Milestones

When you have children in your life you are constantly preparing them for that day when they are independent and on their own. You feed them the best food you can, the safest home you can afford, the best medical care available, the safest neigborhood, .. the list goes on and on. You want them to be safe and happy. You never want their hearts broken, their toes stubbed or their dreams shattered. Santa Claus knows what they want, the Tooth Fairy always comes and their parents really do know everything.

Then they become teenagers.

You still want the best for them but you can't wait for them to take their whiny, hormonal selves out of your home and into their own homes. You still love them and cherish them and want nothing bad to ever happen to them but, one more slammed door or temper tantrum and you will be changing the locks on the doors or moving without a forwarding address.

Finally comes that big day when they step out on their own. They get that job they have always wanted, rented or bought their own place and they are finally out of your hair... and you want them back... just for a little while.

But you have prepared them well and can be a little smug that they are settled.

Then they turn your smugness upside down.

All that security you though they were looking for is out the window and they come to you with what they really want to do and its a shocker.

While you were thinking they were settling into a nice middle class life, they were thinking about OPENING A RESTAURANT!

Yup - Paul, my sweet, gentle boy is opening a restaurant in a few days. This has been in the works for so long that I really thought it would be another few months before it would happen.

I know it will be a great success, that he knows what he is doing, that the food will be great and that he and his partners will make a ton of money. I can provide book keepng services and lots of moral support but I really don't know how restaurants work except that I like to eat.

If you are around Spears Road and T.C. Jester on and after September 2, stop into Sweet Sadie's for some barbeque and wings. I know you will not be disappointed.

I will be the nervous wreck in the corner... like I was when he first stepped off the plane in America, when he went to his first day at school, when he played his first baseball game, had his first wrestling match, got his driver's license and all the other milestones we have shared together.

There will be many more milestones, I'm just lucky that they have been spaced out a bit.

Wish him luck!

Nesting

Every once in a while I get this urge to clean out a closet, empty a drawer, or weed part of the garden. I don't see these urges as necessary cleaning chores but as things I really WANT to do, not things I NEED to do.

I know, I know... I did take my temperature just to be sure that I wasn't running a fever or something.

My accomplishments have been few but have been dramatic.. at least to my way of thinking.

In one case I took down and washed all the washable curtains in the house and hung them back up. The last part is remarkable as it took me two weeks to get the bedroom curtains back up the last time I did them.

In another case, I cleared out and reloaded the coat closet. In the process I found that I had accumulated seven softsided brief cases over my career (like this) and innumerable so-called over-night bags that I have never used for overnight trips. I know someone, somewhere will enjoy most of these.

I also cleared off the top shelf of the laundry room that had become a dumping spot for things that I was sure I would need someday like.... 15 various sized small zipper cases from toiletries purchases and giveaways and some very badly made make-up sized bags. Most of these will also go the way of excess briefcases and overnight bags.

One thing I did find that surprised me was a couple of bags I made years ago in a mini-workshop with the Dallas/Forth Worth American Sewing Guild. At the workshop we made generic tote bags with Hex Frames from Ghee's. The cool part about this project was that the frames could be removed from the tote bag and used with other tote bags. I was intrigued by this project back then and made three different covers. Today they are not something I would use but I have ideas for other covers.

I wonder what else my nesting urge will uncover before this weird urge wears off?

I hope your week is going well and that you don't get caught up in nesting! It can lead to lots of dust in the air and new projects for the UFO pile!

Donut Pudding

When my friends and I get together to quilt, knit or sew we tend to bring a lot of snacks to keep up our energy. It seems that at least one of us brings fresh donuts each time. Last Saturday I picked up a dozen basic glazed yeast donuts and came home with almost all of them. After a couple of days of snacking on them I put them in the microwave, supposedly, to keep them from getting stale, and forgot all about them until today.



They were very ,very stale... hard as hockey pucks....useful as components of Improvised Explosive Devices...suitable for long lasting chew toys. I think you get the point.






