Time for a New Quilt!

red letter day plus-sign quilt, originally uploaded by arajane.

Having not sewn in months I started wonder if and when I would feel motivated to create something new. I was happy to finish my bee blocks and I’ll be estatic to finally have Bob’s quilt done (sometime in the next couple days…) but I wondered when I would feel the urge to make something else. Not, mind you, that I don’t have a stack of “in progress” quilts to work on. I do it’s just they all need more fabric or more blocks or both. Once I order some new dark blue solids I can finish the back of my Bee Modern quilt but first I need to order the fabric… My single girl quilt is about 15 fabrics away from the point where I can start cutting. I ordered about 15 yards of fabric last night and I’m hoping that at least 3 or 4 will end up coordinating when I put them next to the rest of the fabric I’ve already chosen. I’m still waiting on a couple blocks for my Snip Sew Send quilt and then I’m sure I’ll still need to make some of my own blocks to make it queen sized, then I have to decide on the back. I have (I hope) all the fabrics and the pattern to make a quilt from Lantern Bloom but I’m just not inspired to work on it right now.

So what am I going to do? Make, or at least start, on a completely different quilt of course! I saw the photo above and fell in love. I have many of those fabrics and ordered a couple more to add to the mix. I also plan on ordering some kona cottons and maybe some shot cottons and then make a whirly gig quilt like this one. I think the fun pattern is the perfect complement to the Lizzy House prints. I don’t have anyone in mind for this quilt and I’m not sure what size I will make it. It seems like a good baby quilt but I think I’ll go ahead and make it twin sized if I have enough fabric. That way I can keep it and use it if I decide I can’t give it up.

J. and I are going to Va for the holidays so nothing will get done this week but by the time I get back the fabric I ordered should have arrived and I can get started this weekend. I can’t wait!

Back for real this time :)

jons wedding 141, originally uploaded by Indie House.

So I moved, disappeared from blogging, fell behind on my quilting bees, didn’t get birthday presents done on time and the list goes on and on. And why pray tell did this happen? Because when it comes to moving and then unpacking I’m a little (okay a lot) OCD (obsessive, compulsive). I usually unpack within days of moving, maybe a week or two at most get all the photos on the walls etc. But this move has defeated me… We moved from a 1,500 square foot house with a 500 square foot basement into an 800 square foot apartment. Trying to make everything fit and be functional is like a 1,000 piece puzzle where all the pieces look alike.

I’m still not done and don’t know when I will be… but I knew I needed to get over it and get some other stuff done. Last weekend I set up my sewing space, such as it is for now. I ran out of time to actually getting any sewing done so that was my goal for today.

It isn’t very pretty but nothing in our apartment is very pretty right now, but I’ll have to deal with all that when I figure out how to get everything to fit!

In the meantime it’s functional and I was able to catch up on all of my quilting bee blocks and it only took seven hours to do it.

These were the first blocks I did and they are simply squares within squares. I figured I should warm up on something simple since I haven’t sewn since early September.

Next up were these wonky stars. I adore these stars and the gorgeous fabric that I got to use on them.

While I was on a star kick I knocked out my Snip Sew Send block for September (and yes I’m hanging my head in shame as I type this). I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I got the fabric but I thought I would be able to get this done immediately after I moved. Needless to say that didn’t happen…

The last blocks of the day were for Bee Modern October. They are going to be part of a baby quilt and I adore the muted blue, greens, and greys.

It took all day and I still didn’t the binding made and sewn on for a birthday quilt that should have been gifted in August but I should be able to get that done tomorrow. I feel great getting all this done and look forward to getting them out of my hands and into the mail first thing Monday morning!

Techie Gift Guide- Charging Basket

Between my husband and I there are far too many little gadgets laying around. This simple basket is the perfect gift for the techie in your life.

They can consolidate their phone, IPOD, camera, wallet etc and charge things up without having cords running all over the place.

In the photo above the overall look is a little girly but done with solid blues, greens, or browns and it’s totally masculine. Check out the free tutorial by Oh Fransson here.

Gift Guide- Free Easy Skirt Tutorial

I’ve made the Barcelona Skirt and a couple skirts from “Sew What Skirts” with great results but if you want a free and easy skirt tutorial check this one out.

