Fresh Sewing Day

 

Happy Saturday everyone!!  Whoo hoo for the weekend!! 

 

I thought I'd take a moment and look back at the month that was May {where did it go?!?} and link up with Lily's Quilts.  Care to join me? :)

 

PicMonkey, my laptop, and I tried to make a beautiful collage for you but we went round and round without much success and I finally had to admit that the threesome wasn't working out today.  Another time, another place and it could have been magical.  But we went our separate ways for now; I really think it was for the best.  And even though you deserve so much more, there is just a rehashing of old photos to follow :)

 

 

a pouch for my son's extra ammo :)



I took part in the Say it with Flowers Blog Hop



The Hungry Caterpillar baby quilt is nearly done {I'm sewing the binding}



I finished my Sashiko pillow - the kids have put in a request for another one like it :)



the accidental quilt has been making progress, but I haven't taken new pictures yet.

If you missed the original posts about these projects, I linked the captions so you can go check them out :)

Also in May, although unblogged as of yet, I went on a quilt retreat!  It was a fantastic, rainy time and I accomplished a lot of sewing that hasn't made it onto my blog yet but will hopefully be showing up soon.

Now it's your turn - what did you sew in the lovely flower filled month of May?

just a little bit more...

Hi! Happy Friday! {I am sooo glad its Friday!!!}

Ok, now that I've got that out of the way,  I have just a couple more pictures to show you from my retreat.

On the last day, they have a show & tell

Pardon the table in the way, but this is a quilt top my Mom made at the retreat.  Isn't it pretty?  I kept dropping hints that this quilt would like living with me, but my Mom did a good job of ignoring me :)   That boarder fabric is soooo much prettier in person than in the photo.  Apparently it is also prettier when it is on Mom's sewing table {where I first fell in love with it} than on the bolt, too, because Mom claims she bought it with me standing next to her, and I never paid it any attention at all.  She is probably right. {just don't tell her I said so}

My crabby zig zags are so long, they took up a table and a half! The blocks aren't sewn together, though, so seam allowances will shrink it up some.  I'm making my quilt bigger than Amanda Jean's directions call for.  That's my basic philosophy on quilts.  Always make it bigger.  :)

 A sweet older lady stopped to admire my crabs and asked how big my quilt is going to be.  I said I don't know.  Because I don't.  {Why do people find that strange?}  I'm making a zig zag for each fabric in the line, plus some repeats of the bottle caps, plaid, and orange crabs.  Wouldn't it be funny if it ended up wider than long?  :) 

There is a small quilt shop set up at the retreat, also.  They stock all sorts of notions, patterns, books, fabric by the yard or FQ.  I was determined to resist. 

The perle cotton was my downfall :)

Two shades of grey, orange, and yellow came home with me - I want to try hand quilting with them.
I also came home with free fabric, but I haven't taken pictures yet, so I'll show you that later.  Have a fabulous, stitchy, weekend!!!

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a log cabin deep in the woods, lived a little girl with her brother, mother, and father.  Most evenings the mother's knitting needles went click, click, click as she turned skeins of wool into beautiful sweaters for her family.  Many days the sewing machine whirred while the mother made clothes and other things for her family. 

And the mother gave yarn and needles to the little girl, but the little girl would not learn how to knit.  The mother filled a round metal sewing box with needles, thread, and other things.  She brought the little girl into town, to the big white church with the tall steeple (the kind of steeple all churches ought to have).  There, many girls learned to sew from a kind lady, but the little girl didn't like to sew. 

What was the mother to do?

 By and by, the little girl grew and went away to college.  But she did not learn to knit, and she did not learn to sew.  At college, she met Prince Charming, and they married soon after graduation.  In all the boxes she brought with her to her new home was the round sewing box full of pins and things.

 Not long after, the girl (we can't call her little anymore, can we?) received a special gift from her mother and father.  It was a sewing machine.  What would she do with a sewing machine?  Prince Charming thought she could now do all the mending (hehehe). 

Now, the girl's mother and aunts had learned to quilt.  So the girl learned to quilt from them.  And she took the pins her mother gave her so long ago out of the round tin, and used them for all of her piecing.  (She still didn't do any mending) 

Then one day, she sewed her first curved seam, a Grandmother's Fan, but it came out all puckered.  What was she to do?  With help from some very nice people, and a Quilting Fairy, she tried again. Much better!  But, she didn't use her old pins this time.  Her old pins were short and stubby, and had nearly no head at all.  They got lost in the seams of the Grandmother's Fan.  The new pins she used were long, with great big heads.  What would she do with her short stubby pins now?  She still has them, of course.

Now the girl makes quilts and things for her three sons, and Prince Charming too.  And they live happily in the woods (but she still doesn't knit).