I love glazed donuts so instead of tossing them out or providing them to the dogs as a snack food I decided to dig out my Joy of Cooking and see what I could do with them.



After discovering that Irma Rombauer did not produce a recipe that used stale donuts as a key recipe ingredient I took her bread pudding recipe, made a couple of changes and came up with the following.




Ingredients:


5 - 6 stale glazed yeast donuts

3 cups warm milk

3 beaten eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

sugar - to taste ( I used about 1/4 cup)

ground cinnamon (optional to spinkle on top)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F




Take your stale donuts and slice them up into nice chunks. Place in an oven proof dish.




Pour warm milk over the donuts and let the donuts soak it all up.( I still had a little milk left over but that didn't seem to matter)


Beat the eggs with the vanilla, nutmeg and sugar. Stir the egg mixture into the soaked donuts.


Sprinkle cinnamon on top.


Place pudding dish in another dish with about one inch of hot water in it.



Place both in the oven and cook about 45 minutes or until almost firm. (mine could have done with another five minutes but I was getting very hungry.)
Cool in the fridge and serve.



I like mine with a little warm maple syrup. YUM!


DO NOT EAT IT ALL IN ONE SITTING!

Variations - Substitue various juices or liquors for some of the milk, add nuts, raisins or dired fruit, serve with jam, fresh cream or other things Irma suggests.


Lesson learned - when you are down to the last sixteenth of an inch of your nutmeg nut, start on another one rather than start grinding off your finger tips. If you put the last little bit of your nut through the food disposer in your sink your house will smell like nutmeg for a least an hour.

Have a great weekend!

Dogs on Thursday...

On Wednesday.




So I'm early by one day, for once. Don't know how that happened but the stars were aligned correctly in the sky and I just had to share this before I accidently erased the pics from my camera.


Once a year Alex and the Girls go to the Vet for their annual shots and examinations. Alex goes in June and the Girls in August.


They actually all go to the appointmemts but just the scheduled ones get the full treatment. The Girls had theirs last week and passed with flying colors. Because of thier sensitivities vis-a-vis the many vaccines they are required to have, the rabies shots has been postponed for three weeks. Both the Girls have had muscle and skin damage from previous Rabies shots and I hope we can avoid that by spacing them out from the other shots.




Any way, I like for them all to get new colllars concurrent with their annual exams. As I am fed up with Alex's inability to enter a pet store without making a grab for a toy that he will destroy in about 20 mintues I decided to go on my own to find new collars. In two out of three cases I think I made good choices.

Here's is Alex's new, celtic knot patterned, ribbon covered, collar:

Kimora's new, cute, bone patterned, riboon covered, collar:

and here's Kelis's old, ratty red collar.

Ooops! Fatso Kelis (she had gained two ounces since last year's weigh-in when she was already 6 ounces over weight) didn't fit into the little red collar I had purchased for her that I was going to cover with some cute floral ribbon. Her neck is just too thick! I'll have to get her the next larger size.

As a consolation prize, I made them all new leashes and added the little bit of the cute floral ribbon I had for Kelis's collar to her leash. At least now I can distinquish her leash and attached red harness from Kimora's leash and red harness. If you like the idea of making your own leashes, just take the hardware off of your old leash and sew on new nylon webbing like that sold at J. Caroline Creative on sale for $25.00 for 50+ yards!While I was buying collars I also picked up the jumbo box of Teenie Greenies, thier favorite treat that I don't eat. Their other favorites are leftover cereal milk and peanut butter. I also picked up a package of Bully Bones. Bully Bones are supposed to be better for your dogs than rawhide treats. Alex and the Girls love them and they are the one long lasting chew thingy that all three will actually chew without getting into fights. I am a bit sqeamish about them as I have been told they are the part of the bull that make a bull a bull. Ewww! On the other hand, ... well, I'll just let you use your imagination with this additional fact... I am divorced. Okay?