The tutorial is free and is designed to be used with a twin sized flat sheet. You can find great deals on these at any big box store or you can check out local thrift stores for a cool vintage sheet like the one above.

Any woman in your life would be quite happy with this swinging skirt.

Finally Moved In!

Fall Leaves, originally uploaded by Patch_Adams.

I’ve been quite remiss in blogging lately but I’ve been consumed by the move. I spent over a month slowly packing up the house and then had a mad dash the last two days to pack the remaining items (ie the kitchen and our clothes) up. Last Saturday was moving day and we had planned on having a moving truck, my father’s trailer, and my father to assist. What happened was that we woke up to cloudy and drizzling skies and my father calling to say he was running late. Hours late in fact, and he didn’t bring the trailer. We picked up our rental truck and started to load. It’s amazing how many boxes you don’t realize you have until you have to haul them out to a truck. We managed to get most of the boxes in the truck before our $20 an hour movers arrived to help with the heavy stuff. They cost us $90 total and were well worth it but the pace definitely slowed down after they arrived. My father finally arrived with his brother and the hand trucks. We managed to fill the entire moving truck up in 5 hours. The drive between our old house and our new apartment takes about two hours and it took another two hours to unload everything. We simply dumped stuff where it would fit and decided to sort it out later. We only had the rental truck for the day to Sunday we had to use our vehicles to haul the rest of our stuff to the new apartment. It took us two trips with two small SUVs and we still have stuff in the house! I plan on getting it out before doing our final walk through Thursday.

The past two days have been spent setting up the bedroom and kitchen. Everything else will slowly be sorted out over the next couple weeks. I don’t feel settled in yet but at least we have the move itself behind us. We will definitely have to downsize to fit into this apartment but I’m okay with that. Mostly because I know we will have to move again and I want to have as little stuff as possible!

Inconvenient Conveniences

Luna Moth, originally uploaded by gregp25.

Sorry the post has nothing to do with the picture but I can’t have a pictureless post so I just picked one I liked.

We are getting closer to moving day and have managed to sort through 75% of the basement which is actually a huge accomplishment since there were boxes down there that my husband has been carting around unopened for about 10 years. I may be a packrat but my dear husband is a hoarder! We are both getting better about letting go and hope to actually be able to fit into our 800 sq ft apartment by the time moving day (10 October) rolls around. I’ll be honest, that goal is a bit optimistic, but we will have an attached garage to catch the spill over.

Packing aside I’ve been trying to cancel all our utilities at our current house and start utilities at the new apartment. I thought that Comcast (our cable, internet, and phone provider) would be the easiest seeing as how they advertise the ability to “transfer your services to your new address.” This is supposed to mean keeping your current equipment and I would think save you a new set up fee. But none of that is actually true. What they really mean when they say “transfer” is that you call and cancel your service at your current location and that person will forward your call to the new service area where you go through the entire process of starting service (including the associated fees) again. Is it just me or is this not the definition of “transfer”?

The upshot is the savings we will reap from cancelling our cable entirely. Right now we pay $145.00 a month for internet, phone, and cable. When we move and eliminate the cable our monthly bill will only be $42.00 and my work (which pays for me to have a home office) will reimburse me that bill each month and reimburse me the $128.00 “set up fee.” This fee is communist! The house is already wired for cable! This set up fee is simply covering home delivery of the new modem and them confirming the line is active. The whole process will probably take about 15-20 minutes. If I had opted to include cable this setup fee would have been cut in half. That’s right adding a service to “set up” would actually save me money. This is just one of the many ways the cable companies screw you…

Cutting the Cable Cord

untitled, originally uploaded by randi bee.

