Working on that to-do list........

This year I'm hoping to make a dent in the creative to-do list that carries over from year to year.  First I sat down and updated the list which means more projects added to it. Last night I was able to cross a project off the list that's been sitting for years, so many years I can't even guess how long. I bought the pattern, Union Square Floor Tote, fabric, jute webbing, soft & stable foam and other materials to make two of these. One was made as a gift but then the bag with the supplies for mine sat under the sewing room desk for years. I worked on it the past few days minus one day when we were without power for many hours. Now I remember why I never got to mine - with two layers of the foam it's very hard to maneuver under the sewing machine. It's also big which makes it hard to machine sew. But I persevered and have a finished tote to sit in the living room with my many current knitting projects in it. The background color of the outside is actually a bit more colorful - a soft seafoam teal.  The inside is the same fabric with a brown background. And yes, those are sheep all over it. I love it. I will never make another one. 

Today's chore was organizing my knitting supplies as they were spread all out over the house instead of where they should be. I thought I was done and then found another basket full.  Now they're all organized. Two dilapidated knitting totes are off to the trash, all combined into a third one. I also went through my felted knitting books to share with others. I kept one. I will never make all those projects so best the books move on to someone that will use them. This freed up space on one shelf for more quilting books...........ah, there's always an upside to cleaning out. 

Other than the knitting projects I have going I'll have to go look over that very long to-do list to see what I'm in the mood to work on next.

I wish you all a Happy New Year - I wish you peace, good health, no chaos or crisis and lots of time to be creative at what you love doing..............
 

This and that.......

Yes, I rarely post anymore, I just don't feel like I have much share and just don't have much motivation these days to even take the photos. But here are a couple things I've been working on. 

Susan from the blog Thrums posted this draft. She wasn't sure where she got it from, maybe handweaving.net. I thought I'd weave a table runner project using it. This is the gray, working on a pale sage green now and will do a blue one. I'm using 5/2 perle cotton. I originally thought if I liked it I would put on a towel warp using this same draft but I'm not enjoying weaving it that much so I'll pass on towels. I do want to get a towel warp on soon, also a warp for our holiday cards which I've now picked a draft for.

I did some sewing - 17 tote bags for the Head Start kids. Our neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild does quite a bit of charity sewing.  This is one of the groups we sew for.  We fill these with fun stuff we buy from grant money and deliver them at the holidays. 

Other than this not much to share, just can't think of much to say...............

ASG Challenge

Back in the fall my neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild decided to do a challenge. It's so hard to meet only via zoom so this would give us all something to work toward together. We each put fabric of any kind and whatever else in a brown bag, all were delivered to my door, then all came to pick a bag up once I had them all. I took the bag that was left. We each were to put at least 2 yards of fabric in our bag and no pieces less than 10" x 10". Our finished items are to be shown at our February zoom meeting........which we had hoped by then we might be meeting in person but not looking promising. 

Here is what I got in my brown bag. Three pieces of fabric, a small piece of burlap, label ribbon, 2 kinds of lace trim and 4 buttons.  I was to use at least 50% of what I received and could add up to 25% of my own fabric. I had thoughts of a small art quilt wall hanging including photos of the coast but went another way.......I kept the idea of photos.

 Just an hour ago I finished my project, a tote bag.  The only thing added from my own stash was the fabric pieces made to go through the printer for my photos and peltex to stiffen the bottom of the bag.  I used up over 75% of the fabric I was given - the bubble fabric is the inside lining. I used both lace trims. I used the burlap. I added a little tab of the ribbon that said 'handmade with love'. The only thing I didn't use were the 4 white buttons. I hand embroidered 'Bandon' 'By the Sea' on the burlap, not the easiest thing to do. This will be a great tote bag to use while on the coast, especially since here in Oregon we have to bring our own bag or pay for a bag. It will be perfect for shopping trips to the quilt shops!!! 

Thinking ahead..........