Here's Alex enjoying his Bully Bone on the stairs earlier today. I hope your week has been going well. For those Mom's who are on the road today delivering thier children to college for the first time please remember this ... DO NOT turn the kid's bedroom into a spa until they are into their third year at college, at the earliest. Just a word to the wise.

NOTE: Update on Encore Purse Insert Below.

August Tote Bag Project & Update

The August Tote Bag Project from Stitchin' Heaven is not a tote bag but a tote bag insert. From Studio Kats Designs, the Encore Purse Insert is HUGE and can definitely hold anything I would want to carry in a handbag on a regular basis. Check out the rest of the Studio Katz web site as they have some neat free paterns and a unique challenge.


This is not a quick sew and your sewing area can get a bit messy with about 50 different pieces of fabric and other necessities. It is very important that you follow the 71 sewing steps exactly in order or you can get thoroughly messed up in the construction process. Let's just say I had a lot of bits of thread littering the floor around my chair by the time I was finished from all the ripping out I had to do when I mistakenly skipped a step or did something out of order.


Here's how mine came out:


As you can see I will not have any trouble filling it up, it even holds my Kindle nicely, and it will make changing purses a whole heck of a lot easier in the future. My only concern about the whole thing is that the chosen fabrics (the pale, pinky, girlie prints) will get soiled and I don't think this insert will go into the washing machine and come out of the dryer in tact.


I did make a couple of changes from the printed pattern. The middle zippered pocket was to be made of the floral fabric on the exterior. I did not have enough of it so I made it completely out of the interior, spotted fabirc. Also, there is large pocket on the exterior that calls for two zippers to meet in the middle. I substituted a purse zipper (tan zipper above) which made the construction a little easier.


As I said, not a quick sew but an incredibly useful product. I can aslo see this as useful to carrry sewing or other crafting tools to classes or retreats. The site also suggests it as holder for tools that get scattered on your cutting table. Heck, it's pretty enough to use as a clutch all on its own.



BTW - if you like the idea of a purse zipper but don't want to spend the extra time, effort and money on one, there is a clever tutorial here on how to make one of your own. I have not tried this out but it certainly looks doable.

UPDATE - I have used this thing for two days now and have found it very annoying. I keep my purse contents cotained in separate containers... money stuff in a wallet, Kindle in a case, lip gloss, pens and other bits in another case, coupons in another and wipes in another case. With everything on one container I had to literally pull out the whole thing everytime I wanted to find what I needed. I think I am going back to my old way of doing things and putting this in the Fish Pond for 2011 unless you let me know that you'd like it and I'll send it on. Just thought you'd like to know.

Braiding It

Today was the day that six of us got together to experiment with the French Braid piecing technique I mentioned yesterday. Each if us came with different expectations. From one of us with a full size quilt to be built to the exact specifications of a quilt in the book to myself with the goal of seeing if I could put together a straight run of blocks and everything in between we had all types o french braiding going on.

Here is some of the work that was produced:

This run is going to be the middle of a lap size quilt with two other braids with darker blue strips of fabric. This was made from fabric in Ms. J.'s stash!

This run is going to be the center of a table runner for another Ms. J.'s daughter's new kitchen in her first house. The kitchen is painted red so I bet this will look smashing. The strips are from a jelly roll.

This run is being made by our over-achieving Ms. L. who is making a full size quilt from the book. She actually spent a couple of months gathering the right fabrics to get the correct shading. It will be fabulous!

These three bits will be made into placemats by Ms. R.. She had a very hard day today. For someone who makes absolutely perfect quilts she found she had a hard time cutting a straight line today. To top it all off she spilled a cup full of soda all over her work space. Some days the stars just are not in alignment and she packed up early.

This was my experiment from jelly roll I picked up a couple of months ago. I didn't use up a lot of it so I will coninue playing around with this technique with this jelly roll. This little sample will probably become a little table topper for the guest room.

