to see how it would look. (on the ironing board - that's why the lower left corner droops)

Here are the rest of the strips sewn into half-blocks. I only over ran one square and had to take it apart and put it together the right way. Now the bad news. And I don't know WHY!?! The squares aren't lining up. I've checked (I swear!) my raw pieces and my stitches and they're all the right size. But when I put them together I get this:Look where the 2 squares are sewn together. This was every time. I really don't get it. I will finish piecing and then square them all up to the same size. But WTF?

And, because I just thought it looked kind of neat:

I'm off for a little (as possible) family time in my hometown and a weekend with a friend. And I won't be sewing (probably) but I may be shopping... Stay tuned for "THE HAUL" It's likely to be pretty awesome.