I'm thinking ahead to autumn..........or I could look at it as being far behind from last year.  A friend bought me this pumpkin wallhanging pattern and ruler christmas 2019. I had good intentions of making it to hang up during the fall months but as far as I got was to buy fabric. Yesterday I sat down with the pattern and took out some scrap fabric to try my hand at making one block. I've never sewn curves like this before. I did ok. My pumpkin isn't perfect but it's pretty danged close. The pattern is for a 36" square size but I'm going to make mine around 52"x72". I guessed at how much fabric I need, now I see I need a few more different oranges, I'm good on the neutral pumpkins.  I did not buy enough gray for the background so need to pick up some gray. It's amazing that the pattern as shown is exactly the colors I would have chosen since we have gray in our decor. I may have to resort to ordering fabric online as not all quilt shops are open at this time. But I can start on cutting out the neutral pumpkins in the meantime, but can't sew them until I pick up more background gray fabric as I'm sure I can't match what I have so will need to buy new.........except I'm busy for the next 5 days. My goal is to get this done and hanging by the end of September but who knows.......it's a lot of pumpkin blocks to sew and the current lead time on machine quilting here is 8 weeks. At least I'm starting on it.  

This week I worked on my community sewing that our neighborhood group does as part of the American Sewing Guild. I made a total of 19 tote bags and 10 fleece hats.  For Christmas we fill the tote bags with coloring books, crayons, treats, toothbrushes, toothpaste and a fleece hat for the Head Start kids in our town. Last year we also made them fun masks.
 

Another shopping tote

I made another shopping tote, not meant for groceries/food shopping tote, but one for other fun shopping like yarn, fabric, clothes, etc.  It's really not this skinny, just happened to fold in when hung.  I always remember to bring totes to the grocery store but it's not ingrained in me yet to take them everywhere else - maybe having some fun totes stashed in the cars will remind me.

MIA

Been MIA from the blog lately - just haven't had anything to say and nothing to show.....such is life sometimes. I keep hoping that I'll get back to what was my normal for a couple decades - weaving almost every day, doing other fiber stuff, and enjoying hibernating at home. I seem to need that for my mental sanity and it's just not happening.  I told my husband yesterday that now I understand why some people turn to drinking to escape life.....not that I will but I can how it could happen. What would work for me is to delve into a big pile of fiber and stay there for a while!

This morning I finished up a crudely quilted huge tote bag.  I always bring totes to the grocery store but never think about them when shopping for other treasures, especially where I'd need bigger totes than grocery store size.  I found this fabric in my stash when I recently reorganized the fabric cupboard. It's a panel from the Sisters Quilt Show from 2008. I'm not sure what my original plan was for it and I had totally forgotten I had it. I didn't put it back in the cupboard - I left it on the desk to think about what it could become and a huge tote was the answer.

Here's the backside of it.  I'll keep this in one of the vehicles. I'm going to make another huge tote in a sealife print to keep in the other vehicle.  After finishing this up I went out and pruned the grapevines and one plum tree, I did all the roses a couple weeks ago.  I still have another plum and 2 apple trees to do sometime soon. I also cut back to the ground a bush near the grapevines with huge stickers on it - my husband will pull out the remaining bush soon.  We've got 3 more of those horrible bushes to pull out as they'll be in the way of the deck once we enlarge it...…...yet another project. My husband was working on the garden area making it more permanent with fencing and a structure for the netting to go over top to keep the birds out - last year we did it quickly just to protect the plants.

Last week we were on the coast - it was beautiful. Misty loved looking down on the ocean from the bluff. It's weird but she's more excited about walking the streets and going to the dog park than she is about frolicking on the beach - so unlike our last 2 goldens.

More charity sewing......

I finished up my charity sewing with my quote for 13 tote bags...…… only 12 seen here because I neglected to pick up the other one sitting on the ironing board. They're all ready for later this fall when we fill over 100 of them with goodies for Head Start kids for Christmas.

Now to sit and handstitch the back of the binding of my two afghan quilts while watching the Superbowl.…..

 Today I spent a bit of time at the sewing machine appliqueing panels onto denim and sewing up some small totes. These are a community sew project for our neighborhood chapter of the American Sewing Guild. We'll be donating these cute little bags to our local Head Start program.