This one was made from scraps by our very productive Ms. B. from scraps in her stash. I really like the middle of her braid as it was peiced rather than a single square of fabric as the others used. Once she finished with this braid she began working on another quilt top for one of the charity sewing bees. I love the dollar bill fabric!

I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a lot of food including birthday cake for one of us. Yum! I did leave a little early as my head was hurting again but I don't think I missed anything.

There are just a few things to know before you begin this type of project. One is that you will have a lot of itty, bitty scaps when you are finished,also, the braids will produce a narrower quilt than you think it will be (so borders are definitely necessary) and the books are a pain in the butt . The last point is that half of the information you need to complete a specific pattern is included in the general instructions so you can find yourself flipping back and forth in the book to work a specific pattern ... confusing!

The actual sewing in easy and once you get started good results can be had quickly.

I think the next project will be a pieced background that will look solid with appliques quilted onto it. Should be interesting.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Socks 14 & 15

I finally finished up and washed socks 14 & 15. I decided that since I was having such success with my old sock pattern it was about time to expand my knowledge and I actually bought a book on sock knitting. It's called 'Knitting the Perfect Pair' and every pair of socks in the book has at least one unusual technique demonstrated in the pattern.

I chose to try a pair knitted from the toes up rather than from the cuffs down to the toes. The pattern included lots of things I hadn't tried before like unusual stitch patterns, multiple color changes and, just to keep things interesting, instead of knitting the heel while working the rest of the sock, the heel is knitted after the sock body is completed by opening a hole in the sock where you want the heel to be worked.

Yikes!





Just to make things interesting I decided not to use the recommended size of yarn or needles which meant I needed to re-work the pattern a little so I had at least a prayer of them even coming close to fitting.





Here is how they came out:

The yarn is a self-striping super wash wool from the Hen House and included extra yarn for reinforcing the toes and heels. I did not use the extra yarn to reinforce the toes because I had enough trouble trying to start the socks at the toes. I did use it to reinforce one heel (the left one above) but I forgot to use it on the second heel. I can't find the label for the yarn so I can't give you the name of it but it is really soft and feels great. I did not attempt to match the stripes between the two sock so these will definitely be worn under my longest jeans.




These are a little snug in the fit but that means they should fit nicely in my loafers... at least I hope they will when I replace my old loafers.




I hope your week went well. I am planning on joining some friends tomorrow for a day of playing with the French Braid quilt piecing technique. I have a Moda Jelly Roll that I bought a while ago and it resurfaced from the clutter pile just in time for this class. Unlike previous gatherings when we have had a volunteer who has done the technique before and has a completed sample, we are winging this one with no samples and a couple of books for guidance. Wish us luck!

X Marks the Spot

Instead of working on my clutter pile the other night I decided to finish up the project from the Michele Watts class I mentioned a couple of days ago. Of course, I could have turned this project into a full size quilt but I just couldn't see myself appliqueing enough blocks for a whole quilt.

Anyway, here is how it came out:

I now need to find a good place to hang it.

If I had a wall safe I would hang it in front of the safe instead of a zillion dollar painting. I don't have a wall safe, or a zillion dollar painting either, so I guess it will go in front of some flaw in the wall where the paint is a little uneven or where a nail has popped out of the dry wall.

My clutter is still in a pile but I didn't add to it with this project... a good thing in my book.

School Days

Schools Days
Good Old Golden Rule Days.

Not sure about that but with less than two weeks before school starts in my area, the Once Upon Time Bee of the KAQG had a sew-in to make pencil cases for kids in the area. The incomparable Ms. M. came up with the idea and we got lots of supplies from many members of the guild.

We were able to make over 30 pencil cases in an evening of wackiness. Wacky because we actually ran out of fabric to make these cases (we were using recycled denim) and there was more food than we have ever had at one of these events. I stuffed myself on fried chicken, hummus, water crackers, sushi, cheesecake, mango salsa, sweet potato chips, chicken salad, lemon pie and the list just goes on and on.