I’ve mentioned before that my husband and I are moving and we are moving ourselves. This is not a fun prospect and the reason for my utter lack of posting lately. The sewing machine and my entire stash has already been boxed up although we won’t move until the 10th of October. Since we are moving ourselves and we both work so much I’ve been slowly packing up our house. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and prevents me from thinking about the fact that we still have to load all this stuff up and then unpack it again…

Besides a new job (which is the driving reason for moving) we are also trying to cut down on our expenses and moving allows us to shave a couple hundred dollars a month off of our rent. We have also decided after much discussion to cancel our cable service. If you know us you will be shocked and probably doubtful that we will see this through. Don’t worry we haven’t been abducted and brain washed. In preparation for cutting the cord we’ve purchased a box to stream Netflix movies instantly to our TV ($180.00), an antenna to catch the HD signals from the local and free stations ($34.00) and a small converter box to use that antenna on our Mac ( $129.00). So far this isn’t saving us much money… the total cost is $343.00. Since cable costs us roughly $80 a month it’s going to take us over four months to break even and five to start seeing a real savings. To offset this we’ve decided to sell our small flat screen TV for $100 (we will be using our Mac in it’s place) and our DVD player for $20 (this is being replaced with the streaming Blue Ray player). If we succeed in selling them for our asking price cutting the cable will only cost us $223…. Looking at it this way is depressing so instead I prefer to think about the fact that in a year we will have saved $737.

Playing Catch Up

Bee Modern August, originally uploaded by Indie House.

I’ve been a slacker… well not exactly. I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed by the idea of moving and having to pack everything up and move it ourselves to a new and much smaller apartment. On top of that I’ve been traveling more for work and feeling much less inspired.

So two stacks of fabric have sat rather forlorn looking on my tabletop amongst a sea of cardboard boxes. At first I was simply going to pack them up and finish them later. But that meant finishing them a month or two late! I think that’s a bit much so today feeling guilty and inspired I finally knocked them out. I only made one block for each lady, while I would have liked to do more, that’s all I had in me.

Now I just need to bind one last quilt and I can pack the sewing machine up in it’s cardboard box.

Lessons from the Shred Pile

076: Spring Shredding, originally uploaded by william couch.

I’ve been a little absent lately. My husband recently accepted a new job that includes a pay cut and a relocation so… I’ve been worn a bit thin lately trying to prepare for the move and rework our budget. It will all work out but in the meantime not much crafting is happening. Instead I spent over an hour today shredding documents from the past year. I’m not certain what you should shred but I shred everything with a name and address including offers for insurance, credit cards, requests from charitable donations, and loan offers.

You can actually learn quite a bit from shredding. For instance I learned-

1) Despite having signed up for electronic billing and notification from my credit card company and bank I get more “junk mail” from them then anyone else.

2) National Geographic REALLY wants my husband and I to subscribe again I think I shredded at least five “one more chance” offers from them to get a reduced rate.

3) I “don’t have” enough insurance, the right insurance, and I’m “paying too much” for my insurance

4) The Geico googly eyes are funny the first time and darn right annoying the tenth and eleventh.

5) American Express really wants my husband’s business (there were at least ten offers for him) but not mine. They have apparently figured out he does the spending and I do the saving

6) The little prescription bottle stickers that have my SSN are a PAIN to shred

7) A year’s worth of shredding takes up a large garbage bag and it’s not recyclable (what’s up with that?)

As soon as you shred everything something will come in the mail that needs to shredded and the pile begins anew

Sew What Skirts- Straight Skirt Finished!

Sew What Skirts- Straight Skirt, originally uploaded by Indie House.

I was so excited to create this skirt, so empowered by the idea of drafting my own pattern custom fit for me and now that it’s done…. I feel slightly let down. See how the skirt flares out by the side slits? It isn’t supposed to do that! It should fall straight the way it did here.

It didn’t start flaring out until I sewed the seams on the slits so that must be what is causing it except I followed the directions exactly so it shouldn’t do this. I don’t know if it’s the material or if I should draft it differently next time… The skirt fits well at the waist follows my hips but isn’t skin tight and then it flares. It’s perfect except for the flare and I don’t know how to fix it.

Flare aside the directions were concise, informative and easy to follow. I drafted my pattern using the back of christmas paper (a neat tip from the book) and didn’t have to tape copy paper together. My only “complaint” is that the book teaches you how to put in a regular zipper and attempt to disguise it instead of teaching you how to put in a hidden zipper. While hidden zippers are a bit harder, especially for beginners, they are a necessary skill and create a more polished look.

I will definitely make more skirts from this book, including straight skirts but without the side slits, and I totally recommend it if you are looking to try out pattern drafting and skirt making.