The bags will be filled with assorted items for the kiddos.  I think I'll make a few more as my contribution.......then I'll move on to a new project. I came up with a 'process' to streamline making these and can get them sewn fairly quickly now.

Air quality index is at 377 at the moment, hazardous.  Some spots in our region are getting thunderstorms, mostly thunder & dry lightning (yikes more fire starts!) but a few areas are getting some rain too..........we're getting nothing so far. I haven't been able to see the infrared pix of the fires close to us for the past few days, too much smoke for the planes to fly over.  I hate fire season.......

Another casting call........

 Another casting call for weft auditions, this time on the rayon warp on the AVL. Still thinking on which 3 I want to use for the 3 scarves but am leaning toward the taupe, the goldy yellow and the buttercream yellow.

 I got back to working on a tote bag - isn't it cute?  A couple weeks ago I met Theresa over in Ashland for a day of walking through shops and lunch. We went to 'her' fabric store, Fabric of Vision, and I was looking at the tote bag kits. Well, there were only a few left and I wasn't thrilled with the fabric but then I saw this fabric - I had to buy it and I was given the pattern to go with it. I got most of it sewn on Sunday but didn't like the black webbing I had for the straps that I found in my stash, it was too black so I waited until I could get to JoAnn's yesterday to pick up an oatmeal colored webbing - I love it.

Here's the inside lining. On the outside there are 3 pockets on the front and on the back. I'm going to make myself a few more of these to use for shopping bags but first is another tote bag pattern that I got as a gift - hoping to get to it soon.

Being enabled......

Ok,  as if I need another tote bag (or 2 or 3).....but I'm hoping this will work for a purse too. I saw a post yesterday on Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman's blog about these totes at Target. What an enabler she is. I did give it some time before I went to the Target website but obviously not enough time to keep me from buying not just this gold one (I love yellow of any kind) but also the coral and turquoise ones. This would make a great knitting or drop spindle bag too. My favorite leather bag is a red leather one I got on clearance at Chico's a number of years ago so I'm hoping I love these just as much. If you're local and reading this they do not have them at the Target over in Medford, I checked online, so don't bother making a trip there....just order it online.

I donated numerous purses to Goodwill last year, I think it's time to donate more, there are many I haven't been able part with but I just don't use them and don't think I ever will. And what to do with tote bags???  I have so many. I do use some of the for ongoing projects but they just keep coming each time I attend a conference, and then there are the ones I've bought....and the ones I've sewn or woven. I have a pile of canvas silkscreened conference ones - anyone have any ideas what to do with an abundance of them???

Have I enabled anyone else to buy one of these totes???

Still here......

I'm still here.......spent a long weekend on the coast in sunny clear skies while back here in the valley it was chilly and snow showers in the morning. I'm back just in time for a big storm that's supposed to hit us tonight, tomorrow into Friday - big dumping of snow if we believe the weather forecasters. Wind is picking up, a couple snow showers so far........I'm ready to snuggle in for the next few days.

Yesterday afternoon I started a big tote bag, finished it up this afternoon. It's going to be a great bag for conferences to load up with all I need and to put brochures and such in that I pick up at booths. It was a bit hard to work with because I used heavy weight interfacing on both the lining and the outside fabric - I wanted it to be strong - believe me, it is - I can carry bricks in this bag! The inside has a zippered section on one side, two pockets on the other side and then I added a couple clips to hang keys or such on. It took much longer to make this bag than I expected, hopefully the next one will go much faster. And I definitely will be making another one - am thinking I'll raid the boxes of old blue jeans and piece them to make another one. The pattern also includes a smaller version that can be used as a purse, think I'll make one of those at some point too. This would be a great pattern to use handwoven fabric on - I'd probably use it along the top yoke as a decorative accent rather than for the entire bag....great use for leftovers from other projects. Oh, the pattern is called "Mailsack" by Pink Chalk Studio. I bought it at my local Bernina store, Top Stitch.