I did not take even one picture of our output but here are the instructions we used to make the pencil cases.

Denim Pencil Cases

Supplies needed -

4 – 1 ½” x 1 ½” pieces of fabric for the zipper tabs
1 – 18” x 20” piece of denim for the pencil case body
1 -18” zipper - any style but separating is easiest
1 – 5” piece of ribbon – zipper pull
Sewing machine or serger
Matching thread
Zipper foot – optional

Construction

Using two of the 1 ½” square zipper tabs for each end of the zipper, sandwich the end of the zipper between the right sides of the tabs. Sew securely about ¼” from each end of the zipper. Flip over the tabs, right sides out and re-sew about 1/8” from the fold.

Attach the zipper to the 20” sides of the fabric using your favorite method.

For example: place one long edge of the zipper, right sides together, on the denim with the zipper mostly open. Sew the long sides together about ¼” from the raw edge. At some point the zipper pull will need to be moved to sew around it. To do this easily, stop sewing in the needle down positon, turn the zipper and fabric sideways under the sewing machine foot, pull the zipper towards the previously sewn area, turn the whole thing back to where it can be sewn and continue sewing. Fold the fabric, right side up and top stitch about 1/8” from the zipper teeth. Repeat for the second side… just be aware that the top stitching can be a pain for the second side… just take it slowly and it will work out just fine.

Turn the case wrong side out lining up the zipper to the middle of bag, not the top.

Keeping the zipper mostly open, sew a ¼” seam along the open ends. Fold the sewn seam against the top edge and sew another seam across the triangle you have made, about 2 ½” from the top of the triangle. Repeat until all four sides are done.

Turn ride side out, attach ribbon to the zipper pull and you are done.

Website illustrating this technique:
http://threebears.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/little-boxy-pouch-tutorial/

These instructions make a really large pencil case and can easily hold packages of pencils, crayons, glue bottles, twelve inch rulers and lots of other stuff. When they were dropped off with a local group supporting kids who need school supplies they said that the need has doubled this year from last year... and that is just from families who have asked for help. How many more will struggle through without asking for help?

If school hasn't yet started in your area, consider contributing some pencils and such to the local charity helping kids start school with the right supplies. Locally, packs of pencils hae been sold for as little as $0.03 a pack with a notebook purchase or boxes of crayons as little as $0.25.

A little impact to our budgets, a big impact for some needy kid.

Have a good rest of the week!

Did My Mom Read This?

A friend sent this to me via e-mail... an actual article from 1955 that was published in Good Housekeeping Magazine. This is a copy of the original scan:

We may not agree or follow all the rules but I can point to many, many female friends who still strive to meet these rules. We all worry about whether the kids and house are clean, the table tops dusted, school supplies organized, dinner ready and that a calm atmosphere permeates our homes. We may feel our place has changed over time but we still believe that the women of a household are the home makers even if we don't wear pearls, stockings and pretty shirt waisted dresses.

If you would like a copy of the original e-mail (which is definitely more legible) send me a note at anjoae at msn dot com (substituting the at and dot with @ and .!).

Thanks to the lovely Judith for this eye opening e-mail.

J. Michelle Watts

I took a class through the local quilt guild this past Friday with Michelle Watts. The class was all about machine applique and used one of the crosses from her The Quilted Cross book. For some reason Amazon has the book priced well above the cover price so, if you are interested, I would recommend ordering it directly from Michelle.

Michelle is a delightful teacher and had a lot to share. Her particular applique method was pretty basic but her techniques for handling pesky points and various curves made the class worth the price of admission.

Her machine applique method is to use fusible web to attach your shapes to the background fabric then to secure the edges with a small zig-zag stitch that is 1.5 wide and 0.6 long. With such a tiny stitch your eyes can go buggy concentrating on the edge of your shape as it feeds to the needle. Her best hint was to use freezer paper as a stabilizer behind your background fabric to prevent puckering. This hint was well worth the price of admission.

This was a relatively well attended class with twelve enthusiastic quilters working hard to complete their project before the class ended at 4:00 PM. I left at about 2:00 PM as my on-going (8 weeks and counting) headache did not react well to staring at my work. I did finish one piece of applique so I don't feel bad about that... after all one of the other attendees was still working on a scratch piece before starting on her project when I left.

Even though the class was about crosses, a distinctly Christian symbol, I decided that I would make my project an X... as in X marks the spot. Here's a shot of my work:

I finished the sewing on the beige lumpy X and I think it looks good ... at a distance.

Alex and the Girls have been away a lot recently due to the fence project. Now that they are back home they are busy perfomring for me.

Here is Kimora trying to cover up the applique project so that I will pay attention to her:

and Kelis louging around wondering what all the fuss is about:

and Alex trying to figure out when I will stop stepping on his newest red ball and throw it for him.

I hope your weekend is going well. I am waiting for some much needed rain and truly glad I am not in Hawaii as they wait for a tropical storm to hit those beautiful islands. And, I am really, really glad not to be in Taiwan where they had eight feet of rain from a typoon, a worldwide record amount. And, yes, I am watching the weather channel while writing this post!

Stay dry!

Cool Ties - Coming Together

One day last week several intrepid sewers met at the Community Room of the Bunker Hill HEB grocery store. Our goal was to fill with crystals and sew-up the final seam on the Cool Ties we had on hand. Altogther we finished up 372 Cool Ties for local Houstonians. I'm proud to say that just over one third of the unfinished ties available came from our little Kingwood sew-in from July 18th.

I'm not sure about the details of how these will be distributed but the need, in Houston alone, is estimated to be about 64,000 potential recipients.

Does that number blow your mind as much as it does mine?

What we finished is barely a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated need but a walk of a thousand miles starts with one step and we have certainly started that journey.

The City of Houston. represented by the beautiful Angela, came by and prepared this photo collage to advertise our efforts.

So far a local church sewing gorup, the Houston Area Fiber Artists group, the local American Sewing Guild Chapter, members of the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild and many individuals have contributed to this effort. I hope we can finish off this project for this year and make it a part of an annual process. Maybe, some day, we will be able to make enough to fill the local need... but then again, wouldn't it be nice to find out that there is no need.

I hope your week is going well. One hundred degress plus weather here is getting a little wearisome... so much so that I dread being out and about after about 9:00 AM. After that it's brutal to get into your car when its been parked some place without shade. Makes me start sweating just to think about it!

A Thing of Beauty

A while ago I posted about the hand crank sewing machine that was being sold by All Brands. I was intrigued by it but just couldn't find a reason to buy one. The reason came the other day when speaking with friends about preparing for the next hurricane. All of us were envious when someone proudly proclaimed that she ran her sewing machine off of her generator during the two week blackout we suffered thorugh last year.

The light bulb went off in my head and I have now added this hand crank sewing machine to my disaster supplies.

What I didn't expect is how beautiful it is. The decals are wonderfully intricate and would be at home in an Egyptian museum. The etched machine head cover is also quite lovely. Here are some bright pictures I took the other evening.

In addtion, there is wonderful instruction manual that is all in pictures. The one thing it does not cover is how to thread the machine... great pictures for winding and loading the bobbin, for installing it in a treadle machine case and lowering the feed dogs but nothing on how to thread it for proper operation.

I finally found the right instructions in a book for my Featherweight. I also bought the kit for electrifying this machine but may never add the motor. Fortunately the motor is easily removable if I do go this route.

The best part about this beauty is that it really sews very well. It makes a nice stitch and, even though one hand is occupied cranking it, it sews very straight... unlike many modern machines that tend to skew the fabric in one direction or another.

Now I am prepared for the next hurricane ... lots of bottled water, some canned foods, batteries for the electronics, a hand crank radio, important papers all in one container and, now, a sewing machine to keep me from going crazy without electricity.

Who could ask for more?

Really Big Bag

Many years ago I came across a pattern company called Design and Planning Concepts. They had this wonderful pattern called the Kandu Coat that has no pattern, just instructions for a fabric foundation of strips of fabric that are sized to each customer's body. I have worn the jacket I made out of it so much over the years that the crease for the cuffs on the sleeves has completely worn through. I have to retire that jacket but it still hangs in my closet because I just can't bear to get rid of it.

But that jacket is the topic for another post.

This post is all about their Skrappysak tote bag. I first saw this used by someone at a sewing gathering and I thought it was a great shape and size. Most recently I saw a kit put together for this at Time Treasured Quilts. The kit was made up of cute sewing themed fabrics and, being on sale, it seemed like a slam dunk to me to try it out.

First of all you must realise that there are two sizes in the pattern - Big and Really Big. The fabrics in the Kit were enough for the Really Big size so that is what I made. When this company says Really Big they mean it.

It is about 30" tall, 22" across and the circular base has a 10" circumference. It's big enough for a weekend trip or at least The Girls with plenty of space left over for other items.

Here's how mine came out:

When I found this kit in my pile of clutter I realized that I had already cut out the squares for the patchwork so there was very little left to do to complete this project. I should have added an extra sturdy bottom but I can always do that later. I made two changes to the insturctions. First of all I did not add the interior pocket and secondly I did the final construction based on the Singlet grocery bags I make out of five fat quarters. That old post is here.

For now it will be a 'go to class' or a 'go to bee' bag as I can't imagine having to need more than this bag can hold for a day long sewing event.

What I can't figure out is why I thought I would love the colors in this bag. There is so much bubble gum pink in it that I almost feel ill looking at it.

BTW - I did try another of their patterns called the Phlipphlap Bag but this one was not as successful. I also made the larger bag thinking that it would be a neat thing to use as a laptop case. I worked very hard to get the right fabrics and used all of the suggested notions but it still came out almost impossible to use. Why I thought a bag with a large wooden dowel in it would be comfortable to use I'll never know. Also the instructions didn't seem to match the picture but I could have read them wrong.

Anyway, for a bag the size of Alaska, try the Skrappysak... just forget the pink cutesy fabrics.

A Ho Hum Day

I woke one morning this past week and realized that I had absolutely nothing on my calendar for that day. NOT that I didn't have anything I needed to do. I needed to get some laundry done and put away, some dishes washed and put away, and a huge pile of clutter sorted but I wasn't expected to do any of these things by anyone else. In addition, Alex and the Girls were away on a sleep over with Paul because the back yard fence was being replaced. In my book I had an absolutely free day on my hands.

I decided that instead of doing all the things that needed to be done I would make an effort to work through some of my UnFinished Objects (UFOs). I'm proud to say that the pile is almost manageable after a day of working on it.

Here's what happened on my free day:

• finished up and labeled two wheel chair bags
• put binding and labels on four charity quilts
• made six identical blocks for a lottery block exchange
• made a block for another lottery block exchange
• made another block for another lottery block exchange
• made a block for a quilt for a friend's grandchild
• made a denim pencil case as a sample for a charity project
• wrote the instructions for the pencil case
• finished quilting a biggish quilt for a chairty quilting group
• put mitered borders on a finished quilt top
• pieced a backing for the quilt top above
• labeled 11 other wheelchair bags
• made the sock #1 bag
• finished knitting another pair of socks

I think I need to do this more often... ignore the household tasks that can just eat up my days and work on many small UFOs. I certainly went to bed with a smug look on my face knowing that the UFO pile would be quite a bit smaller the next day even though those necessary tasks were still there. The necessary tasks were completed over the next couple of days and I still had a smug look on my face from reducing the UFO pile.

I hope your weekend is going well and that your UFO pile has not grown. Now back to that pile of clutter... this could take a while!